AI Storyboard Comedy

 ... isn't going to be as easy as I'd hoped.

I was doing something or other at the computer when the theme song to the Bond movie "The Man with the Golden Gun" popped into my head. Naturally, I changed the lyrics to "The Man with the Golden Cat" and part of my brain asked to be excused, went downstairs into my subconscious and came back a few minutes later with this idea.

What about doing a Bond takeoff comedy where the stories are told in the form of storyboard art created by ChatGPT? Each episode or chapter would be a couple of images with a paragraph or two of summary. The comedy would come from the lead character being BobbyLee Bond, James Bond's American cousin from Dixie. He'd be in all the same kinds of settings, but he'd have the fish-out-of-water humor by wearing overalls, a camo baseball cat and being accompanied by his basset hound, General Beauregard.

He thinks he's all suave and sophisticated, but everyone around him is constantly exasperated by him and his stubborn, lazy hound.

The villain would be the Man with the Golden Cat. Just what he does with the cat or how he gets it or who it belongs to is anyone's guess right now.

In addition to the General, BobbyLee would be assisted by his cat, Cat. Cat would be a standard gray-silver tabby with a lousy attitude and disdain for everyone and everything. He'd insert himself whenever he was annoyed and the results would shake up the story line.

Here, Cat has snuck into the villain's HQ and is pressing a red button on his desk just because he doesn't like anyone in the place and is hoping the red button will make something bad happen to them. Frankly, Cat doesn't care what happens to anyone.

The problem with the concept was the same old one, which I had forgotten. I can't get the same BobbyLee from one image to the next. Here, Bond and the Bond girl, Maxine Gams, are in a speedboat with General Beauregard. It's a scene where Maxine is supposed to look sultry and alluring, but she's overcome with an allergy attack because she's allergic to basset hounds.

As you can see, that's a totally different BobbyLee.

Here's BobbyLee at MI 6 HQ, getting his assignment.

You might be able to make the case that this BobbyLee is the same as the first one, but that was just random chance hitting somewhere near the target.

Over at Playground, a different AI art creator, you can actually use celebrities and historical figures as your templates and the results are decent. I asked for Robert E. Lee as a superspy and got this.

That was excellent, but interacting with Playground is like dying, only without the good parts. Each image is prompted by descriptive terms. When I tried to get Lee into overalls, the result was horrendous. It was the same guy, but the feel was all wrong. Playground is making individual images with no reference to the story. In ChatGPT, you can tell a story interactively with the AI and then at regular intervals, ask for it to create an illustration of what just happened. Playground would be a never ending root canal as I tried one set of descriptive terms after another, hoping to get an image close to what I had in mind.

So ChatGPT is a dream partner for creating fiction, but its refusal to use real people as templates makes it improbable that I could pull off something like this.

Having said that, it's still a ton of fun.

At least Cat thinks so.

It looks like the villain's Rolls Royce is going to need some body work. Cat couldn't care less.

Super Special Bonus AI Conversation

To give you an idea of how much fun it can be to create fiction with ChatGPT these days, here's a conversation between us.

Me: Come up with an idea of your own where Cat wrecks things in the villain's HQ out of boredom, doing normal cat things.

ChatGPT: How about an image of Cat, the indifferent gray tabby, accidentally unleashing a swarm of robot spiders in the villain's headquarters out of sheer boredom? Picture this: Cat is in a dimly lit, high-tech lab filled with various experimental gadgets. In his quest for a cozy spot, he chooses to nap on what looks like an ordinary shelf. Unbeknownst to him, his weight presses down on a hidden button, activating a container which releases hundreds of small, mechanical spiders. The spiders, initially contained for a nefarious purpose, start scuttling all over the lab, causing chaos and disrupting the villain's plans. Cat, meanwhile, remains nonchalantly curled up, completely indifferent to the havoc he's caused, simply enjoying his nap amidst the pandemonium.

Me: That's a good one, but the comedy element of Cat is that he does all of these things intentionally because he doesn't care what happens to anyone except BobbyLee and General Beauregard, whom he loves.

ChatGPT: Got it! Let’s create a scene that captures Cat's mischievous nature with a touch of intentional chaos:

Imagine Cat, the sleek gray tabby, lounging on the control panel in the villain’s high-security surveillance room. With a bored expression, he stretches out, deliberately pressing a sequence of buttons with his paws. As a result, he switches off all the security monitors and unlocks every door in the headquarters. The henchmen scramble to regain control, while Cat observes their panic with detached amusement, flicking his tail leisurely. The scene would visually contrast the high-tech, alert environment with Cat's serene disinterest, highlighting his cunning and carefree attitude towards anyone outside his little circle of loved ones.