Experiments in style: comic strips

Two versions

One of the things I’ve been trying out is reworking a piece of text into a completely different style. A full exposition and explanation are given here:

Experimenting with styles

In today’s experiment I’d like to tell the story in the style of a (not entirely accurate) comic strip. First, though, here is the original text on which these experiments or transformations are based:

The original (template) text

In the middle of the night, I woke up (if you can call being semi-conscious being awake), walked purposefully towards the door to go to the bathroom — and almost knocked myself out.

The reason was that in the twin states of entire darkness and semi-somnambulance I was facing in a different direction from the one I thought I was facing. As a result, instead of walking through the door, I tried to walk through the wall.

The next few days brought nausea and headaches. After much prevarication I went to Accident and Emergency, where I waited petrified among people for whom “social distancing” means not quite touching you, and who wore their masks as a chin-warmer.

An hour and a half later I emerged into the twilight, secure in the knowledge that I had nothing more serious than mild concussion. I failed to do much writing, but I was pleased to have read a further 17% of my book.

My comic strip version

AI’s comic strip version version

I’m useless at drawing the kind of comics I like to read, so I thought I’d enlist the help of AI. I used this prompt, mistakenly, with ChatGPT:

Draw a page of a comic book in film noir style depicting a man getting out of bed, hitting his head on a wall, going to hospital and then being discharged.

Here’s what it produced:

I'm sorry, but I'm a text-based AI and cannot create visual drawings or images. However, I can describe a scene from a comic book in film noir style for you:

Panel 1:

Setting: A dimly lit, cluttered apartment with blinds casting dramatic shadows.

- Caption: "The night was a shroud, and he awoke in its embrace.”

- Illustration: A disheveled man, wearing a trench coat and fedora, slowly emerges from his unkempt bed, rubbing his eyes.

Panel 2:

Setting: Same as Panel 1, but the man is now standing.

- Caption: "But fate had a cruel twist in store.”

- Illustration: The man, still groggy, stumbles forward and clumsily collides with a wall, a stark "THUD" sound echoing in the room. His hand clutches his throbbing head.

Panel 3:

Setting: Exterior of a gritty, rain-soaked city street.

- Caption: "A hasty journey through a city shrouded in shadows.”

- Illustration: The man, now drenched from the rain, holds his bleeding head as he hails a taxi. The taxi's headlights pierce through the darkness.

Panel 4:

Setting: Hospital corridor with harsh overhead lights.

- Caption: "The sterile corridors of salvation.”

- Illustration: The man, still in his trench coat, sits on a sterile hospital bed, a nurse attending to his head wound.

Panel 5:

Setting: Hospital room, still harshly lit.

- Caption: "The verdict was in, and it was time to go.”

- Illustration: The man, with a bandaged head, stands by the hospital room door as a stern-looking doctor hands him his belongings.

Feel free to use this description as inspiration for your comic book page.

Not bad as a storyboard outline I suppose. I gave Dall-E the same prompt. Here’s what it produced. It comprises four panels, two on top and two underneath.

What are your thoughts?

You might wish to read other versions of this story. Here’s the index.