I make my own page terrible with these two mighty human hands.

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So despite having promised “no A.I. on this site, no intelligence of any kind on this site,” here I am discussing a little A.I. stuff with you. But it’s stuff that was inflicted on me, not anything I created to, I don’t know, save time by making my page terrible.

But anyhoo, I was searching for something regarding my site on the increasingly aggravating Google, which threw up (I mean that almost literally) one of its A.I. “summaries” or “hallucinations,” whichever more closely applies, that included this statement about this webpage’s name, “Mike Sterling’s Progressive Ruin.”


Leaving aside the awkward hyphenation of the word “modern,” I am here to say “Mike Sterling’s Progressive Ruin” refers to neither of those things. Especially that last bit, which makes me sound like one of those weepy whiners who gets all aggro because Thor is a woman for a couple of years. Or because anything in comics is a woman. Or not white. Or not straight.

Okay, enough scolding, back to the site’s title. “Mike Sterling’s Progressive Ruin” is something of a self-effacing, dark-humored gag. As revealed waaaaaaay back in my first year anniversary post, when I was sure I’d probably only be doing this comics blog thing for another couple of years or so, I said

“…Well, it’s a reference to the fact that…um, well, I’m going to grow older, my body is going to weaken, my cognitive faculties will dull, and I’m eventually going to die…and as such, any record of my actions and experiences, such as through a collection of comic strips I’ve drawn, or posts on a weblog, can be seen as a document of that steady decline. Or, if you will, of my progressing ruin.”

I was only 35 years old (I think) when I wrote that. Ah, I had no idea how much my body would fail me in the future, especially my eyeballs.

That’s enough of that. I’m tempted to continue generating Google A.I. results about my site to see what else they got wrong, but I don’t want to, like, dry up Lake Michigan or whatever.

• • •

I thought I was done with the posts about licensed comics from last week, but I’ve got a few straggling questions if you don’t mind me answering.

This first one isn’t a question, I just wanted to point out Pete’s extensive coverage in my comments about the ALF comics, which I somehow neglected. He does a good job, and you should give it a read.

Here’s something from JesusWasBatman (hold on, changing my religion) who adds this bit of trivia about a licensed book:

“In terms of similarity to the source material, there’s the story about the “Seaquest DSV” comic that was cancelled after one issue, because the lead actor Roy Scheider thought it had been excessively violent and action-oriented, and withdrew permission to use his likeness.”

Now, I remember knowing this at the time it happened, but I couldn’t tell you where this information came from. Not like “if I told you I’d have to kill you” (which wouldn’t work, you’d just roll back the giant penny from the mouth of the Batcave on the third day and come out good as new), but as in “I have no idea how I knew this.”

I figure I must have caught an interview or an announcement from Diamond or some darn thing. This SeqQuest fan page here has a quote from the comic’s writer as to what happened, and it jibes perfectly with what you said.

Sean brings up the fact that the Dell/Gold Key/Whitman melange was/were pretty much the king/kings of licensed books, which I think I only barely touched upon by mentioning the Duck comics. But they did…well, pretty much everything. And most of what they put out was…close enough, I suppose. (Folks bring up the Star Trek comics from this period, where the creative teams often had to work from stills and scripts and did the best they can with varying results.) I’m not going to be able to cover this/these companies in a small paragraph, or even Charlton too, so we’ll see about doing a post on this in the future.

And just so Daniel T doesn’t think I forgot about him:

“Mike, how do you think the DC Star Trek books would work for someone who’s not really into Star Trek? I’ve always been kind of vaguely interested in them because of the talent involved.

“(My experience of ST is I’ve seen the first four movies and First Contact. If I’ve seen an episode of TOS I was too young to remember it. I’ve seen one episode of TNG, one of Voyager and one of Discovery.)”

If that’s the Trek you’ve been exposed to, when the original DC series (the only started by Mike W. Barr and Tom Sutton) will probbably be your best bet. Keep in mind that one of the early multi-issue storylines involves the Mirror Universe, an alternate universe where evil duplicates of our crew lives, that basically functions as a follow-up to an episode of the original series.

But there are many stories in the run that don’t depend on much deeper knowledge that whatever you may have gleaned from the films, so you’ll do fine. And when you get to that point in the reading, there are comic book adaptations of films 5 and 6 you can read, too! (But honestly, just watch ’em…5 is better than its reputation would have you believe, and 6 is a fun send-off for that portion of the franchise.)

• • •

Thanks as usual for all the great comments, and we’ll see what we can get up to on Wednesday that isn’t part five of this series of posts!

15 thoughts on “I make my own page terrible with these two mighty human hands.”

  1. @ Daniel T.

    I recommend watching Star Trek TOS–it is a product of its time, but it also has so much that was progressive and forward thinking, and the chemistry between the cast is great.

    I went to a symposium at UCSB over the weekend, “Media Industries and AI: Emerging Trends and Critical Conversations,” which was thought provoking.

    In terms of tying it in to licensed properties in general, and Star Trek in particular, it really made me think that it could be intriguing to use the technology to, for instance, give us new Star Trek episodes depicting the last two years of the original five year mission, perhaps even utilizing some teleplays by D.C.
    Fontana, or other TOS writers, which were never used. Considering that William Shatner, George Takei, and Walter Koenig are still with us, their voices and de-aged faces could be utilized, if they wanted to recreate their roles. And I know that James Doohan’s son portrayed Scotty on a YouTube fan-made Star Trek show awhile ago, and perhaps Leonard Nimoy’s son could portray Spock–perhaps with AI versions of their father’s faces. I guess one of the big questions/hurdles would be whether the estates of DeForest Kelley, Nichelle Nichols, Majel Barrett (and Nimoy and Doohan) would allow their likenesses to be used? But even if not, it could be intriguing to see de-aged versions of Shatner, Takei, and Koenig attempting the project–despite Shatner and Takei not getting along with each other–with other actors cast in various roles. I mean, If Harrison Ford was de-aged in the last Indiana Jones film, why not de-age Shatner to play Kirk in his prime again?

    I ended up chatting with one of the panelists, Jennifer Howell (Chief Creative Officer of Deep Voodoo–which is a company co-founded by Matt Stone and Trey Parker which specializes in deepfake technology), after the symposium, about the Star Trek TOS idea and some other things, such as the possibilities of using AI to try to “restore” as best as possible, lost films–especially public domain films like, for example, the 1927 Lon Chaney film “London After Midnight,” where only fragments of the original film have been found.

    And one has to wonder, by 2034 and 2035, when the first iterations of Superman and Batman enter the public domain, what will people do with those characters as regards film utilizing AI?

    https://www.carseywolf.ucsb.edu/pollock-events/mi-ai-panel/

  2. They did a semi-official Star Trek film last year with a de-aged (and resurrected) Spock…Unification I think it was called. Nimoy estate and Shatner approved it. Original Gary Mitchell and Saavik in it too, plus a surprise Discovery cameo. Worth a look.

  3. @ Randal

    Thank you for the information, I had not heard about this.

    It seems that collectively there are four short films in the Star Trek “765874” series so far:

    1. “765874”
    2. “765874 – Memory Wall”
    3. “765874 – Regeneration”
    4. “765874 – Unification”

    Here are links:

    https://youtu.be/Ng8qTIythnA?si=0LYRnuwSvmqDg9eJ

    https://youtu.be/fzeznWVQu5o?si=4JKI0F5zS_ynzhPH

    https://youtu.be/_KXU2Ob8gYY?si=-Xr_0cjBFROnPJ10

    https://youtu.be/mgOZFny7F50?si=Keeb1Z6d3H1TK8ZT

    And here is more information about the project:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roddenberry_Archive#765874_shorts

  4. @ Randal

    Thank you for the information, I was unaware of this.

    There are four short films in the Star Trek “765874” project.

    1. “765874”
    2. “765874 – Memory Wall”
    3. “765874 – Regeneration”
    4. “765874 – Unification”

  10. Sean–

    I’ve always intended to watch TOS, TNG, and DS9. But in a world where so much media is so readily available, it’s easy to get distracted.

  11. “I recommend watching Star Trek TOS–it is a product of its time, but it also has so much that was progressive and forward thinking, and the chemistry between the cast is great.”

    Good Gawd, YES.

    “because Thor is a woman for a couple of years”

    Just read a short stack of those. They were OK.

    ” when the original DC series (the only started by Mike W. Barr and Tom Sutton) will probbably be your best bet”

    Fist couple years of that: GOOD STUFF. After that: hit or miss.

    “I mean, If Harrison Ford was de-aged in the last Indiana Jones film, why not de-age Shatner to play Kirk in his prime again?”

    The argument against might be the REVIEWS of that movie. I have mixed feelings.

    “try to “restore” as best as possible, lost films–especially public domain films like, for example, the 1927 Lon Chaney film “London After Midnight,” ”

    OK, I would love to see THAT.

    “William Shatner”

    DENNY CRAINE!

  12. @Snark Shark

    Re: The Thor as Jane Foster stuff–I stumbled across a video recently where Don Glut said that he and Rick Hoberg got a nice payday from Disney/Marvel for the “Thor:Love & Thunder” film. Cool to know, since Glut and Hoberg created the original “What If…?” story where Jane Foster became Thoris.

    Re: the DC Star Trek series, I know that I bought at least two years worth of the run back when they came out, and I do like Mike W. Barr as a writer, but I recall that the art looked somewhat bland– which is surprising, because Tom Sutton was generally a very good artist. My other critique is that Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Sulu, Scotty, Uhura, Chekov, Chapel,and company were dressed in those tacky looking burgundy uniforms that someone in the ST film franchise thought was a good idea to foust upon the cast.

    By to contrast, I think the short lived Marvel series which built off of the first Star Trek film, has better art by Dave Cockrum and Klaus Janson, Gil Kane, Luke McDonnel and Gene Day, etc. (and a few Frank Miller covers), and definitely better costumes. It also has scripts by Marv Wolfman, Martin Pasko, Tom DeFalco, J.M. DeMatteis, and Mike W. Barr.

    And, giving a shout out to the original Gold Key Star Trek comics from the late’60s through ’70s, many issues in that run have scripts by DC stalwarts Arnold Drake, George Kashdan, Len Wein, and Dick Wood. There is also some good art by Al McWilliams, and Italian artists Alberto Giolitti, and Nevio Zeccara.

    Also, the Gold Key Star Trek comics kept the flame going during the ’70s after TOS was cancelled and before Star Trek: The Motion Picture came out–so, extra kudos to Gold Key for that.

  13. “since Glut and Hoberg created the original “What If…?” story where Jane Foster became Thoris”

    That was in the reprint book I read!

    “Marvel”

    I found Marvel’s series VERY inconsistent.

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