Day 4 – Create A Comic Strip – 30 Day AI Challenge 2024

Welcome to the 2024 Edition of the #30DayAIChallenge. This year, we’ll be focusing on making Generative AI more accessible for all. So follow along and give each challenge a try yourself, plus share your own thoughts and experiments with a community of like-minded learners and tinkerers!*

Week 1‘s theme is “Enter The Matrix, Creativity Reloaded“, focused on what you can do personally to tap into your creative spark, plus bring ideas to life.

Today’s AI Challenge: Creating A Comic Strip

Welcome to Day 4 of our challenge, where we’re diving into the fun and creative world of comic strip creation using Generative AI! Today’s challenge is perfect for those who’ve always wanted to tell stories through comics but felt held back by their drawing skills. With the help of AI, anyone can bring their comic ideas to life, from simple single-pane jokes to elaborate multi-panel stories. Let’s unleash your inner comic artist!

Getting Started With Your Comic

First, brainstorm your comic strip’s concept. What message or joke do you want to convey? Keep it simple for a single-pane comic strip. Think of relatable situations, popular culture references, or even abstract ideas.

1. Scriptwriting: Write down the dialogue or captions for your comic. Be concise; the power of comics lies in visual storytelling supplemented with minimal text.
2. Visualizing with AI: Use tools like DALL-E or similar to generate the visual elements. Describe your scene and characters in detail when prompting the AI. For example, “a cat wearing a superhero cape standing on a rooftop at sunset.”
3. Layout: Combine your visual elements and text using graphic editing software or comic strip creators online that support importing images. Experiment with speech bubble placement and text size for clarity.

Let’s give this a try practically, using ChatGPT:

First, I worked with ChatGPT to define what I actually want:

Then we brainstormed a whole bunch of different scenarios:

Next, I chose a specific scenario to flesh out how best to portray it visually:

In this case, with limited text, Dall-E is able to handle it with accuracy…that’s not always the case though, so you may want to consider creating images separately and putting in captions later, using a free online tool like Canva. Here are a couple of options for our finished single-panel comic:

Tips for Success

• Focus on clarity: Ensure your visuals and text work together to clearly deliver the comic’s message or joke.
• Start with broad prompts and refine: If your first AI-generated images aren’t quite right, refine your prompts with more detail.
• Experiment with styles: AI tools can generate visuals in various artistic styles. Play around to find what best suits your comic’s tone.

For Advanced Users: Multi-Panel Comic Strips

One of the biggest challenges with creating multi-panel comics so far has been the inability to maintain consistent character creation, without using custom trained models. The good news though, is that tools like Midjourney and other emerging story & video creation tools now offer improved consistency in character designs across different scenes. This is a game-changer for creating multi-panel comics with recurring characters.

1. Developing Characters: Start by creating detailed character bios. Use these descriptions to generate consistent characters using AI. You may need to iterate several times to perfect your characters’ looks.
2. Storyboarding: Plan your comic’s flow. Multi-panel strips need a clear narrative arc from the setup to the punchline or conclusion.
3. Advanced Tools: Utilize features in tools like Midjourney to adjust and refine characters and scenes. Familiarize yourself with any new tools that offer enhanced control over consistency and style.

Bringing It All Together

• Use graphic software to assemble your panels, ensuring clear transitions and narrative flow.
• Consider the pacing and timing between panels for comedic or dramatic effect.
• Leverage the AI’s ability to generate backgrounds and objects that complement your story.

Here’s a quick example of a two panel comic, showing some character consistency using Dall E 3 (via ChatGPT). You’ll notice the character is consistent between panels, but not quite with the previous creation…plus some of the text isn’t quite right, so you will typically be better off adding in captions later using Canva, MS Word / PowerPoint, or any another preferred editing tool that works for you.

Here are a couple of examples with Midjourney. The first set shows how you can vary look by being specific about style…the first set of images use Expressive Lines and Paster Colors, while the second set use Clean Lines.

…while the second shows how you can bring in some character consistency using the right parameters (–cref for character reference and –cw for character weight)

No matter what you do though, there is a fair bit of trial and error…plus lots of patience required when creating longer comic strips or comic books. You are likely to get the best results by training your own model using tools like Scenario (among others).

Testing Custom GPTs

I also decided to give a custom GPT called Comic Crafter a test run, to see how it would do with the same task. The result wasn’t too bad, with decent character consistency across 4 different panels. The captions are garbled, but that’s to be expected…and can be easily replaced using a different tool like Canva, Powerpoint, Photoshop, etc. (depending on your skill level).

Wrap Up

Embracing Generative AI for comic strip creation opens up a world of storytelling possibilities for both novices and seasoned creators. It democratizes art (especially for left-brained people like me…or those who haven’t had years of professional training), allowing anyone to express their humor, insights, and stories visually.

As the tech matures, anticipate even more sophisticated tools for ensuring character consistency, nuanced expressions, and dynamic storytelling. The future of comic creation looks bright, accessible, and full of potential for creators at all levels of expertise!

Hope you found today’s challenge interesting. Look forward to hearing about your own experiences…leave a comment and let us know, or tag your Facebook, Twitter / X or LinkedIn post with #30DayAIChallenge so others can find it too.

Till tomorrow…

Related, But Older Stories:

Day 26 of 30 Day AI Challenge – Creating A Comic Strip With ChatGPT and Midjourney

Creating Animations With Generative AI Tools – A Day In The Life Of Leo

Imagination to AI Animation – Loyalty Vitamins by Dr. Ben Benefit

*Please note: Participation in the 30 Day AI Challenge is at your own discretion and responsibility. Always ensure that no sensitive personal information, confidential, or proprietary company data is shared. Adhere to all applicable local laws and company policies. Enjoy exploring AI responsibly!