Well said.

Bingo.

The AI art debate is an old one.

As a mascot designer who loves character design I'm excited for next Halloween!

Is AI art good or evil? Here's my take.

Fair question. I think you are essentially asking the Jurassic Park question: Just because we can do something, does it mean we should? Where does AI art fall on that spectrum? Personally I see AI as a tool like a hammer. It can be used constructively to build a house, or destructively to bash someone's brains in. Or to nail a man to a cross. The problem isn't the tool, it's how and why it is used. An analogy might be the camera. When it was first invented, the art world panicked. "Why would anyone hire us to paint portraits or landscapes when a machine now exists that will produce a perfect image with the push of a button?" But then artists do what they do best and got creative. They innovated and explored, asking "How can we express ourselves differently?" Soon we had Impressionism and Art Deco and Cubism and Graphic Design and Cartooning. New worlds of creative expression opened up because of the challenge of the camera. Today artists think nothing of using a camera for reference. You could even argue that the camera turned out to be one of the best things to ever happen to the art world. A camera is a machine an artist can use to communicate creatively, a tool subservient to his vision. Or, it can be used badly to produce porn, take papparazzi photos, help social influencers scam people, etc. A camera can beautifully elevate our humanity or it can twist and denigrate it. Maybe I'm naive but I like to think of AI as a similar tool of expression, to be used for good or for ill. AI is raising all sorts of practical and ethical challenges. I don't have all the answers. But I do reject a simplistic "AI is good" or "AI is evil" mentality. AI is a tool. What matters is how it is used.

I drew a worm making the letter “M” for as part of a collage on the cover (front and back) of a recent issue of THIS BOOK MIGHT EXPLODE by @explodeybook.

I hit the McDonald’s drive thru last night and was delighted to see my Mr. Monopoly artwork on the bag. (Hasbro hired me to update the look of the character last year). The new McDonald’s monopoly game launches on Tuesday, Oct. 6.

After this Halloween, two monsters (and their iconic designs) will be released from their copyright dungeons. In just a few months (January 1, 2027) the classic Universal monster movies DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN (1931) will both officially enter the public domain in the United States. Both characters are iconic partly because neither film’s design follows the book on which it is based. Dracula in the novel did not resemble Bela Lugosi’s handsome aristocrat in a high-collar cape (he was an old man with a mustache, pointy ears, and sharp teeth). Frankenstein’s monster did not have a flat top head or bolts in his neck. Both films invented brand new looks that burned themselves deep into pop culture’s memory. The original books have been in public domain for a long time, but when Universal Studios filmed their own versions in 1931 those movies were granted their own separate copyrights. Other companies could still make their own films based on the books but the monsters had to look different enough that no one could easily confuse them with the Universal versions. Many have tried. For almost a century there have been literally hundreds of interpretations of Dracula and Frankenstein across film, TV, comic books, etc. and yet the original Universal designs remain iconic. That’s how great they were! That changes in a few months. As of January 1, 2027, the original 1931 movies belong to everyone, including the character designs. Artists can draw and sell merch with images of Lugosi’s Dracula, or a cartoon flat-topped Frankenstein, without receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Universal’s legal dept. Universal will still retain the trademark (which is different than copyright), but as long as you don’t make or sell something that fools people into thinking whatever you made was an official Universal product, you are probably in the clear legally. (Also, this only applies to the 1931 films. Characters from later Universal movies like Igor, the Bride of Frankenstein, etc. will still be under copyright for a little while longer.) I’m super excited to see what creative things people might do with these characters....especially now that we have the fun of playing with them in AI. Next Halloween is going to have some extra treats!