AI...IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEE! I've been botted!

I see that one can now draw Jack Ohman cartoons without the actual Jack Ohman.

I guess it had to happen. Check this out:

I was wondering how to describe my work. Thanks, Bot.

You see, there’s a website called Botcreative. Now, I had never heard of Botcreative, but apparently Botcreative decided two things:

1. I’m an illustrator.

2. My style can be faked.

Look at all this cool art that “Jack Ohman” drew and painted:

This Jack Ohman guy is really amazing! I’d like to meet him! The Real Jack Ohman can draw passably, for a cartoonist, I suppose. But goddam, man. This is great stuff that I have never, ever been able to achieve.

Open the Art Bay doors, HAL.

Of course, it could be the Other Jack Ohman, an 18 year old baseball player and son of major league pitcher Will Ohman, who, I am certain, does not get asked if he’s me. I expect to see Baseball Jack Ohman in the majors soon, and then everyone will say to me, oh, I’m disappointed. I thought you could pitch.

Well, yeah, in 1970 I was effing fabulous on the mound. Ask any 9 year old in Kings Park, Virginia Little League from 1970. I was feared, baby. Feared. I had an Army colonel and an Army sergeant as coaches, and they do not screw around on PT or practices. we also got some very useful weapons training. You should have seen my pick-offs at second base.

Sometimes people say to me, “I’d like to be a cartoonist, but I can’t draw”. I usually respond, “Neither can cartoonists. Don’t let that stop you”. But hey. Some cartoonists can actually draw, but I won’t name them. They’d get all bigheaded.

Ten years ago, a fellow came to the 2014 Association of American Editorial Cartoonists convention in San Francisco and presented. He wasn’t a cartoonist, but he had developed a program (did we have apps then? I guess we did. I don’t recall) that could allow anyone to “draw” a political cartoon. He had a database of caricatures and backgrounds, and all you had to do was arrange these elements around into an “editorial cartoon”.

Needless to say, we were all completely horrified, in the way that only editorial cartoonists can be completely horrified. It’s our job to be horrified—why I’m on several BP meds, I guess.

The cartoons were kind of polished-looking in a too-computerish sort of way, but one could see that if you wanted to put something up on Facebook about the various crimes of the Tualatin Valley Water District Position 3 Commissioner, it would probably get you where you wanted to go.

Otherwise, yeahno.

Computer-generated anything certainly can be cool, but it also is mostly pretty stiff, because line-quality doesn’t seem to factor into the algorithm. That’s where we humans are better than computers, generally speaking. When I see a cartoonist do computer-generated lettering for example, I become an arrogant jerk, and condemn the artist to hell for all eternity. I just think you lose the artistic quality that makes our art, art.

Anyway, my buddy two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Steve Breen was informed of this by his one-time Pulitzer Prize winner buddy in Sacramento, while One-Timer was on the treadmill at City Sports, an exercise barn far above my current skillset.

Steve mentioned that there was another artbot program, and he would like to try doing a piece drawn by non-illustrator Jack Ohman. He plugged in “San Francisco skyline” and “Jack Ohman”, and here’s what he came up with:

Now, um, the Real Jack Ohman couldn’t do something this nice to save his acturiarially-challenged life. Period. Maybe if the Real Jack Ohman had gone to architecture school and been trained at the Rhode Island School of Design, instead of taking 17 (yes) years to get a bachelor’s degree, he could.

Heck, I may copy these for the Chronicle. “I” did them, right?

Then I tried to do my own art on Botwhatever.com.

I freely admit that I’m something of a technophobe, and have avoided doing a graphic memoir because it involves multiple layers in Photoshop. I know. Don’t tell my fancy New York agent. All you art people are saying, not only are you a technophobe, you’re kind of a boob. Throw in Luddite, and we’re getting warmer. Also: a dope.

One of my best friends in cartooning is Pulitzer Prize Laureate and Fly Fisherman Extraordinaire Matt Wuerker at Politico. Matt draws his cartoons on watercolor paper and uses Dr. Ph. Martin’s colored inks, which is kind of on the illuminated manuscripts level of technophobia. I get it. I have a forty year old set of these myself, and miss them. Using them requires actual skill, unlike however one makes “Jack Ohman” illustrations in Botcreative.com. I am puzzling over this, trust me. Maybe I’ll call Two-Time Steve. He’s only 54.

Let me look at this program again. One sec.

Nope. I continue to be a dope.

Well. Fine. Would you like to know the fancy technical non-bot art supplies I use to create the “Signature Jack Ohman Illustrator Style That Is World-Renowned”?

A. Paper.

B. Bic mechanical pencil.

C. Rollerball Micro.

D. Flair Pen (yes, a Flair pen)

E. A $5 cheapo brush.

Then I throw into Photoshop, where I use a SINGLE LAYER.

I know. Mr. Fancy. DaVinci, really.

I will keep trying to get this Botcreative thing to work. If any of you can figure it out, type in “Jack Ohman” and see what comes up. Then when it asked for some prompt, put in “Joe Biden” and “cartoon”. See if you can do what your Faithf’l Obd’t. S’v’nt cannot. I am all ears and eyes.

Meanwhile, I have to go get some some new art supplies at Rite Aid, along with my BP meds.

This new technology is making me stroke out.

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Folks, I’ll catch y’all later. Have a great evening! Will post the Cartoon Week in Review tomorrow —J.