Steve A. Becker

screenshot of a tumblr post from user “wildmansters” The thing that really boils my potatoes about Al in general is that I have been a creative professional for over a decade now and the devil has ALWAYS been in the details. Big and small, I've had single-person businesses rip me to shreds over how their colors turned out on newsprint, and have worked with huge companies with THICK brand guidelines with every detail of their brand identity laid out and enforced with an iron fist. But I guess all of that stuff doesn't matter anymore? Who gives a fuck if this Al generated baby has six fingers, that mom-and-pop shop is still going to use it. That rug from Temu says Happy Thanksgivirg? Oh well haha it's just a silly funny thing now (nevermind that you never would have given a B-grade item from a craft show the same consideration). I don't actually care that the Al Coca-cola ad has a truck that changes size every scene, but I can't help but think about how, if it had been some poor underpaid artist, they would have been laughed out of the building. I don't really know how to put it in a succint way but it just feels all the more obvious how much more grace and flexibility has always been possible but never offered.

i know WHY this is but that just makes it even more of a kick in the pants lmao

Haha, the house still gets stuff for my stepdad. My parents got divorced and he moved out like 9 years ago and he's been dead 2 or 3? It's wild how the internet bots will just be set on Wall-E autopilot forever.

Don't tell me the dead internet theory isn't in full swing. Ordered business cards online 18 years ago under the name of said business. I've received physical mail for that business ever since and it's been defunct for 17 years. Until Earth stops spinning this address will receive junk in its name!

A LOT of industry folks need to take "I think there's a very high possibility that this is all a bunch of horseshit" to HEART.

Hit a hornets nest mowing today and took 5 angry zingers. Probably schadenfreude for the pushy pest control salesman whose service I was adamantly not interested in last week.

The hive mind may suggest the fields be watered with Brawndo long before all that

The cover spread from a one page zine printout. The left (back cover) features images of a scale and gavel, with notes on First Amendment and filming rights, and the advice to “shut the fuck up.” On the right is the cover, a megaphone with the title text “PROTEST SAFELY.” Behind it are faceless protestors. The subtitle notes, “A brief collection of tips from around the internet.”

A spread from one page zine printout. On the left is an illustration of a protestor with the title “What to Wear,” including a helmet, goggles, ear plugs, gloves, a mask, a backpack, and layers/long sleeves/pants. Each have additional notes explaining their use. On the right is “What to Bring,” featuring illustrations of a backpack, money, water bottles, a mask, a granola bar and bag of trail mix, a first aid kit, folded shirt and pants, and an ID, with “DIY Defense” listed underneath it showing one protestor using a luggage case, one holding a trash can lid, and one using an open umbrella as a shield.

A spread from one page zine printout. On the left is “Protect Your Identity,” advising to cover up identifying features, avoiding photography of protesters, deactivating biometric phone-unlocking tools, and writing emergency contact and counsel numbers on your arm. On the right is “Be Like Water,” the motto of the 2019 Hong Kong protests, and the text “BEWARE THE BAIT” with images of a palette of bricks and a masked man holding a crowbar toward a protestor with a sign, “Psst, free crowbar?” encouraging the reader not to engage with traps and undercover agents.

A spread from one page zine printout featuring the hazards of protest opposition, including tear gas, rubber bullets, and LRAD sound cannons and flash bangs. Caution tape images accompany the text explaining the dangers of each, how to flush out eyes that have been maced/etc, and how to extinguish a gas canister with a traffic cone.

I did my best to compile as many protest safety notes as possible into a one page foldout zine! Coincidentally…it seems the file has breached containment…like it’s available for anyone to print or hand out 👀⚖️

toonyart.com/s/PSZine.pdf

Highlighted text form THE NEW YORKER The task that generative A.I. has been most successful at is lowering our expectations, both of the things we read and of ourselves when we write anything for others to read. It is a fundamentally dehumanizing technology because it treats us as less than what we are: creators and apprehenders of meaning. It reduces the amount of intention in the world.

Reminds me of this eternal Ted Chiang banger-

I grew one from a pit for about 4 years. It got ≈3ish feet tall with multiple branches, huge leaves, inch-thick trunk with bark. Then it just didn't last in the house over winter a year ago. I guess this mid-Atlantic climate wasn't conducive.

The only inaccurate part of that dystopian Elysium prediction is that our new regime they would have the courtesy to acknowledge Spanish speakers with something other than Amerikan English instructions printed on the robot.

It's true, it can be a case of apples to oranges for sure, but I've also seen competent illustrators exist in both worlds, a lot of MTG artists also do comics covers. I'm not suggesting what you should do, just suggesting that you may have more purchasing power than you think!

most Marvel variant cover artists barely make that now from Marvel, and that's definitely a rate I've seen pros cop to for indie work. You might be able to get yourself some pretty nice illustrated covers from people in the comics world for what you are currently offering.

I will forever be a huge fan of Real Genius! Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was a good one too

For sure, gotta take them wins where you can get them! Aside from Lancaster city and a few small towns it's very rural here, and very conservative christian, so if this area can go blue it can happen anywhere.

Yeah, Lancaster City is district-13 and even with the city it's still red. Scott Martin is the republican state senator here.

Must have been E-town, school board out there is like a christian nationalist cult. There's been national mainstream news coverage about how extreme they are. Northern Lanco farmlands out in the boons are all red but not quite as bad as the PA-11 congressional district. Never gone dem in US history

2025 Lancaster County General Pennsylvania State Senate 36 Special Election General DOHQ Last Updated: Mar 25, 2025 at 9:57 PM > 95% est. reporting Candidates Party Votes Pct. James Malone DEM 26,518 50.3% Josh Parsons GOP 25,721 48.8% Zachary Moore LIB 473 0.9% Total 52,712 * Incumbent Election Date: 3/25/2025 View Full Results >

uhhhh it looks like Dems just flipped a R+17 Pennsylvania State Senate seat in Amish country…

I'm in the area and I'm surprised the dems won it at all. It's one of the most blood red areas in the county with most of school boards across those towns being 8 and 9 to 1 red. The Amish vote republican 100% and this area was a lot of Amish and none of Lancaster city.

But did you bring enough tchotchkes imbued with luck to curry the favor of the bingo gods of fortune?

Totally! I've scanned tons of different marble tiles to use as texture on low fill as a diffusion layer under my digital colors. They always hit that x-factor that's missing when the digital is too crisp.

I also know that saying it is way easier said than doing it! Definitely takes some time to make it happen.

For me backgrounds got exciting when I stopped thinking of them just as places the characters were, but as another performer that the characters were interacting with.

@empireofice.bsky.social

One of our supporters shared this with us—people are getting creative tonight!

I always understood loss leading in the way Starbucks puts 4 stores within a quarter mile of a competitor to drive their ability to turn a profit down to zero, ultimately causing them to close. Then they jack the prices up to recoup their losses once competition is no longer an option.

I believe that's called the Loss Leader Strategy.

It doesn't have as many of the foreboding quiet moments as the first one and Benicio Del Toro's character is the lead.

Right? It's been on a couple times over the last few days and I've watched it twice. The sequel isn't bad either, but it is different.

Sicario is one of the movies I will watch every time I see it's on cable