VintageComics

Yeah, but so are you and we still keep you around. My friend is a very successful person, a hard worker and a quick learner. He's already evolving his craft and I'm pretty sure his next body of work is going to be much improved. But here is the key to his work - it's not meant for the "comic book crowd". You might get a few graphic novel readers that it may appeal to but it's meant for novel readers who want to see pictures, kind of like Bernie Wrightson's Frankenstien volume. It's not sequential story-telling. It's snapshots accompanying a great novel work, and once you see it in that light it takes on a very different perspective...at least to me.

Labelling AI generated work SHOULD BE MANDATORY in much the same way that labelling touched up model photographs should be mandatory. We are losing touch with real life through tech, and for me that has always been the primary concern because most kids these days have no idea what real life even is. Seriously. We've gone from joking around about living in an idiocracy to actually living in one in real time.

All incredible questions and from the perspective of a successful creator who has skin the game. It's discussions like these that keep me around. Love this sort of stuff.

The common theme in this thread (and every thread about tech) seems to be that tech encourages the mediocre to flourish. That sounds about right. People keep telling me how awesome tech is, but nobody seems to ever weigh the stuff that isn't awesome even though it pretty much ALWAYS brings it's own set of problems. YOU CAN NOT HAVE A COIN WITHOUT ACCEPTING THAT THERE ARE TWO SIDES TO IT. In similar manner, you can't have benefits without detractions. Like most modern thinking, they kick the problem down the road and figure out how to solve it later rather than address it at the outset. But I agree with you that more access = more supply = less value. That's a natural law. Creators AND publishers HAD to have skin in the game. The way the old world worked, you didn't do something UNLESS you planned it properly and made sure you could afford to do it, and by extension if someone could afford to do it, they likely had some business sense, some sensibility about survival, and because of having skin in the game pushed hard to put out a quality product because there were CONSEQUENCES to putting out a poor product. What has changed is that tech has inverted that relationship, by putting the cart before the horse, which it ALWAYS does. Rather than having impending consequences tech has taken away those consequences, giving everyone the ability to do anything they want, even if they had no business sense or the ability to survive. In short, tech has reduced or eliminated the integrity necessary to stay in business, while allowing garbage to flourish. The reason it does this is human nature. Human nature across society has changed. Gone are the days where people care about what they put out, or how ti affects others and heck even how it affects themselves. ------------------------------------------------------ You know what the solution is? It's the same for most of the world's problems. Raise better children and have stronger families so that people do work that is worth respecting. When people don't respect themselves, they don't respect anything they do either. The new world is constantly putting the cart before the horse and this is where the majority of problems seem to come from.

Comics used to be solely an American thing, so when they were printing a million copies of comics in the 1940s, how many kids were actually reading? Well, almost ALL of them. The population of the US in 1940 was around 130 million people. How many were kids? But the entire world wasn't reading comic books in 1940 so while we've seen readership dwindle in the US among children due to video games, television and other distractions both the population base is in the US has expanded but also, so has the worldwide reading base as well. Much like Hollywood's trajectory, the American pop culture has exploded into new markets where it never used to exist. It would be really interesting to delve into the demographics of how many kids there were in 1940 and what percentage were reading then compared to worldwide readers of comics now.

I'm not sure why you've moved the goal posts and taken this position. Nobody said it would supplant the best and the brightest. They always find a way to succeed. It's THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE that should be worried who are NOT the best and brightest. As you can read in this thread, people are losing their livlihoods to AI and it came in the LITERAL blink of an eye. I did this in the Comic Book AI discussion General as well so I think it bears repeating here: It's not only important to note what's happenign in the center lane, but what is happening in the lanes around the center lane. I think almost everyone can agree that most Hollywood writing has been TERRIBLE FOR YEARS much like the automotive industry has been putting out garbage cars and the housing industry has been putting out garbage homes. For every one good movie you get 100 or a 1000 shizzle movies these days. Why? I believe it's because of the corporate nature of business which is a relatively new phenomenon. Profit is more important than product, integrity or telling a story, and so it's become relatively easy to replace mediocre workers with tech. You know who they'll never replace with tech? The front runners. There is a lesson in this, a white elephant in the room that nobody is talking about: Eat or get eaten...be good at what you do or become obsolete. And THAT is something that society forgot how to do a long time ago. Maybe the pendulum is swinging the other way.

It depends on the author. I use different dates for different authors.

Can you forward this to a friend of mine? As is usually the case, you're spot on. I think using the word 'real' may not have been the best choice. Maybe I should have used the word "logical", because logic is unbreakable when used properly. It's a closed loop with no leaks. That's how a "David" takes on "Goliath" and wins. You stick to what works and slay the giant, even if you're outclassed, outpowered or outnumbered. Ironically, humility is the key in the David and Goliath story as well. Not the size of the rock. Not the size of the weapon. Have you been going to Sunday school?

Duplicate post. Forum software.

Sure, but you're also a great dad and have taken a proper interest in his upbringing. Even though my ex and I separated in 2004, I literally bent over backwards to try to make sure I was present for my kids until they became adults. That's why, as difficult as it was I bought a house in their neighborhood after separating. Kids raised by the streets aren't going to be chasing entertainment through books. The solution to all the world's ills is more integrity and better relationships, and those only happen by raising children diligently. Any problem the world faces will be solved by good kids who grow up to be good adults, not in a lab or in a bureaucracy. Those places are empty rooms without good people to work in them.

My youngest daughter was a VORACIOUS reader. Her head was always buried in a book, a graphic novel or something similar. She reminded me of me when I was younger, and frankly she is incredily intelligent and mature for her age (she's 22). She can hold her own with her older siblings and may even be more mature than some of them. Not everyone is a reader, but a significant portion of the population was, mainly because options were fewer decades ago. There are still some kids that MUST read, but those seem to be the only ones hanging on. Those that enjoy reading but aren't driven to read are distracted by other things. But having said that, I spend way more time than the average person in comic stores and conventions and still see LOTS of young kids buying new comics. I don't think the hobby is going to go the way of stamps, because....well, unless you love geography or graphic art stamps are kind of boring. They're not entertainment. But comics are far from boring. Much like classic movies, I think they're more or less here to stay in some way.

In that same interview by Jordan Peterson that I was listening to, he stated that someone crank called him using AI to mimic a friend of his. He said the cadence, tone, everything was spot on. I think it's just a matter of time before the world is fooded with AI fake products the way fake / knock off Guccie bags and the like are sold at flea markets. We've already had a few fakes comic books hit the market and discussed them here extensively. I think the floodgates are about to open.

I agree. A GA book is as cool as an old classic car, guitar or a home at this point. Around 2010 I made the case on this forum that comic books had moved into the category of historical artifacts. There wasn't much of a consensus on that at the time but I think it's safe to say that the big books now are now certainly historic artifacts and the case can be made for MOST GA books now. When I was collecting in the 80's, the hobby was 50 years old. When I joined this forum the hobby was 70 years old. Comics were still junk and we were still considered nerds. In a decade the hobby will be a century old. Comics are no longer junk and we are now considered front runners. My how times change. Maybe now I can go bully the bullies that bullied me in grade school. *Oops. Edited my post for a spelling mistake. I promise I did not change the meaning of my post in the edit.

I have boxes and boxes of “real” drek they are welcome to buy. Stranger things have happened. Rocket Raccoon anyone?

I think we're seeing a division happening in society...a line being drawn between two camps, those that cleave towards reality and those that don't. There is a clear delineation happening in real time: those that cleave towards reality tend to defend integrity in everything right down to the smallest thing, whether it's what they say, do, believe in or allow. Those that move away from reality don't, because it doesn't matter. It's all just relative to them...atoms that can be rearranged like legos. And because the number of possible faked things is exponentially increasing with time while the number of real things is fixed (and diminishing over time) we are going to see a supply of faked things and a scarcity of real things. Philosophically and economically speaking, we could see another asset bubble form around things with lineage, provenance or history. Which is why this one line is so profound... "I think things that can't be faked are going to become increasingly valuable. " - Jordan Peterson Nailed it. This man is a genius. This could be why the biggest keys continue to rise in price against all reason. The wealthiest could be buying up all the real things that are still left to hoard. Thoughts?

Are you saying I need to step up my game?

Agreed and I've repeatedly stated this. To me, understanding direction is an entirely different animal than trying to predict price points, and it becomes a LOT easier to predict direction when you pull back the lense, widen your perspective (which is how I tend to view the world) and stop focusing on isolated data points, which is how the general public seems to view the world. I've also repeatedly said this, that people's "fear of loss" overrides their ability to think clearly and I think pulling back the perspective on a topic (like price trends - but literally with ANYTHING in life) helps reduce that fear of loss and helps buyers make better decisions which > in turn is better for the overall hobby. Less pitfalls = better for everyone over all.

So you're saying Big Pharma is corrupt and policy makers are corrupt. Well, you've convinced me. I'm sold. For one you can't trust the media since all corporations are so inextricably tied together socio-economically now in more than one way, although that's beyond the scope of this discussion. When I broke my leg in 2015 I was prescribed something like 30 or so oxy pills. I can't remember the exact number but I got a big white bottle full of them. I was pretty out of it when I left the hospital, having been on morphine so I wasn't really paying attention to what they prescribed. A few of my friends use drugs regularly and got excited when I told them. I was utterly shocked when I realized what I had. I kept the bottle for a few days but knowing how bad the shizzle is, I refused to even try one. I'd already spent a LOT of time discussing and studying the opioid epidemic before that and so I returned the bottle stating I didn't need that garbage. This is in Canada from a local, large hospital. It wasn't a "pill factory" of any sort. This was STANDARD PRACTICE. The pill factories didn't START the epidemic. THEY PERPETUATED IT. The pills STARTED the pandemic...which is why they are VERY selective now about prescribing them to anyone now. I suspect that MOST of the articles, news, "studies" and narratives were massaged by Big Pharma behind the scenes (yes, this happens - it's a normal part of business), which (I believe) has the single, most powerful lobbying economic power in the US, to shift blame away from the companies that make the drugs and put it on the relatively few isolated examples to deflect the heat away from a corrupt industry that is based on profit from human suffering. Or maybe a few little pill farms really did create a worldwide epidemic of drug users and Big Pharma are the good guys that tried to stop it.

There is no future, Roy ... only now. The notion of future is merely a type of psychosis caused by a profound lack of data. GOD BLESS .... -jimbo(a friend of jesus) I've come to accept that most have no clue how to analyze their own gaps in data and analyze trajectory of the future from the present. This is so evident it's been painful.

Do you want someone in the hobby who is just going to pump and dump? The last bubble was not a hobby bubble. It was a socio-economic bubble that was created by policy decisions. If we see a bubble like that again anytime soon, I'd be more worried about where I'm going to be sleeping at night than where my comic books are sleeping.

I think we should move me to the Watercooler.

Nah. The accuracy of a person's guess in a grading contest is directly related to how accurately the grade is reflected in pictures. I dropped out of the grading contest about 15 years ago when I realized that it was a guessing game more than an actual contest. We had a trick book dropped in with a black cover and it looked like it had a bunch of spine ticks. Most people were in the 7.5 range IIRC, which I believe I was as well. But the scanner being used DID NOT accurately present a picture of what the book looked like in hand and the image created a lot of 'color breaking creases' where none existed on the actual paper. So the book LOOKED like it had all these creases but didn't. Now, tech has advanced A LOT since then, but the same limitation applies. Everything needs to currently STILL be broken down into 1s and 0s and there are no 0.5s Having said that, AI will have the ability to look at things from various angles depending on the inputs and make a much more accurate determination and even see past the limitations of 2D imagery....which is a luxury we didn't have in the grading contest. So AI may be able to even eventually detect the weaknesses in it's own design and grade more accurately. Oh wait...

People have already been using search engines to do this for over a decade. AI just refines the search. It's a search engine on steroids from the future.

I think AI can quickly move a book into a narrow grade range, the way a pre-grader would. The pre-grader counts the pages, does a preliminary grade check and then a finalizer signs off on it. I think the resto check may eventually be done by scanning a book with various tech (infrared or different wavelengths) to identify foreign substances and the natural composition of the paper. I think page quality can be measured by weight and thickness or scanning through a book looking for differences in density (missing coupons). You may not even need to count the pages eventually. I think it will not be perfect but it will be enough to eliminate a lot of human input AND it will be 98% or 99% of perfect, which will be enough to prevent it from being distinguished from human work. ------------------------- Totally a side note, but related to how far we've come with tech: I remember when in infrared thermometer came onto the market in the late 80s or early 90s. I couldn't believe that you could point this tool at something and it would read the temperature. Man, that was over 30 years ago. Now it knows if I'm a good cook or not and whether I'm obeying the speed limit while flipping my pancakes for me.

To me there is a parallel to music, which is far more universal and relatable than comics to the general public but they are following the same trends. Music becomes easier, cheaper, faster to produce but becomes less interesting...and the breakouts are those that are able to leapfrog over their competition with some sort of edge that nobody else has. Billie Eillish was a great example. I don't listen to her music but you can't deny that she did something special in a sea of mediocrity. I think it's going to be the same with comic art. Someone is going to come along and shake the foundations of the industry with a new way of capturing people's imagination using this new tech...but I think the limitation right now is the medium. Paper. Paper can't capture digital the way digital can capture digital. For example, there's a neon Billboard sign close to me that is spectacular in person. Everyone that sees it comments on it with a "Wow!"...but when I try to capture a picture of it, it doesn't translate into a "Wow". It's more like a "Oh.". So whatever new medium becomes the new norm will be the vehicle that AI will use to deliver stories. And that is likely going to be Virtual Reality. I'd say we are going to see Virtual Reality comic books soon...which I know a lot of nerds think it's a win because they'll be able to swashbuckle with Wonder Woman...but really, I cringe at the thought of it.