The Abolition of Man is an upcoming four-issue comic series drawn solely by artificial intelligence. Per Bleedingcool, cartoonist Carson Grubaugh teamed up with image generating system MidJourney AI to create the series. Instead of drawing the art, Grubaugh fed prompts into the generator to craft the images. The new publishing group Living The Line is producing the comic. It releases later this year.
How Did The Abolition of Man Come To Be?
For the first issue of The Abolition of Man, Grubaugh fed lines from Lewis’ series of lectures and books into MidJourney AI. Then, artificial intelligence crafted images from those lines. Grubaugh then aligned the images with the prompts to re-create Lewis’ work in comic book form.
Grubaugh shared a bit on why he decided to create such a comic. He states that the idea comes from his time spent “abusing many different publicly available app-fads.” He did this to illustrate how so much content is being generated in the world. Specifically, he believes we are heading for a “Banal, Content Apocalypse.” Or a world where something genuinely new is impossible to find. In contemplating this, the cartoonist began researching artificial intelligence.
With new image-creating AI, we can create previously unimaginable content. In understanding this, Grubaugh decided not to go against this evolution. Instead, he chose to use it to his advantage. Or, as he puts it, “In a world where there is nothing new under the Sun, choose to change the Sun.” Living The Line publisher Sean Michael Robinson’s fully behind this attitude. He says that the miniseries “captures both the wonder and despair inherent in this new technology.”
What Is The Comic About?
C.S. Lewis’ original work is a defense of objective value and natural law. It also warns about the consequences of doing away with either concept. Essentially, it defends the idea of man having power over nature. This new comic book is essentially the same concept, just rewired to work in today’s AI-obsessed world.
The Abolition of Man gives a chilling peek into the world of the future. It is a look into a world where humans and their treasured material possessions have lost all-purpose. Issue #1 is in shops on October 26th.
