The film “Gata Coqueta, aflójame la Croqueta” just wrapped when the star decided to have an urgent meeting with his agent.

OmahGAHD!

What will Vinny do now…?

;)

To be continued…

This chapter really caught me in a rush. I only started drawing it yesterday, Saturday. I recycled a few drawings, but for the most part, this was a speed-record attempt. Good thing I’d already written the story. Heh.

I’m currently in the process of printing the first volume.

In the meantime, here’s the cover!

More news soon!

With this set, we’ve reached the end of the first chapter of Vinny 3.

My diabolical plan is to leave you hooked enough to keep reading this comic every Monday. It won’t always be this dark, but… who am I kidding? It’ll be like this most of the time.

Regarding last week’s confession about my potentially embarrassing use of AI in my comic, I’m happy to report that nobody guessed what I did!

The truth is, a lot of what AI gave me wasn’t all that useful. It helped me get the process started, but in the end, I drew most of it the way I always do.

Let me walk you through my process.

First, I did a rough sketch, just as I always do for my pages. That’s the first image. There’s no detail; I simply block in the elements more or less where they belong.

Then I fed it to ChatGPT to see how it would interpret it.

The second image is what I got back. You’ll notice that, at first glance, it’s VERY impressive. Everything looks incredibly detailed. But once you zoom in and start looking at the individual elements, the problems begin to show.

In the foreground, Chato decided to put Satan in a suit. And this was AFTER I’d already given it a character reference!

Second… in the panel where Vinny is drinking coffee, it seems to have given him TWO MOUTHS!

And then there’s the coffee cup. In the first panel, it gave him a Starbucks cup (complete with an upside-down star, which I never asked for). In the next panel, it switched to a little porcelain cup, only to go right back to the Starbucks cup in the following one!

The forklift in the foreground… HAS NO FORKS! And the cargo I’d drawn in my original sketch? It turned that into a background element!

Next, I re-inked everything over Chato’s drawing. And that’s when I discovered another problem.

THE ENTIRE PERSPECTIVE WAS WRONG. Not a single vanishing point was going in the right direction.

In the end, the only part I actually used was the drawing for the first panel. For Vinny and Satan’s acting and expressions, I stuck with my original sketch.

I won’t say the experiment was useless. It gave me a few ideas. I had an absolute blast fixing all the mistakes, and I think the final result ended up being a little different from what I would have come up with on my own.

My conclusion remains the same: AI isn’t taking my job just yet.

I don’t know if I’ll keep using it. Probably not for Vinny. This week’s episode, for example, has absolutely NO help from Chato.

But I’ll keep experimenting. If I discover anything new and useful, I’ll let you know.

In the meantime, I’d love to hear what you think.

Did you enjoy my experiment?

Bachan.

To be continued! -obvs-

This episode marks a milestone in my technical process.

AI has been threatening to come crashing down on us for quite some time now. Beyond the existential threat to humanity as a whole, I’m talking specifically about the work of illustrators, animators, and comic artists.

From where we stand, AI has already steamrolled several industries (advertising, for one). I haven’t gotten any storyboard or animatics gigs in ages, let alone sketch work for PPP.

I tried to educate myself as much as possible, but I’ll admit it now — I confess — the whole subject terrified me. Deep down, I think I saw image generation as an inevitable predator, and therefore the enemy. So I avoided using it.

This technology isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it’s only going to get better. There’s no point in staying against it. All I’m doing is giving fear more power.

So I gave in.

I opened a ChatGPT account and started experimenting, driven by my usual obsession: “Can I make comics with this?”

And honestly, what I felt was RELIEF.

This comic was made with SOME help from AI on the art side. I’m dying to know if you, my esteemed readers, can spot it. Please let me know!

My conclusion so far is that AI isn’t going to take my job.

What WILL take my job is an artist who knows how to use AI.

I’m not going down without a fight. ;)

Bachan.

So, episode 2 already! Made it!

I’m currently translating the first 2 books, but you can follow the story without the previous books. It’ll be done soon, I hope.

To be continued next week!

Meanwhile, check out the books in Amazon (In Spanish, for now).

I worked for years on an ad agency that handled a few corporate mascots. I was at the time also working on my Vinny comic, and I couldn’t help imagine how those mascots would fare on Vinny’s world.

My guess is that fame an fortune can twist everybody, even cute cartoon characters.

This is the first comic I’m publishing in English in my mailing list. I’m sure my translation skills are not all that great. Feel free to let me know when I messed up with the language. The advantage of digital comics is they can be fixed any time!

I hope you enjoy this story even if it is about 20 years old. I promise the next ones are gonna be more up-to-date.

Bachan.