DeviantArt -should I go or should I stay?

 I have to say that after almost two decades on Deviantart and 18K+ views I was thinking of just seeing what their Core Membership entailed. But then... I read that a lawsuit had been taken out against DeviantArt:

"The lawsuit, which also named Stability AI and Midjourney as defendants, alleged that the companies misused copyrighted works to train generative AI models without consent or compensation"

Still open apparently but when I looked around I found that I had a lot of pushes from DeviantArt to create better or "dream art" by using AI.  My stance has always been that if you do AI art for fun -no problem. But if you produce it to put real artists out of work -no.

I could produce cover after cover using AI and it would save me the time and effort but 😡that!

The problem is that the majority of DC and Marvel as well as Image etc artists all work on computers so produce digital art. There is no pencil, pen/brush or paper involved and even lettering put humans out of business a long time ago -people who were skilled. Yes, I DO use a very basic program to do my lettering because my hands are not in a state to do the work. Moebius once4 told me that the artist must letter their own work as it is part of the process. I showed him my own lettering and he nodded and smiled.  An ant stepping in ink and lettering for me would make it more legible. If I used scripts and had the money I'd pay a letterer.  Big companies can afford to pay skilled letterers. 

Colouring art is also carried out using a digital process -no brush, ink or paint and we can all issue a big "sigh" if we want.

"NO AI!" declares Marvel, DC, etc. Uh, that is very double standard. If you cannot produce art by AI on your computer then you should NOT be having creators use a computer to draw, colour or letter. It's all being a little virtue signalling and hypocritical but then this is comics and companies are as crooked now as they ever were and if they could get away with using AI art to make comics and therefore not pay real artists they would. It just needs the right pushing point and it will happen.

So do I do what many -many- creators have done and walk away from DeviantArt?  I have invested a lot of years, time and energy and endured all of the changes and technical problems to just close down the account which, I ought to add, in 20 years has brought me only one offer of work (my "chance" to draw a 150pp graphic novel for nothing).

Will The Old Fella Appear in 2026?

 

 One of the characters I want to bring back to a modern audience is "the old fella" who is a pretty (very) obscure character but with a lot of potential. 

  Just who he is you better hope I live long enough to present him as no one gets a freebie any more and don't try to offer this one a rubber £10 note!

And I sincerely apologise to him for stating he might be a tad smelly. He is a gentleman and takes grooming seriously!  

He may be old but he has one hell of a punch!

Do I Have a Dream Team?

 Someone said "You always ask people for their "dream team" of British heroes but what about yours?"

Oh, babies: I have a dream team of US Golden Age characters and story ideas (I got rid of scripts years ago) that I submitted to Marvel, DC, Image, ONI, etc etc).  

As for a British team...oh come on. I have a Platinum, Golden and Silver ages British teams -as in Cross Earths Caper and The Society for the Suppression of Criminal Activity with characters from the early 1900s and, yes, I have had loose alliances between characters from the Penny Bloods/Penny Dreadfuls.   

How many will appear in future? Who knows because I already have too many projects that will never be drawn. 

 But oh those obscure and forgotten characters...all bouncing about in my head.