Comics Scholarship, Not Necessarily Chess

Wobbling on with this weekly, Monday series, the previous post was Chess Comics - Grids and Panels (February 2024). At the end of that post, I gave myself a direction:-

How should I use the different grids to create a more interesting series of pages? I really have no idea. [...] Maybe I should spend some time on this subject.

As usual, the time I used was spent badly and I have only the following composite image to show for it. The left, colored portion is an excuse to use another AI generated image on this chess blog.

Left: 'comic artist draws chess'; AI Comic Factory (aicomicfactory.com)
Right: Google search on 'comic grid' -> 'People also ask'

The right, B&W portion is an example of my favorite section in Google search results, the 'People also ask' section. It's a great way to get up to speed quickly on any subject. The first question, 'What do you call comic squares?', is answered,

A panel is an individual frame, or single drawing, in the multiple-panel sequence of a comic strip or comic book, as well as a graphic novel.

The same answer leads to Panel : comics (wikipedia.org), which opens Pandora's box on the subject of comics, whether short or long or in-between. See, for example, Wikipedia's ensuing page on the 'graphic novel'.

In the same Google search, the top result was The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship (comicsgrid.com). If, like me, you have a STEM education, you might think the phrase 'Comics Scholarship' is an oxymoron. Nothing could be further from the truth and I look forward to discovering the journal.

Polgar Plus Seirawan GT Nakamura

A few months ago, also for the long-running series Top eBay Chess Items by Price (March 2010), we saw Chess Rookie Card (November 2023). I recorded the basic info for that auction as,

The item pictured below was titled 'Hikaru Nakamura #390 American Chess Equipment Ultimate Card Auto'. It sold for around $500, 'Best offer accepted'.

For this month's post we have two more cards in the series, both pictured below. The titles of the auctions are large enough to be readable, but I'll copy them here for the benefit of the search engines:-

• Susan Polgar #390 American Chess Equipment Ultimate Card Auto - NM
• Yasser Seirawan #256 American Chess Equipment Ultimate Card Auto - NM

As you can see, the Polgar card sold for $299.00 'or Best Offer' and the Seirawan card for $299.00 'Best offer accepted'. Since the cards were displayed one over the other in a list sorted by descending price, I suppose they sold for close to the same amount.

The description for the Polgar card added,

This is an extremely rare American Chess Equipment card. The card is hand-numbered and signed by Grandmaster Susan Polgar.

The Seirawan card had identical text -- other than the name -- as did the earlier Nakamura card, so I suppose all three cards were from the same seller. The various abbreviations used in the auction were explained in the Nakamura post and I won't repeat them here.

In that previous post I wondered about the original selling price of the Nakamura card. Thanks to an anonymous comment I was informed, 'The Hikaru cost $8.00 at the time' along with a URL to the original product page. I'll leave it to interested parties to locate the two cards mentioned on this current post.

Yahoo Zombies Want Chess

I ended last month's Yahoos post, RIP Yahoos (January 2024), saying,

After three years the Google Yahoos also ran out of steam: Yahoos Set a New Low (December 2023; 'So many problems, so little time.'). It's time to let them sleep in peace.

But what if they don't want to sleep in peace?

'Zombies play chess.'
AI Comic Factory

Looks like I better rethink the whole thing.

[Yahoos (mainstream news stories about chess) are derived from Google News top-100 (or so) stories from the past month.]

Chess Comics - Grids and Panels

Last week's post, First Adventures in AI Comics (February 2024), discussed some of the challenges using AI Comic software. One of my paragraphs mentioned,

The 2 x 2 format of each page is somewhat monotonous. The free version of the software, which is the version I've been using, offers four different formats of which 2 x 2 is the simplest. Since they can be interchanged easily, I could experiment with the other formats, but there's a significant constraint. There is no control over what part of the story is shown in the individual panels -- four panels in the example of the 2 x 2 format -- that make up the page.

I went back to the first comic page in the series, The Chess Village (January 2024), copied the prompt I used to make the image shown in the post, and re-entered the prompt into the software. The following composite image shows the result.

Four views of 'The Chess Village'

The UL image (upper left) shows the second use of the original prompt. The result is not at all the same as the image displayed in the original post. The AI software almost never gives the same result twice, which would duplicate the multiple images (aka 'panels') that constitute a page.

After creating the UL image, I changed the format (aka 'grid'; the 2 x 2 format is grid number 0 in the AI Comic software) for each of the other three grids (numbered 1 to 3). This resulted in the UR, LL, and LR (lower right) pages, shown in numerical sequence.

The UR page is not at all the same as the UL page; all four panels have changed. The LL page reuses two UR panels, although in different sizes, and the LR page reuses all four UR panels in the same positions. The software created the page as soon as I had clicked the choice of the new grid.

How should I use the different grids to create a more interesting series of pages? I really have no idea, plus there is still the issue of 'no control over what part of the story is shown in the individual panels'. Except for some interest when I was an undergraduate student -- mainly to avoid studying for exams -- I've never been much of a comic connoisseur. Maybe I should spend some time on this subject.

First Adventures in AI Comics

Last week's Monday post was the last in a series of six posts in an experiment using the 'AI Comic' software. The six posts each featured an image picturing part of the story, corresponding to one page in the comic. The six images are reproduced below.

A Chess Village and Its Wizard

The six posts corresponding to each page/image are linked here:-

• 1st - 2024-01-08: The Chess Village
• 2nd - 2024-01-15: The Village Wizard
• 3rd - 2024-01-22: The Wizard as Professor
• 4th - 2024-01-29: The AI Generator
• 5th - 2024-02-05: The Wizard's Assistant
• 6th - 2024-02-12: The Assistant's Girlfriend

Having spent some time manipulating the comic software, I've made plenty of observations on its possibilities and its limitations. One of the first observations was that the dialog balloons, e.g. the 2nd & 3rd pages' UR panel (upper right), contain gibberish text that can't be changed easily. They might look nice, but that's the whole story.

The 2 x 2 format of each page is somewhat monotonous. The free version of the software, which is the version I've been using, offers four different formats of which 2 x 2 is the simplest. Since they can be interchanged easily, I could experiment with the other formats, but there's a significant constraint. There is no control over what part of the story is shown in the individual panels -- four panels in the example of the 2 x 2 format -- that make up the page.

Perhaps the biggest drawback is the lack of built-in continuity for the individual elements and characters of the comic. The Wizard sort of looks the same on each page, but there are significant differences that a real artist would not have allowed. The color of the Wizard's hat, for example, changes constantly.

In the 4th page's LL panel (lower left), there are two wizards. In the 5th page's LL panel, the Wizard's assistant is wearing the hat. In the 6th page's LR panel, there are two assistants, both with the same color hair as his girlfriend. And so on.

For each of the six posts I produced many images on the theme of the post and chose the one that I liked the best. I could have copied the best panels from different trials and pasted them into a new 2 x 2 format, but that would have required more time than I wanted to spend on the experiment. My main objective was to produce relevant artwork that I'm unable to do myself, and this is what happened. Sometimes the AI software gave me an idea that I hadn't thought of myself, which might be the most valuable contribution of the software.

These first six pages are an introduction to the themes that I would like to use in subsequent stories. I'm curious to see where the series will take me.

(*) Images: AI Comic Factory (aicomicfactory.com)

Chess Jeudi Gras

It took me some time to figure out what is shown in this photo. The title ('Chess') didn't help much and the description was missing.

Chess © Flickr user skooksie under Creative Commons.

The first useful identifying text said,

This photo is in 1 album • Mardi Gras 2024 • 444 items

OK, I got it. It's a night time shot of a Mardi Gras float with a big hand on the top of the float and a chess game on the side. There are a few people standing on the float and other people milling around it.

It reminded me of another post from a few years back, Chess Mardi Gras (February 2018). That photo was from Nice, France and had a link to another Mardi Gras photo from Lisbon, Portugal. Where was today's photo taken? The tags for the photo said,

Mardi Gras • Carnival • Parade • St Charles Avenue • Krewe of Babylon

Two of those tags lead us to St. Charles Avenue - New Orleans Streets to Visit (neworleans.com). Another one leads to Knights of Babylon (wikipedia.org), which starts,

The Knights of Babylon parade on Jeudi Gras, the Thursday night prior to Mardi Gras. The Knights of Babylon Parade rolls annually on its traditional Uptown New Orleans parade route. Babylon is always the first parade on this evening, leading the way for the other Thursday parades, and blazing the trail for Carnival weekend festivities

Jeudi Gras? Literally, 'Fat Thursday'? I didn't even know that was a thing. I just love where the little game of chess takes me.

The Assistant's Girlfriend

A Monday post means it's time for another installment in our weekly AI chess comic series. In the previous episode, The Wizard's Assistant (February 2024), we learned,

The Wizard and his assistant meet at least once a day and generally discuss the latest challenges facing the chess world.

This is the sixth and last installment of the introduction to the series.

The Wizard's assistant is often accompanied by his longtime girlfriend, who is herself a keen chess player. Some say the girlfriend is the Wizard's niece, although no outsider has been able to decipher the family tree. The girlfriend plays third board on a chess team sponsored by the Wizard. The team is composed of players with some personal connection to the Wizard.

(*) Images: AI Comic Factory (aicomicfactory.com)