LogInRubik's Code used Alan Moore’s script to see what AI is capable of.
Text-to-image tools' AI is generally very powerful, capable of generating amazing, terrifying, and weird pictures. Rubik's Code's Nikola Zivkovic decided to recreate the first page of 1988's Batman: The Killing Joke using Alan Moore’s script fed to DALL-E 2 and Midjourney, and here is what he got.
Alan Moore's detailed explanations of what is happening in each panel were one of the reasons the author chose his style, to get quality pictures, you need to describe them well to the AI.
The first panel was already a challenge as Moore's lengthy description of a puddle didn't work that well with the AI.
Original vs DALL-E vs Midjourney
Nikola noted that getting DALL-E to "focus on some detail, add detail, or position that detail and its correlation with the main elements of the image is hell." Eventually, he had to "strip away" a lot of descriptions and focus on the basics. Midjourney showed better result but was still a bit off due to Zivkovic's "lack of skill in creating a correct prompt."
Interestingly, DALL-E 2 would generate images that look like from the 1800s if you use words like “mournfully” and “sinister”. Midjourney doesn't seem to have this problem, which is not surprising as it's generally considered to be a more artistic AI. Zivkovic said that in Midjourney, even if you don’t get a good result, you end up with something very weird and beautiful.
In conclusion, Nikola Zivkovic said that there will be a niche for AI-generated comic books, both scripts and illustrations. He thinks their style will be similar, at least in the beginning. Now, there is definitely a problem with keeping one style through all the pictures, but it might be solved sooner rather than later.
"Maybe there will be a way to “lock” the style, something like with StyleGAN. For now, I can see this as a tool that might assist authors to visualize their scripts better, and for illustrators to shorten their work by generating some details for each panel."
Also, he thinks that "all the things we love about scripts might be put aside for short descriptions that can be generated with AI." What's more, one day, the author might be made obsolete, and an "infinite amount of content might be created in this automatic loop."
Check out the experiments with DALL-E and Midjourney on Rubik's Code's website and don't forget to join our Reddit page and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram and Twitter, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.