Welcome to ACES WEEKLY Volume 71, Week Two!

Friends, Whenever there's a grumble about AI art, some will make a point about the inhuman-ness that's often detectable in it and claim that's bound to count as a big minus in it fully achieving the predominance we all fear it might.  But, in fact, if you look at many successful illustrative styles and forms used in culture, naturalism is not an essential plus - familiarity and recognition are what count.  Manga art stylization compresses human-ness into simple repeating codes of effect to represent expressions and behaviour.  They don't reflect everyday reality, but they do the job they need to do and entertain people, and that's their inarguable justification for existence.  At a talk I was giving this weekend in a place where manga-style-influenced Webtoons are huge, I was planning to make a case for all of comic art to strive to embrace the assortment of stylistic qualities that we can find in fine art, but I regret I backed out of doing that to avoid seeming an enemy to the current and accepted.  I console myself with knowing that what we do at Aces Weekly edges close to that ambition in the mad mixes we always offer, and that will give me succour for a while... I'm only human, after all...  : )  Stay safe - there'll be fireworks tomorrow! 

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