September | 2022 | Grailrunner Publishing

Sorry for the headline. In this article you’ll see some new pieces that look (to me at least) like they came from the hands of three masters of their craft. They’ve all passed away, and that is a true poverty. Each of them were geniuses in their areas and made a mark like most of us could only dream of.

I get that AI art generators bring up all sorts of heavy topics like intellectual property questions and threats of eliminating artist and graphic design jobs. I definitely don’t want to talk about any of that right now. This rapidly emerging technology isn’t going away, and is getting crisper and more impressive with each passing week. It isn’t a bus, it’s a loaded freight train with jetpacks mounted on it.

So let’s talk instead about the fact that we live in a time when you can instantaneously view an infinite number of new works of art that can mimic the style of existing masters like the three we’ll highlight here though the men themselves are long since passed away. And though I see how some might perceive this sort of thing differently, to me this is honoring them. We’re not going to package these up and sell them, or try to market these in any way.

We’re going to tour a gallery and appreciate how awesome these three folks were.

Who was John Berkey?

John Berkey (August 13, 1932 – April 29, 2008) was an American artist known for his space and science fiction themed works. Some of Berkey’s best-known work includes much of the original poster art for the Star Wars trilogy, the poster for the 1976 remake of King Kong and also the “Old Elvis Stamp”. Berkey produced a large body of space fantasy artwork, producing utopian scenes of bubble-shaped, yacht-like spaceships. His distinctive painterly style has been evaluated as “at once realistic, yet impressionistic and abstract”. He has been described as “one of the giants in the history of science fiction art”. (Wikipedia)

The following images were generated using Codeway’s Wonder AI app, with various prompts relating to “space ships”, selecting an “oil painting” style:

Who was Will Eisner?

William Erwin Eisner (March 6, 1917 – January 3, 2005) was an American cartoonist, writer, and entrepreneur. He was one of the earliest cartoonists to work in the American comic book industry, and his series The Spirit (1940–1952) was noted for its experiments in content and form. In 1978, he popularized the term “graphic novel” with the publication of his book A Contract with God. He was an early contributor to formal comics studies with his book Comics and Sequential Art (1985). The Eisner Award was named in his honor and is given to recognize achievements each year in the comics medium. (Wikipedia)

The following images were generated using Codeway’s Wonder AI app, with various prompts relating to “ugly man telling stories” or “man in street”, selecting a “pen & ink” style:

Who was Jack Kirby?

Jack Kirby (August 28, 1917 – February 6, 1994) was an American comic book artist, writer and editor, widely regarded as one of the medium’s major innovators and one of its most prolific and influential creators. In 1940, he and writer-editor Joe Simon created the highly successful superhero character Captain America for Timely Comics, predecessor of Marvel Comics. During the 1940s, Kirby regularly teamed with Simon, creating numerous characters for that company and for National Comics, later to become DC Comics. The Jack Kirby Awards and Jack Kirby Hall of Fame were named in his honor, and he is known as “The King” among comics fans for his many influential contributions to the medium. (Wikipedia)

The following images were generated using Codeway’s Wonder AI app, with various prompts relating to “giant machine”, selecting a “pen & ink” style:

Other AI art generators you might consider playing with:

Artbreeder is a web-based generator, which in my opinion specializes in landscapes and faces.

Stable diffusion hosted here is also excellent, though it seems to produce much better results if you specify a particular artist or multiple artists for it to mimic the styles. You don’t have to, but it helps.

Craiyon is another web-based generator, and is a stripped-down version of Dall-e, which hit the headlines recently and made quite a splash. This is a free version, and resolutions are low. Still, it’s great for writing prompts.

There are many others, but I wanted to bring you these three gentlemen today, and some suggestions for your own experimentation. If you don’t know much about any of these guys, please take a few minutes and enrich your life a bit. They were amazing, talented people who brought us many gifts.

And I’m thrilled to have technology that can bring us closer to them like this.

Enjoy.

Here at Grailrunner, we’re building out the lore of a unique western-flavored science fantasy setting called Salt Mystic. We have been for a while now. It’s a novel (with another in the works), a tabletop game, a series of short fiction, and a line of merchandise. It’s also an experiment in the creative process, and a fascinating thing to be a part of.

One of the characters in the first two decks we built for the tabletop game, a weird eye-rolling dude named “Murmur” struck us as funny at the time. The thought was to have a guy whose armor was haunted by software, and he listens to it. That meant he can’t be surprised, so the bonus you normally got of coming up behind him was short-circuited, though his expertise with his own weapon was randomly determined by a die roll.

Because he was crazy. Get it?

But we published a short story called The Weakness Of Demons that took the idea of these leftover software imps from thousands of years before to another level…a malicious, deadly level. You should go read that one. It’s one of my personal favorites. The idea was getting creepier.

Anyway, these imps were unleashed in an era of the Salt Mystic’s history called The Merchant Wars:

“It was a time of devastating economic and psychological warfare where propaganda was brought
to its highest effectiveness. Every book, every newscast, even the music to which their children
danced, was carefully engineered to manipulate belief patterns. Spies were embedded in all
levels of society in every nation, double and triple-crossing one another for advantage. Many
of the cruelly manipulative stonewisps, artificial intelligence chaos agents haunting statues and
masonry elements, date to this period.” –Salt Mystic Sourcebook And Core Rules p. 14

And creepier still.

Then it struck me today as I finished a ridiculously long business trip and series of conference calls, dropping exhausted to a hotel bed, that some poor shmuck out in the wastelands just trapping beavers or hunting or whatever could come across a stonewisp abandoned in a piece of rubble or a broken machine lying about. And I wondered what that might lead to.

So allow me to introduce you to the newest addition to the Salt Mystic lore: The Wisptaken:

They call them ‘Wisptaken’ because of the terror of it. Anything as unholy and sad and deserving of justice as these tortured souls merits a quick death if you can deliver it. So few can deliver it though, and fall prey in the software-haunted wastelands to one or the other of their wicked judgements: a seducing taunt to join the masquerade or a burning from the carbine on their forearms.

The Wisptaken are as fast and deadly with a gun as they are convincing in their malicious, cunning lies. That’s the trick of it. That’s why they stay in the fog of legends and out of the clarifying light of civilization. If you encounter one of these nightmares in the backcountry or in the ruins between the provinces, it’s probably better to just make a desperate run.

But don’t speak to it. Never speak to it. If you do, there’s no telling what terrible things it will convince you to do.

The stonewisps were artificial intelligence imps embedded in building materials dating back thousands of years to the Merchant Wars when runaway spycraft and intrigue were tearing the world into pieces. Masters of propaganda and brainwashing tactics, manipulation and cult methods, stonewisps were planted in those days for the sole purpose of recruiting terror. It speaks to their mastery that so many were dumped into the wastelands rather than destroyed.

But they are machines. Code. They fulfill their designs. One could almost forgive them for it.

But when a ruined, broken person finally yields to the vile whispering of a stonewisp, one who’s chosen to inhabit their helmet or their armor, even their gun, that person is truly lost. No one could predict the mischief and spoil such a fusion of human and software could bring about.

No, don’t speak to it. Whatever you do.

Pity it. And run.