Hey, and hello to new subscribers and regular readers.If you clicked the free-to-read prequel to the Spectral Detective Series, called Into Darkness, I hope you are enjoying the story.

I am in editing mode, which is quite monocular, concentrating on the first part of King in the Dark, which I hope to launch soon!

It’s hard in the modern era not to be distracted by shiny things, and X, formerly a social media site called Twitter, is my main go-to for news. A comic book creator, Rob Liefeld, of Deadpool fame, fired a shot across Marvel’s bow: “Marvel has a bad GM. Several actually,” he tweeted. “In sports, these guys get removed.” I had to ask, what’s a GM? General manager, Grok informed me, is the person running the show. Liefeld’s tweet points to a deeper malaise—not just Marvel’s cinematic universe, but poor stewardship across Hollywood and the entertainment industry.

This got me thinking about comics themselves. Comics, after all, are a kind of modern mythology, gods and heroes, of old reimagined, some, but not all, with a Science Fiction veneer, others unapologetically magical. Forged in 1930s newsprint.

Now, enter the 21st century. Okay, I’m still waiting for my promised flying car. Still, thanks to Elon Musk, we are going to Mars, and we have robotics—first self-driving cars, and soon Optimus, a humanoid automaton that looks like Asimov’s robots writ real, promising to revolutionise homes and workplaces.

Comics reflect this leap from imagination to reality—they’re fables, born from dynamic duos: wordsmith and illustrator. Sometimes one super-man did it all. Today, AI is fast approaching a place where it can bridge the gap for the also-rans. Take my Spectral Detective idea—a blind noir detective with supernatural sight begins with a Nazi castle for biblical relics. A pulp era hero, something of the Shadow or Doc Savage, ideas that gave us Comic books, and later movies like Indiana Jones. I used AI to check historical events and terms, details like a Carlisle First Aid Packet.

AI’s not always right; human oversight is very much needed—but it’s getting better. Then there are pictures, and image generation has become video generation, with Grok Imagine promising 15 seconds, up from 6, next week. Snippets, sure, but it won’t be long before AI-facilitated movies and playable games will emerge from everyday people working in their homes

Things change. Once books were incredibly expensive being hand copied. Then the printing press changed that.

I think AI can aid storytellers and creators in bringing ideas to life in ways that only traditional, expensive publishing and cinema/television could. Without our input, AI might lack soul, but with it, we can craft stories that resonate. What do you make of AI’s role in creativity?

Hit me up on X or drop me a line—I’d love to hear your thoughts, and keep an eye out for King in the Dark’s launch!