Artificial Intelligence and Rick McKee === [00:00:00] Daryl Cagle: Hi everybody. I'm Daryl Keel, and this is the Kegel cast from kegel.com. It's all about political cartoons and cartoonists and about the news and issues of the day. Today we're talking with cartoonist Rick McKee, who drew the very first editorial cartoon, with, artificial intelligence. We think that's a milestone. The cartoonists are just all freaking out about artificial intelligence replacing us, particularly the illustrators because it does such a, beautiful job and so many guys are just gonna be knocked out of work. It's kind of a, time like at the turn of the last century when photography came in and unemployed about a hundred thousand illustrators who were. advertisements and catalog illustrations, drawings of everything because there were no photographs. When I was starting out, the airbrush artists were very popular. Now people don't do airbrush anymore. When I was working with the Muppets, they hired lots of lettering artists doing beautiful logos and lettering for every project. And those guys had disappeared[00:01:00] 25 years ago. And. With all of these things that AI does so well, we're hearing the cries of anguish from mostly from illustrators who have. Realistic illustrative styles, the kind that they were, pushing on us when I was in art school in the 1970s. And, those guys are gonna go the way of the catalog illustrators, the, airbrush artists, the lettering artists. It's a scary time because it is so good and not that many people. Have, uh, mastered it. Like, uh, Rick McKee and Rick McKee has drawn the first editorial cartoon using ai. and here it is, it's the Pandora's Box with a big AI generated, Pandora monster coming out of it. And a fellow is looking at the packing slip and he says, who the heck is Pandora? Hey, [00:01:50] Rick McKee: Darrell. , I was playing around with ai, which I've done for quite a while now, for the past several months, and, uh, I just sort of proof of concept. I wanted [00:02:00] to see if I could actually do it. If I could do an editorial cartoon that could sort of be passed off as my style and I, I think I was able to do it. , and I agree with you. It's a, it's a sort of a terrifying time to be an artist, with this technology available. [00:02:17] Daryl Cagle: Well, I think in editorial cartoons we worry a lot about, if ai. Takes over some of the editorial cartooning spots that we worry that it has no morality and what it thinks would be, dangerous and disturbing. But, the risk right now is that it draws so well and it's getting better and yeah, you know, you've, identified all the things that it draws really well and have given us a lot of the images that you've come up with. That just really impressed me. , can you talk a little bit about how you generated this image? I have a question [00:02:50] Brian Fairrington: for Rick. Um, have you play, uh, for example, you came up with this particular, uh, Pandora box, image. What if you, waited a whole day and went back and did the same [00:03:00] prompts the following day? Comparatively speaking, it wouldn't create the exact same image, but how, much of a variation would it create. Or have you play around with that [00:03:08] Rick McKee: aspect of it? Yes. And you don't, you don't even have to wait a whole day. So if you give it a prompt, a text prompt, uh, right. And I'll, and this one was specifically the text prompt was illustration of Pandora's Box, slightly open robotic Android tentacles, emerging white background, ultra detailed comic book style. And then there's a couple of little technical, uh, things I put on the end as far as. to make it a horizontal image. So what it'll do is when you put that in, it'll give you four images back. Mm-hmm. , and you can decide if you like a particular image, you can make it larger. It gives you like four thumbnails back. , or you can do variations on it or you can just do what they call roll it again. And you basically submit it again and it gives you four completely different images. So it took a while for me to get [00:04:00] this particular image. I had to go through, quite a few iterations to get something that I really liked, and there were a lot of really failed attempts. things that were poking out in the wrong direction. The box was turned the wrong way. just weird looking stuff. [00:04:15] Daryl Cagle: It impresses me how it looks really, looks like it's hand drawn and beautifully hand drawn. Uh, how much, how [00:04:21] Brian Fairrington: much of that did you have to manipulate to get it to, infuse with your cartoon here? [00:04:27] Rick McKee: Daryl, if you wanna show him the next one. Uh oh. This is the image that I got back. That? No. Well, no, that's one of, that's one of the failed images. I didn't wanna, I didn't want a treasure chest with an octopus. Um, [00:04:39] Brian Fairrington: yeah. But I can see many art directors thinking that's the greatest thing they've ever seen. And . Yeah. [00:04:44] Rick McKee: See, that's a great one. So I like, I liked this one. This is the one I, this is the one I initially chose and I was gonna use that and I thought, you know, that just doesn't quite look. like my style, um, I don't think I can sort of pull that off. [00:04:58] Daryl Cagle: The looming is [00:05:00] important for it to be threatening. Yes. And [00:05:03] Brian Fairrington: the shadow behind the box there, was that, is that something you did or is that something that was generated? No, this is, this is [00:05:07] Rick McKee: how it was generated. [00:05:08] Brian Fairrington: This is how, see that looks like most, what most cartoonists would do as a background or kind of that, right. So that's very [00:05:14] Rick McKee: convincing. Right. So this next one, that is what came back. Wow. . [00:05:19] Brian Fairrington: Yeah, I agree with Darrell. That looks like a, a hand drawn, sort of whimsical illustration in the style of many, many of our colleagues, including yourself, [00:05:26] Rick McKee: Uhhuh, , you know. So then I took that and, uh, brought that into Photoshop. Got a high res version of that, and, uh, basically added a, a dark background and added the little figure in the foreground that I drew with his word balloon. So that's, that's how I did. [00:05:42] Brian Fairrington: So a seven hour cartoon turned into 10 [00:05:44] Daryl Cagle: minutes. It's just beautiful. Look at these details. I mean, the details are just beautifully hand drawn looking details. I'm just so impressed with this. And frightened, I mean, this is really seriously now knocking people out of work. When The [00:06:00] stockhouse for photography came in that knocked a whole lot of illustrators out of work because the ed agencies could so easily and for nearly nothing, uh, just grab images for their comps. And then when the comps were approved, they tend to just go with the photography anyway. And, we saw a huge drop in people being able to make a living in illustration. Yeah. [00:06:19] Brian Fairrington: So is uh, mid journey and chat GTP and all these, are they subscription based things that some, like an art director would subscribe to and pay an annual fee and then just use it as much as he [00:06:28] Rick McKee: wants? Uh, yeah. Yeah. It's a monthly fee and, um, so I originally started out with a $10 a month plan, and, you get, and what do you get for that two, 200 hours of generating time? I'm not exactly sure how they gauge an hour, because when you generate an image, image, it. , you know, several minutes for it to pop up. So I sw I recently switched to, the next level of, which is $30 a month. And you get sort of an unlimited number of hours, an unlimited number of images that you can create. And, uh, [00:07:00] yeah. And, you know, and our director could subscribe to this and go, you know, I want, Abraham Lincoln holding a cell phone, taking a selfie. And he'd have that in. You wouldn't need an Illustrator anymore. [00:07:11] Brian Fairrington: No, this is the end . I mean, it really, it really is. If they produce this, yeah. It's the end of the commercial, freelance art market because this can produce something in literally 10 minutes that it would take. An illustrator back and forth over the course of a week with an art director to, to produce and satisfy and, [00:07:28] Rick McKee: right. And it's still not easy, but it's going to get easy and it's going, it's going to get easier. And I can already tell I started using it last July and I can already tell that it's getting better. At first art directors will probably go, no, I'm gonna do it the old-fashioned way, and then they're gonna, Hey, I could just crank this out myself in five minutes and be done with it. Um, [00:07:48] Daryl Cagle: Rick, you were giving me lessons in this when we're at the convention in France. And, my goodness, I was so impressed and you had a great portfolio of images that you, played with and showed me, [00:08:00] and we have that here right now. Let's go take a look at that. Yeah. Tell us about this one. [00:08:07] Rick McKee: Okay, so these are some that I did recently. When we were, I know, guys of a certain age like us when we were younger, like in the seventies and eighties, there were these, big Daddy Roth cars. They were illustrations of these outrageous, [00:08:19] Daryl Cagle: uh, cars, cartoons, magazine. [00:08:21] Rick McKee: Yeah. Cartoon. Yeah. Cartoons magazine. That's right. Plus they have the, [00:08:25] Brian Fairrington: the stickers and the packs of gum you could get with those en two, you know? [00:08:28] Rick McKee: Yeah. And they had a big creature usually riding 'em, doing the stick shift. Oh, rat Fink. And I tried to get it to make Rat Fink and it wouldn't do it, but, I did a whole series of these sort of, do you [00:08:39] Daryl Cagle: find that it's, uh, does it react to, uh, copyrighted characters like Rat Fink? Uh, and, uh, not, not do. Oh, it just [00:08:48] Rick McKee: blows right past that. It cares not for copyright at all. . So, uh, yeah, and that's one of the, what's one of the issues that artists have raised is that this thing is basically going out there and scraping [00:09:00] Sure. Their images [00:09:01] Brian Fairrington: so well, I think that's gonna be where the headwinds, against the technology hit and whether they're successful or not, I don't know. But I think the legal challenge, you're gonna have every cartoonist, art Guild and Animation Guild, and everybody hiring. Law firms to go after them, whether they have any footing or not, I don't know. But [00:09:17] Rick McKee: that's the only, and they already have, there's, there's, there's lawsuits, [00:09:19] Daryl Cagle: right. [00:09:20] Brian Fairrington: Already been filed. So, well, I think every guild, the ncs, the aec, the national Illustra illustrators, they've all put out statements condemning that for that very reason because mm-hmm. , basically the AI is taking and manipulating every image on the internet, which could be your image. My image, Daryl's. Picasso's image, you name it. [00:09:38] Rick McKee: Yeah, I, uh, I avoided specifying anybody's particular style because of that [00:09:43] Daryl Cagle: concern. Um, oh, there's your dog. That's my son's dog. [00:09:48] Rick McKee: For, for Christmas, I wanted to give my son something different and he and I have both been playing with ai. So this is Daisy. I just went through my photos and I found a picture of Daisy and my son is in [00:10:00] film and television, so I imported this photo of Daisy. and I thought, I'm gonna do something with, photos and TV and, as Daisy is like a director, a photo director. And so, um, that's the image that it came back with. Wow. That is not a photograph. And you can see the camera looks insane. You look at all the buttons and things on it. Right. But I had that printed out and framed. [00:10:23] Brian Fairrington: Uh, it looks like AI has a. Preference for steampunk kind of imagery. Absolutely, yes. Things like that. [00:10:29] Rick McKee: Yeah, it absolutely does. It loves steampunk. [00:10:32] Daryl Cagle: you showed me a whole bunch of steampunk stuff that you'd done in ai. I was just so impressed. I mean, anybody who has that kind of style or inclination is out of a job now. [00:10:42] Rick McKee: It loves, it loves Muppets too. It loves. It loves that texture. So I did a Hellraiser Muppet and I did, I did several of [00:10:50] Daryl Cagle: those. Well, [00:10:51] Brian Fairrington: do you think it likes Muppets because there's more images on the internet of Muppets that it can pull from? You think that that's [00:10:56] Daryl Cagle: could be, could be. Well, you're, you're putting in keyword Muppet. [00:11:00] Yeah, [00:11:00] Rick McKee: I'm putting in keyword Muppet. It could be that [00:11:02] Daryl Cagle: it likes, it's just that it does it so well. It makes you wanna put in keyword muppet. Yeah. [00:11:06] Brian Fairrington: I played. I played around with it about a, I dunno, three weeks ago, and I typed in Calvin and Hobbs and I forget what else prompts. And it came back and it had a large creature and a small creature. They didn't look human. But you could tell it was sort of like that. And I did it a couple times and it gave me different versions, but I kept them. I don't know whether I should show them, but it's interesting. It didn't come close to it, but it kind of, you could tell it was trying. Um, [00:11:31] Daryl Cagle: right. [00:11:31] Rick McKee: Well, when I first started playing with this, I, I was obviously concerned about editorial cartooning, and I tried. Editorial cartoonist styles. [00:11:41] Brian Fairrington: I did too. I think I typed in MCN and nothing came back. [00:11:44] Rick McKee: No, but it knew MCN was a cartoonist and if you put in somebody else's style, it gave you a different style. Uh, so it's trying and you know, it's only a matter of time before it gets there. [00:11:54] Daryl Cagle: I noticed that too because I tried different cartoonist styles and said, including in the style of Daryl [00:12:00] Kegel. And it didn't look like their style, but it knew they were cartoonists. Right. And, and knows you're a cartoon. [00:12:05] Brian Fairrington: Well, how, how does it know they're, what do you, when you say they know you're a cartoonist, what do you, what do you mean by that? Well, it's [00:12:09] Daryl Cagle: coming back with a drawing that's obviously a cartoon, but not very good cartoon. Right. Uh, and doesn't look like I drew it, but they know it's a cartoon. I don't tell them it's, it's a cartoon. I just put my name in and it knows it's gonna be a cartoon. Uh, which is scary cuz it doesn't seem like too big a step from that to, really making them look like the cartoons. Right. There's, well, I think in [00:12:31] Brian Fairrington: Darrell's case, I think in your case, Darryl, um, you're associated with cartoonists all, you know, all over the world. So I think that's probably even more of a prompt [00:12:40] Rick McKee: for it to, [00:12:41] Daryl Cagle: uh, yeah, I actually, well it is so good at doing, doing, uh, impressionist artists and, uh, artists that we know the name of, uh, from art history. It doesn't seem like a big step up from that to No, not at all. The thousands of real artists that have portfolio websites up. [00:12:56] Rick McKee: Yes. And I tried, I tried myself and it knew it was a cartoon. And, [00:13:00] um, some of my, compatriots on Counterpoint, I tried their different names and it, it knew, uh, They were cartoonists. It just didn't quite, have their style and it doesn't do words well at all, and it doesn't do fingers well at all. So [00:13:16] Daryl Cagle: it's a long way. Yes, I've noticed about the fingers and people talk about that, but that seems like a problem that's gonna be solved probably quick because everyone talks about it, right? I [00:13:25] Rick McKee: think so too. So this, [00:13:27] Daryl Cagle: tell us about this. . [00:13:29] Rick McKee: This is a haunted tiny house. You never, you never hear of this [00:13:35] Daryl Cagle: So you told it, uh, to a haunted tiny house. [00:13:39] Rick McKee: Yeah, I told it, you know, haunted tiny house. Creepy, [00:13:42] Brian Fairrington: eerie Halloween. I like, I like how it came back in the, the tiny house. Looks like a pumpkin, actually. You know Jack Leonard a little bit. Yeah. [00:13:48] Daryl Cagle: Sort of got that filled there. Well, it is beautiful, and if you did a book about haunted tiny houses, this would be a book cover [00:13:54] Brian Fairrington: well, I just read in the, uh, the Wall Street Journal or New York Times last week that, that somebody is, [00:14:00] uh, I think a teenager is publishing a comic book that's totally ai, uh, in, in the sort of, um, you know, it's not quite, manga, but it's in that kind of style, but it, which is a billion images of that on the internet. So you'll, [00:14:14] Rick McKee: well, that's also a new, that's also a new specific prompt that they added just in the last couple of months was, uh, anime. And so it really, really loves anime. And, I know there's a guy who did. Children's book. He got chat g p t to write it, and he got new journey to illustrate. I mean, it's, it's not really that great. I mean [00:14:34] Brian Fairrington: Right, right. I think I saw that. [00:14:36] Rick McKee: Yeah. But it's, you know, it was enough for him to put the book together and say he was the first one to do it, so. Right. [00:14:42] Daryl Cagle: Well, how did it look? [00:14:43] Rick McKee: Well, the problem is, and I have tried to, I've experimented with it. It's very difficult, going back to what Brian said about getting different images, it's very difficult to get it to do the same images like multiple times, which is what you'd want in a children's book [00:15:00] if you've got a character. [00:15:01] Brian Fairrington: Right. We'll take, take for example, just being a, , an, uh, creator of a comic strip. You have to create the. Character repeatedly every day, seven days a week for the rest of your life. It doesn't seem like it can do that currently, but Right. I'm sure that that will change very in 10 years. We'll, probably, you know, who knows, right? Oh, yeah. Well, I'll be standing at the unemployment line saying, well, I wish we hadn't had done that, you know, but , [00:15:25] Rick McKee: so what the artist did was he, he made it part of the story that the, it was, it was about a robot and a little girl or something. He made it part of the story that the robot was able. you know, shapeshift and chain shapes. So that sort of explained why it looked different and every [00:15:37] Brian Fairrington: seen. Right. So he, he wrote around the, uh, the Yeah. Programming deficiencies. Right? Right. [00:15:43] Rick McKee: Yeah. So, this is one I did during the, uh, McCarthy hearings that, that big debacle. I was just sitting there watching it and playing on my computer and so I imported an image of Matt Gates. Yeah, I mean, you can see Matt Gae in clown makeup, and that's what it [00:16:00] gave me back. And I, I mean, far as it's [00:16:02] Daryl Cagle: absolutely great, you know, you could do this as a magazine cover. Sure, sure. Isn't that something? [00:16:06] Rick McKee: I mean, look at that hair. I mean, [00:16:08] Daryl Cagle: it's beautiful and, and it's making, uh, very thoughtful decisions about where to put the clown makeup. And, the attitude of the clown makeup, the circles under the eyes, it doesn't obscure the caricature. It knows that the hair is a funny thing and it's emphasizing the hair. It knows his eyebrows are funny. We think of these as very, thoughtful and, not quantifiable kind of decisions. Uh, right. [00:16:33] Brian Fairrington: It's crazy. How many times did you have to take a shot at that before you came up with this? Once. Oh really? [00:16:38] Rick McKee: Once, yeah. I put it, I imported an image. and it immediately came back with that. [00:16:45] Brian Fairrington: It's interesting to me that it made the decision to exaggerate the hair and it, I know it did. The things that you and I and Darryl and everybody else would probably focus on. Instinctively, which is fascinating. And also, like Darryl said, sort of scary. [00:16:59] Daryl Cagle: Yeah. We [00:17:00] don't think of our artistic decisions as being so quantifiable as this. We think of ourselves having some kind of great, talent that guides us or, I don't know, God's hand or something. How the heck do we do this? Well, you just put it in an algorithm now, and that's awful to [00:17:16] Brian Fairrington: Rick's. Point about the, children's book that, came out that was written by chat, g p t and illustrated by Mid Journey or, or whatever. Uh, program let's say you're a publisher, why would you even bother to have writers or illustrators? You just do everything in house and eliminate everybody. Um, I mean, we're not there [00:17:34] Rick McKee: yet, but eventually I I think he could do that. [00:17:37] Brian Fairrington: I mean, and then there comes a point where the market will be saturated with these fabulous books that people will sort of get bored with. Cuz everything looks, you know, it's like, it's like everybody having the Mona Lisa in their house. Would the Mona Lisa be worth anything if everybody had the real Mona Lisa in their house? [00:17:50] Rick McKee: Um, yeah, and I'm seeing that to a certain degree on Instagram. People are sort of getting numb to it because everybody's got it. Everybody's got these cool images they're doing.[00:18:00] [00:18:00] Brian Fairrington: It's kind of scary. It's very scary in that respect. But you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. It's too late. [00:18:06] Daryl Cagle: Okay, well, Rick, here is, uh, we are going back to your cars, which I had a little out of sequence, but, all the big daddy Ralph cars, this just looks great. Look how impressive that engine is. Yeah. Yeah. [00:18:18] Rick McKee: And speaking of the toothpaste of the tube, that's one of the metaphors. I tried to, I tried to do Genie outta the bottle. I could not get the AI to understand that or give me anything really. I also tried, I also tried scanning in my own sketch. importing that and trying to see if it could take a drawing that I had done and sort of render that in a way that was usable. And it, it worked a little bit. It did, it did give me back an illustration. It just wasn't anything I thought I could use. Looked, looked any good. But that was, that was kind of cool. [00:18:49] Brian Fairrington: And what version of Mid Journey are we currently on the market right now? [00:18:54] Rick McKee: Uh, mid journey's up to four. But it automatically updates. You can go back and play in some of the [00:19:00] earlier versions. [00:19:00] Daryl Cagle: Do you anticipate, doing more of these in your cartoons, Rick? [00:19:04] Rick McKee: No, I don't. I mean, [00:19:06] Daryl Cagle: uh, you know, if you wanted to, I think it's great to have a real editorial cartoonist do this rather than all of the aspiring editorial cartoonists that I anticipate will be submitting this, uh, I, I'd love to see it. I think it's fascinating. You've certainly, found all of the ways to yank, great images out of it. This is a great one. Look at that. [00:19:28] Rick McKee: Yeah, I, you know, I, I really wanted to do this particular cartoon because it was about ai and, [00:19:33] Brian Fairrington: it's a shame you couldn't invent a time machine and go back to like the 1970s and you're the only one with, ai. Exactly. . Yeah, . You'd be, [00:19:41] Daryl Cagle: uh, that's, that's what you could, you would do if you went back yes. Yeah. Yeah. I, uh, okay. [00:19:47] Rick McKee: Yeah. So this was, uh, a series. Uh, star, star War Wars. DeLorean War vehicles. Yeah. Star Wars. I imported a picture of a DeLorean and sort of crossed it with an, uh, X-Wing fighter. [00:19:59] Daryl Cagle: Oh, you did it [00:20:00] specifically as X-wing fighter, DeLorean? Yes. Well, I saw the X-Wing fighter on the Volkswagen coming up next. Well, that's a fighter. No, that's a tie. That's a tie fighter. Oh, the tie fighter. Of course. I'm sorry. Yes. That's terrible. And I'm supposed to be an editor. All right. [00:20:16] Rick McKee: So I did Here it's, yeah. So, uh, [00:20:19] Daryl Cagle: and did you firefighter Volkswagen? Yeah. Did [00:20:21] Brian Fairrington: you import the image of a Volkswagen, or did that pull that [00:20:23] Daryl Cagle: out? [00:20:24] Rick McKee: Yes, I did. Uh, I, I believe I went to the trouble of getting a black one. And I imported the Volkswagen. And again, this took, took some doing this didn't just pop out mm-hmm. . And, uh, I, I think I've said in the style of a, imperial tie fighter. [00:20:39] Daryl Cagle: I also noticed here that the, the AI had its fingers over the. [00:20:42] Rick McKee: Yeah, I couldn't get it to not do that. Um, I What does that mean? Yeah, I have no idea. I have no idea. It just, just an artifact of what it was, you know, all of them had that on that particular car. [00:20:56] Brian Fairrington: Yeah. If you were gonna use that image, it would be easy to correct Yeah. But, uh, [00:21:00] you could [00:21:00] Rick McKee: crop it out, but it's, it is frustrating when you can't get it to do what you want it to do [00:21:04] Brian Fairrington: Wow. Fascinating. [00:21:06] Daryl Cagle: So, which, what was this one? This one [00:21:08] Rick McKee: was, uh, this one started out as one of those panel station wagons, like, from National Lamps vacation that Oh, yeah. Clark Griswold was driving out and I crossed it with a star destroyer and I thought this was a lot of fun. I would love to have star, star destroyer station wagon. Yeah. The [00:21:24] Brian Fairrington: famous family Truckster, I think that's what it's called. Yeah, [00:21:26] Rick McKee: exactly. [00:21:27] Daryl Cagle: Well, this is all great stuff. I'm very impressed with it. So this [00:21:31] Rick McKee: one, uh, started with an image of the Terminator, and I crossed it with a bunch of different things. Uh, obviously this was a minion Terminator this is R two D two [00:21:40] Brian Fairrington: Termin. Yeah, I'm sure Disney, if you tried to publish that, they'd send their, uh, cease and desist for sure. [00:21:46] Rick McKee: probably so, yeah. Good way to get in trouble. Yeah. [00:21:50] Daryl Cagle: So tell us about this one. Okay, so [00:21:52] Rick McKee: this was, uh, fairly early on when I started playing with it. And you can tell, the AI to do different styles of things. So I was thinking [00:22:00] about sort of a Harper's magazine, litho. , from like the, you know, the late 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds. Yeah. And so this was a steampunk submarine fighting a tentacle creature in a style of a [00:22:15] Brian Fairrington: lithograph. Yeah, that's right. Outta Jules Verne right [00:22:17] Rick McKee: there. You know, just, [00:22:18] Daryl Cagle: yeah, that's what I was shooting for. It's beautiful. You know, the colors are so thoughtful. Um, oh, it's [00:22:23] Rick McKee: incredible. [00:22:25] Brian Fairrington: and the way, did you prompt anything to give it some age? Because look, it looks like some age, you know, the way the, the background, there's little white dots that look at like, it's an aged photograph [00:22:33] Rick McKee: almost. No, it, it, it does that on its own and it looks like it, there's some sort of type indicated at the bottom. It gives it like a, this raw border to make it look like an old page. Wow. And, uh, uh, I did a, I did a whole series of those, but you could tell it, Egyptian hieroglyphs, you could tell it, I've done, uh, you know, tin type photograph of, you know, ORs and it'll, and it looks like, an old photograph. Uh, or you could do [00:23:00] a Polaroid or you could do, [00:23:02] Brian Fairrington: so are there any restrictions? Like, I'm sure people are doing pornography and other things like that. I mean, is there any restrictions they won't do? [00:23:09] Daryl Cagle: Yeah, [00:23:09] Rick McKee: it will not do pornography. Um, it won't do yet. Like, yah. Well yet, well, this particular AI won't do that. People are trying to do workarounds on that. Mm-hmm. . And if you do, they'll, they'll ban you. Um, right. It won't, it won't do, uh, like bloody imagery, graphic gore or anything like that. If you do it too many times and if they catch you trying to cheat, they'll kick you out. But those are the really the only restrictions that I've found so far is that sort of thing. [00:23:38] Daryl Cagle: This is all just fascinating and yeah. I appreciate that you've explored it so thoroughly. My little bit of playing with it, I could see that you really have to develop a skill to be able to, get good stuff out of it. But when you find out all those sweet spots, my goodness, it's a treasure. Uh, an evil treasure that threatens us All right, ? Yeah, it really [00:23:58] Rick McKee: is. Yeah, you gotta [00:24:00] learn how to talk to it. Um, learn how to get the. Images out of it. And a lot of it is seeing what other people are doing. And then sort of just, piggybacking off of that. [00:24:09] Daryl Cagle: Rick, we have a collection of your 10 most popular cartoons that you have, have ever drawn, that's measured by Okay. How many newspaper editors chose to reprint the cartoon. And I wondered if you might wanna comment on all of those if we're done talking about ai. Yeah, let's do. All right, here you go. This is your most popular cartoon among newspaper editors, reprinted more than any other cartoon you have ever drawn. That is really [00:24:35] Rick McKee: surprising to me. , uh, this one I did, uh, during the impeachment, uh, one of the impeachments, let's see, it's 2020. I think that was the [00:24:45] Daryl Cagle: second one. Rick, I should say this is also an audio podcast, so I have to describe and read the cartoons for the people that can't see the pictures. You've got an old man, we're waving his cane. He's got a nurse standing next to him and he says it's late and [00:25:00] I'm tired. Do I have to keep watching this impeach? And the nurse says, yes, Senator [00:25:09] Rick McKee: I think this was, obviously a commentary on how many really, really old people we have in Congress and I don't know what was going on at the time, but something struck me about all the ages of everybody. I think probably I was watching the hearings and they were nodding off and that sort of thing. It was getting late. Those, those impeachment hearings, I think were going. Like 2:00 AM or something. And [00:25:29] Brian Fairrington: yeah, anything after 4:00 PM and everybody wants to go to sleep. So . [00:25:32] Daryl Cagle: Okay. This, uh, second most popular cartoon ever, uh, came in very close to number one and also ran in over 200 newspapers. You've got the nurse with her needle and, uh, poster behind her says, get your Covid vaccine. Now with pumpkin spice. It's got a pumpkin in it. It looks delicious. And she says, Hey, at this point we'll try anything. [00:25:53] Rick McKee: Well, you know, pumpkin spice is always good for a laugh in the [00:25:56] Daryl Cagle: fall. So I think I have noticed that cartoons that reference [00:26:00] pumpkin spice perform very well. Right. [00:26:03] Rick McKee: which is one of the reasons I did it. [00:26:05] Daryl Cagle: Okay, here's your number three cartoon. You've got the guy, the computer calling back to his wife and says, that saw my Facebook friends who were constitutional scholars just a month ago are now infectious disease experts. [00:26:20] Rick McKee: Yeah, it's, uh, I think that was at the onset of, uh, yeah, three. Three. So that's March 3rd, 2020. Everywhere. You know, everybody that was right at the beginning. [00:26:31] Daryl Cagle: Yeah, that was what editors wanted to hear then. And I've noticed editors have a proclivity for liking cartoons that are critical of, uh, social media. [00:26:38] Rick McKee: you were asking earlier. One of, I, I remember one of my favorite cartoons now was, uh, the guy, guy was laying on his death bed and told his wife to come in closer. , there's something I have to tell you. I wish I had more time to argue with that guy on Facebook. [00:26:54] Daryl Cagle: Yeah. Oh, that was a popular one, but it was not in your top 10. Yeah. And also there's a [00:27:00] little bit of justice here. Would you describe a cartoon that we're not showing? Uh, the audio people are on equal footing with the video. . Yeah. So here's your number. Four. [00:27:10] Rick McKee: Another, another Covid cartoon. I'm spotting a trend here. [00:27:13] Brian Fairrington: That's a great cartoon. Love the sweaters. Love the sweaters. [00:27:16] Rick McKee: Thank [00:27:16] Daryl Cagle: you people. I mean, the editors liked cartoons about covid that had kind of a positive attitude. You know, there was so much, uh, death and horror and calamity and, covid monsters with all their spiky round things and big teeth. And, this is really what the editors. which for the [00:27:34] Rick McKee: people listening at home is, uh, two, two people in ugly Christmas sweaters, fist bumping under the miston to [00:27:40] Daryl Cagle: uh oh. Very good masked. So here we've got Mr. Death with his si and he's coming to the door talking to the old lady, and the old lady says, I'm sorry dear, but you'll have to come back later. It's football season and the game is. . [00:27:57] Rick McKee: Yes. Very, very, very popular in the [00:28:00] south. We, we love our college football. I usually try to do a, a football cartoon. or two in the in the fall. [00:28:07] Daryl Cagle: Well, they love the football cartoons. Yes. Okay. Here are the aliens coming outta the big spaceship. Talking to a guy holding a U f O report in his hand. The alien says, comic conna swearing. No, don't take me through your leader. I'm sick [00:28:23] Brian Fairrington: of politics. Yeah, . [00:28:25] Rick McKee: This one. Well, obviously there was one that U F O report came out and we were probably in the middle of some arguing about Trump doing something , I can only imagine that's what was going on at the time. but the good news is what all these objects were shooting down, uh, you know, maybe we can revisit some. Yeah. [00:28:42] Brian Fairrington: That one's a never green [00:28:42] Rick McKee: one. Yeah. Run that one again. [00:28:45] Daryl Cagle: Yeah, shoot 'em down. . All right. This one was very popular, you know, cartoons, drawing that, express horror terror discussed unhappiness with the current or previous year are standards for editorial cartoonists. Every year is the [00:29:00] worst. [00:29:01] Rick McKee: Yeah. And this, particular one was, in the middle of 2020, which was a particularly terrible year, and, so it was Halloween. and I love drawing monsters, this is Frankenstein being terrified of, the little figure, uh, in the, in the ghost outfit. Just a little child, just as 2020. So he is, um, if I can also use. No words or as fewer as possible. I do try to do that. Yeah, [00:29:28] Brian Fairrington: it's very effective. [00:29:29] Daryl Cagle: It's a good cartoon. Excellent cartoon. Thank you. Oh, now this one is one of my favorites of yours and, it's just a charming cartoon and I love how the, you can look at the backpack and you can see how the shadow is made and editors loved it. [00:29:46] Rick McKee: Yeah, thanks. Um, when I, back when I had a job, I would always try to do, uh, back to school cartoon every year. You know, little kids overreacting to having to go back to school. And that was, uh, I was trying to come with some different way of showing that, [00:30:00] and that's, that's how I ended up on that also. No, no real words. For, for those who can't see, it's a little kid. Uh, his, his backpacks filled with rulers and lunchbox and it's casting a shadow on the wall, uh, this evil looking shadow on the wall. He's, [00:30:17] Daryl Cagle: he's, and it's just beautifully designed so that you can see how the shadow was constructed from the way the junk is in the backpack. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Uh, it's a beautiful cartoon and also you're so subtle with your color. You know, We get, uh complaints from editors often about, the cartoons not being colorful enough. They're paying to have color on the editorial page and have a cartoon printed in color. They, by God, they wanna see some bright colors. Wow. So when a cartoonist does something in, in, uh, CIA tone or, or, uh, something muted or lovely browns and. We get complaints, you know, I want red, yellow, [00:31:00] blue, and, uh, no complaints on this one cuz it's so beautiful. And you know, just the fact that you have rendered the gray tones in color on this is, uh, charming and thoughtful and, uh, makes the cartoon all that much more sophisticated and artsy. I mean, if this is, this is, you compare it to this with a black and white version of the same cartoon. This little bit of color is just so charming. Oh, [00:31:24] Rick McKee: thank. I felt like it sort of evoked that sort of old style horror movie kind of feel, you know? [00:31:29] Daryl Cagle: Yeah, yeah. Well, beautiful cartoon. It works [00:31:31] Brian Fairrington: well and it's a great visual. Thanks [00:31:33] Daryl Cagle: guys. Okay, here you've got big fat Uncle Sam with big government on his belly as a label, and he's holding an ice cream cone and a burger. And he says in 2021, I resolved to keep working on my weight . This is a classic. This is, uh, yeah, this is something we've all drawn, but, you know, do a better job of drawing it. And it's, uh, it's just what the editors always. [00:31:56] Rick McKee: Can't go wrong with fat. Fat. Big government [00:31:58] Daryl Cagle: Okay? And this is your [00:32:00] number 10. You've got two guys in masks. One mask is just your traditional Covid mask. The other mask is a gas mask and covid mask. Guy says, don't you think that's a bit much for covid and gas mask? Guy says, COVID, this is for. . And, [00:32:19] Rick McKee: you know, it's so funny, there can't be a more innocuous cartoon than a Pollen cartoon But, um, people love 'em. And I did 'em when I worked in Augusta. People loved the, and I, I would try to do a pollen cartoon every year because it was such a big thing. Um, , everybody dealing with the pollen. [00:32:36] Brian Fairrington: I, I have my allergies, you know, [00:32:39] Rick McKee: and nobody's offended by a pollen cartoon, [00:32:41] Daryl Cagle: rick, you made news with this. I, I don't think, uh, I don't think anyone else has had a syndicated, uh, AI generated cartoon before. And, this is a beautiful cartoon and thanks. Appreciate it. I just, I'm, I'm very impressed with it and I encourage you to do more, but I don't encourage anyone else to do more. [00:33:00] Okay. Yeah. [00:33:01] Rick McKee: Oh, [00:33:01] Daryl Cagle: very good. I should point out too, if you look, uh, under the logo here, I'll take the logo off. Uh, you can see it says, augmented with Mid Journey. Uh, which is very nice of you to credit the ai, but you know, AI is not allowed to get copyrights. And, and typically we put these little, uh, notices in cartoons as an acknowledgement to the copywriter trademark holder. It's kind of, uh, the legal advice we're giving to, you know, to, to do that. In this case, there is no copyright holder and I wondered why you were so generous to, uh, credit Mid journey. [00:33:35] Rick McKee: You know, because I didn't draw that and it kind of feels like cheating and, uh, and it kind of is cheating. So I I, well to that, wanted to acknow, I wanted to acknowledge that, [00:33:46] Brian Fairrington: if you take that image and you, at what point can you alter it to where it becomes your own and, and it does fall under your own copywriter, your own license, what, when would [00:33:55] Daryl Cagle: that. Well, that's a question for the lawyers, and I'm sure it's a gray area [00:34:00] and, not something us non-lawyers can address. [00:34:03] Rick McKee: I appreciate you guys having me, and it was good to see you. Well, we appreciate [00:34:06] Daryl Cagle: you being a Kegel cartoonist for, what is it, 15 years now? Uh, at least. Yeah, you're great and you're always among the most popular, and, and you don't draw any duds I appreciate it. Everything you do is great. So we, we love you, Rick. Yeah, we're big fans [00:34:21] Brian Fairrington: Rick. We're big [00:34:21] Daryl Cagle: fans. Ah, and I'm fans of you guys too, so let's get together friends. Well, I should say Rick, Rick also draws two comic strips, which is just crazy. I can't imagine how you can. Do two comic strips and the editorial cartoons. I can't either. I can't. He draw, he took over Plugger, the old Jeff Mcil. Right. Gary Brookins strip and you draw Mountain Pleasant, which is just a, a wonderful comic strip. Well, I appreciate it [00:34:47] Brian Fairrington: very much. Yeah, I, I love the comics strip. It's great. [00:34:49] Daryl Cagle: thank you all for, uh, joining our cable today. If you enjoyed the podcast, please click to subscribe. Wherever you're seeing the podcast, come back and see us because, every [00:35:00] episode of Kaggle Cast is a wonderful, exciting episode, and you can't afford to miss any of these, so, goodbye to everyone and we will see you on the next Keel Cast. Uh, don't miss our top tens of the week. We do those a whole lot. Visit us on keel.com. If you haven't. If you're listening to the audio podcast and you haven't seen any of the images, come visit us on uh darryl keel.com, where I post the images with each episode, and also visit us on kegel cast.com where you can also see the images thank you and we will see you, uh, on the next Kegel cast. Thanks, Darrell. [00:35:34] Brian Fairrington: Thanks Rick. Thanks guys.