thedeadairchannel014

Skipped last week's newsletter as I really hit a point where I had to take "if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all" to heart. I opened Microsoft Word to start composing a rough draft, and it tried to shove AI generative writing slop down my throat. I opened my email in-browser three weeks ago, and it did the same. It's hard not to feel the walls closing in sometimes, so I got the hell offline.

I hate that we are being told to subcontract our thinking. To external hard drive our minds. The cyborgization of the human that began with the walking stick and the eyeglass has taken a toxic turn if we abandon being heard in our own voices. If we find it quicker to slap together rote, cliché phrases generated by an algorithm that's guessing at what we're trying to communicate to one another.

There's an underlying disrespect to shoving this crap into every piece of writing software. It is telling you that the unique qualities of your voice are a waste of time. That you don't have an original thought in your head, or an interesting way to communicate an idea. Which is awful, awful shit, to be avoided at all cost.

We don't remember phone numbers or directions anymore. We've subcontracted those to slabs of glass and metal and silicon we carry at all times. To WhatsApp and Google Maps. Maybe that's no big deal. We already had phonebooks and maps. But I do know it's insidious to outsource our words and how we structure them. You need those muscles. You need to use them, they make you you. They're how we construct thoughts, and follow them through to the end. How we make arguments and get to a deeper level of understanding. Do not give that up to the algorithm slop god. Do not give yourself to the machine.

There's that Nietzsche quote that gets bandied around a bunch as it sounds cool at the beginning of a metal album or in a True Detective monologue or wherever: "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him."

There's context to this quote that often gets buried. The Gay Science was published in 1882. A time when the West was drawing close to accurately mapping the planet. The sciences were progressing in leaps and bounds, and the second Industrial Revolution well underway. God was dead because humanity was toiling hard to remove mystery from the world. There were no more spaces on the map with question marks or "here there be dragons." With mystery goes an element of wonder. Unquestioned, unquestioning religious faith had entered freefall. And that's why God was dead.

I find it hard to look at the current state of the internet and not see a spectre of this. All the wonder and promise of the web eaten by derivative hallucinatory AI, the splintering of social media as it's stuffed to the gills with the same- as it all becomes steadily unusable. Networks of outrage, un-fact-checked doggerel, and deepfaked advertisements for God-knows-what insisting that drinking salt water before bed will improve one's erections. (I saw that one today.) The sheen is off. The mystery is gone. The internet is closer to dead than ever before.

That said, I don't think these AI 'helpers' are something anyone actually asked for. It's desperate companies, having invested so much into an essentially useless tech fad, now trying their damnedest to justify its existence. So turn it off. You have to attempt to cancel your Microsoft 365 account to even find the "classic" version of the software without the slop, which will cost you 30 odd bucks less a year since they quietly bumped the price of your subscription up to put in the slop. Which, bloody hell.

Anyway. On that cheery note, here are some comic books that are coming out. The words inside them are my own, as are any and all hallucinations.

Batman: Dark Patterns #1 has a second printing coming out in February. The book is a 12 issue limited series, and our editor tells us that second printings for limited series are a notably rare event. The book has done better than anyone expected, particularly for a Batman title launching in the wake of the Absolute juggernaut, so thank you dearly for all the support. We don't have a new cover for that one, as it needed to get out the door ASAP, but the covers for issue 5 have just been revealed; one by Hayden Sherman, and a variant by Martin Simmonds.
We don't have as many covers on this book as most titles; only one variant per issue. But every one has been a hell of a piece of art:

Also revealed in the same solicitations is the fact that Francesco Francavilla is joining team Nightwing for a two issue derive starting in April with Nightwing #125. When my editor told me we wanted a fill-in artist to allow Dexter Soy to stay ahead with his pages, I immediately asked for Francavilla. He drew one of my favourite Dick Grayson stories in Batman: Black Mirror, and also the first Nightwing story I ever wrote, a back-up for Detective Comics co-starring Nightwing and Azrael. People seemed to enjoy that one.

The two issue story we'll be telling here isn't necessarily an homage to Black Mirror, but does take some cues from it. I promised we'd get a little deeper into the Bludhaven Police Department in the second volume of the book, and this story is centred around Maggie Sawyer, now commissioner of Bludhaven, who hasn't gotten a focus in a while.

She's a fascinating character in a fascinating position; she began as a detective in Metropolis, a thorn in Superman's side who became a staunch ally, who then did her time in Gotham before taking over in Bludhaven. I imagine the shift from Metropolis to Bludhaven causes a certain amount of whiplash.

In two weeks on February 12th, Cyberpunk 2077: Psycho Squad #1 is on shelves. I've worked in a lot of universes recently that have required a T or T+ rating on the books. This is decidedly not that. Each of its 4 issues sees MaxTac Spar Delta on a different mission to take down a cyberpsycho who's rampaging through Night City. It's going to be fast and bloody and action packed, and a lot of fun. We've very much cut loose on this one. The story's first working title was There Must Be A Monster Under The Bed In Night City Or Everyone Will Fucking Die, but we decided Psycho Squad was probably snappier.

I started a new script yesterday, having wrapped up last week's on Monday. I aim for a script a week, but of late they've tended to bleed into the beginning of the next, which I prefer to avoid. It's pleasant to start a week with a new thing. It feels less like juggling projects. I'm trying to get back to that, but sometimes things take as long as they take.

Beyond that I have an updated pitch to finish, which should result in a beautiful book with an incredible artist. My first foray into creator owned comics since The Six Fingers, and that book was in production for so long that I'd finished writing it a rather long time ago.

I'm looking forward to making things out of whole cloth again, so am planning to focus on that a fair amount in the next year, in the background of my already scheduled work. I'm pleased to get to play in all the sandboxes I do, and bring my voice to them- but making things up from scratch out of your head is an unbeatable feeling. Like most creatives of my ilk, I've been thinking a lot about David Lynch these last weeks; I'd planned to write about him here, but I'll probably do that next week now I've gotten my algorithmic irritation off my chest.

Wishing you a pleasant and slop-free week.

This has been thedeadairchannel. A provocation from the desk of Dan Watters. Please do subscribe.