Tuesday 14 June 2022

The Origin of Elrod?

Hi, Everybody!

This is a big 'un:
  1. The Cerebus Guide to Self-Publishing is BACK on CerebusDownloads.com (if it doesn't show up, refresh the page.) Thanks Eddie! And Thanks George!
  2. Sean Robinson and Living the Line, publishers of the Eisner nominated The Strange Death of Alex Raymond, have a new book, and it's on the Kickstarter. 18 days left. And then they've ALSO got a new series with Carson Grubaugh:

Diamond Comic Distributors and Living the Line Books Announce the World's First Entirely AI-Illustrated Comic Book

(BALTIMORE, MD) — (June 14, 2022) — Living the Line Books and Diamond Comics are proud to present a pioneering new series: the first comic book entirely illustrated by a computer.

Award-winning oil painter turned Eisner-nominated cartoonist Carson Grubaugh has created a four-issue comic book series, The Abolition of Man, in collaboration with an AI image-generation system, MidJourney AI. For the duration of the miniseries, Grubaugh, an accomplished illustrator and painter, has handed over all illustration duties solely to an AI image generator, which operates by responding to text prompts from the user. For this first issue, Grubaugh supplied the AI with lines from C.S. Lewis' groundbreaking lecture, “The Abolition of Man”, and used the images generated by the AI unit.

Surprisingly, the AI's illustrations are compelling and haunting, creating a running commentary on the essay that alternately illustrates and expands upon the text. The AI, trained on images from the entirety of human art making, has created striking compositions that elevate and amplify Lewis' thesis: that human's ability to control nature will lead to a purposeless and diminished form of humanity. Alternately hilarious and terrifying, ABOLITION gives a chilling peek into the world of the future, where humans and their most treasured passions have lost all purpose.

The computer's vivid imagery and illustration technique is reminiscent of the greatest of the modern surrealist painters, and the acclaimed work of comics veterans like Dave McKean and Bill Sienkiewicz. The final three issues of the series promise to push the conceptual gamesmanship to another level, with a near-future science fiction arc for issues two and three, and a machine/machine collaboration for issue four— with AI responsible for the writing as well as the illustration.

“It's been a wild few months since this technology has slowly crept into the public consciousness,” says Living the Line publisher Sean Michael Robinson, “and I've been searching for art to make sense of this technological cusp. Grubaugh's Abolition miniseries promises to capture both the wonder and despair inherent in this new technology.”

Artist Grubaugh says, “I've spent years as an artist abusing many different publicly available app-fads, in an effort to illustrate what could be called a 'Banal, Content Apocalypse,' in which we've generated so much semantic content that something genuinely new is near impossible to come by. These new art-making AI open up both new means for generating previously unimaginable content, but also speed the production to the point where all we will have left to us is to transmute the meaning-rich gold of the past into recycled lead of the present.”

Grubaugh concludes, “In a world where there is nothing new under the Sun, choose to change the Sun.”

The Abolition of Man #1 will be available in English-language comic book shops worldwide in October of 2022, distributed exclusively by Diamond Comic Distributors. It is available for pre-order at comic shops through PREVIEWSworld PullBox using item code APR228727. To find a comic shop near you, visit www.comicshoplocator.com

Retailers interested in placing wholesale orders for these PREVIEWS Exclusive items are encouraged to place their orders online. Business owners interested in opening an account should contact Diamond Comic Distributors’ New Accounts Department at newaccounts@diamondcomics.com.

The solicitation text is below.
ABOLITION OF MAN #1 (OF 4) (MR) • 48 pages • $6.99

What do you get when you take a groundbreaking philosophical essay and feed it into an AI image generator, one line at a time? The world's first (and only) entirely-computer-illustrated comic book, The Abolition of Man #1, by oil painter turned Eisner-nominated cartoonist Carson Grubaugh (Strange Death of Alex Raymond). Alternately hilarious and terrifying, ABOLITION gives a chilling peek into the world of the future, where humans and their most treasured passions have lost all purpose. Part 1 of a 4 issue miniseries.





ABOUT DIAMOND COMIC DISTRIBUTORS (DCD)—Diamond is at the nexus of comics and pop culture merchandise. Based in Baltimore, MD, DCD is the world’s largest distributor of English-language comic books and pop-culture related merchandise, servicing thousands of specialty retailers worldwide. For more information, visit Diamond on the web at www.diamondcomics.com.

ABOUT LIVING THE LINE – Living the Line Books is a publisher of dynamic, visually-striking comics and graphic novels, founded in 2020 by writer/illustrator Sean Michael Robinson. Living the Line's graphic novel debut, The Strange Death of Alex Raymond (Dave Sim and Carson Grubaugh) was recently nominated for an Eisner Award, for "Best Reality-Based Work."

 

© 2022 Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. All rights reserved. Diamond, the Diamond logo, Diamond Books logo, and PREVIEWS are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Diamond Comic Distributors in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective copyright owners.

3. Cerebus in Hell?:
 
Speaking of Cerebus in Hell?, the new one Giant Sized Public Defenders drops the last Wednesday of the month, and Birdsong had a little something to say about it to Dave (who forwarded it to me...):
I checked the pre-print proof and yup, it's there:

To see it in Real Life, you have to wait until the last Wednesday of June. OR, I got four of each cover, and if you email momentofcerebus@gmail.com, I'll sell ya one for twelve bucks (with shipping included.) It'll be signed by nobody, because I didn't work on this one. I just got five copies of each cover because I was too lazy to order it from my LCS... (I might add the missing "T" though...)

4. Got a message from Oliver about his Cerebus movie: The Absurd, Surreal, Metaphysical, and Fractured Destiny of Cerebus the Aardvark is currently available "Plex", "Xumo", "Vimeo On Demand", "Tubi".
Matt,
our Distributor has ended their partnership with Vimeo - all their titles have been removed from the Vimeo platform, so at the bottom where you list the various available streaming channels the vimeo one can now be removed.
The Cerebus film did just now become available in Brazil on "Box Brazil Play" (www.boxbrazilplay.tv.br) which if I read it right is the second largest Brazilian independent broadcast company specialized in Pay TV and multidevice streaming. I don't think there's a link for access unless in Brazil though?
So there ya go. Thanks Oliver!

5. Death's Dark Treaders, my lil' band of Rebels, has gotten $YY,YYY together, up from $XX,XXX to try and purchase all 22 pages of original art to Cerebus #4. There are eighteen nineteen of us. (I'ma NOT giving the exact amount, because I don't want "the enemy" to know EXACTLY how much we're bidding... But it's more than it was...)

The deal is, as of right now, $2,000 guarantees you get a page of original art. 
More money moves you up the list for picking which page you get. (Dave gets first pick.) 
If you wanna kick in $4,000, you get TWO pages (we got TWO THREE guys who did just that.) If you wanna kick in LESS than $2,000, you aren't guaranteed a page, but if we get less than 22 people, than everybody who pledges less than $2,000 gets a page too. 
As of RIGHT NOW, all the pages are "claimed", eleven are GUARANTEED, the other eleven are theirs if "mo money" doesn't show up and kick them down the list. (It'll probably happen...)

But, EVERYBODY who pledges gets prints of all 22 pages and the recreated cover.

This MADNESS ends on Thursday, so if you got the money, and want in, momentofcerebus@gmail.com with your pledge. And if you DON'T have two grand sitting around, burning a whole in your pocket, but wanna try your luck at getting a page, same email (at this point, you HAVE to pledge MORE than a hundred bucks...). AND if you got a little extra money, and would like to kick in to the original intention of getting as much of the art back to Dave as we can (okay, the MODIFIED original intent,) same email again. Just tell me how much, and what you want me to use the money for. And thanks again if you've already pledged, you are the simply the best, better than all the rest...

Anyway, the other day, I said:
(Little known fact*: Dave based Elrod of of Barry Windsor-Smith's Elric from Conan #14, which was based of a book cover by I-forget, who did NOT use the actual descriptions of Elric from the Michael Moorcock stories, and consequently, Moorcock hated the way Elric looked.)
*who am I kidding, EVERYBODY knows that... 
Well, when I sent that to Dave, he responded with this letter from Michael Moorcock:

Which:
I mean:

I can see it:
Fun fact, EVERY Dark Treader wants this page...EVERY SINGLE ONE...
____________________________________
If YOU have anything related to the 1982 Tour, that'd be of interest, shoot me an email at momentofcerebus@gmail.com and I'll get it to the Waverly Press.
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Up to 35% off site-wide:
June 22-26
Tell your fans! Remind them that everything will be up to 35% off -- that means $13 tees, $20 phone cases, $30 hoodies, and way more!

Next Time: Hobbs. Which is good, because i'm up to my nipples in Dark Treader Auction stuff...
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