Jeffrey Brown, the New York Times bestselling cartoonist behind Darth Vader and Son and the Star Wars: Jedi Academy series, is going small for his new comic: a crowdfunding campaign for a new short comic, Climb Every Mountain: An Argument Against the Use of A.I. in Creative Endeavors. With rising tensions over the use of A.I., Brown makes the case for genuine human expression in art.
Using the analogy of climbing a mountain, Brown explains what artists lose when they seek to replace discovery with shortcuts. Climb Every Mountain is an essay on the meaning of art in our time and plea to rediscover our own creativity.
From the press release:
“Using A.I. to make art focuses on an end product,” Brown explains, “Whatever shortcuts you use skips over what art is really about: the process of making something and how you find meaning in that process.”
Climb Every Mountain: An Argument Against the Use of A.I. in Creative Endeavors presents the act of climbing a mountain as an analogy to creative expression. The comic asks artists to question where they would draw the line between a tool to help them express an idea, and a tool that replaces their process, robbing their creative work of any surprise or meaning. What do you lose when you take unnecessary shortcuts, and skip ahead to an end product?
Climb Every Mountain will be published via JT Yost’s Birdcage Bottom Books, and the campaign launches exclusively on Kickstarter on May 8 with the comic to be published in various risograph formats. Backers can expect a variety of rewards such as sketches, bonus comics, and even a chance to chat with Brown and fellow cartoonist and collaborator, J.T. Yost.
Brown is the bestselling author of countless humor books and books for kids, covering everything from Star Wars to Transformers. But he also has a long history as an indie cartoonist and is returning to how roots with this one.
Stand up for humans with Jeffrey Brown by following this campaign!
– Reporting by Isaac Swindle and Heidi MacDonald
