← The Good Ship Illustration
The Good Ship Illustration
Is AI Coming for your job? Illustrators are fighting back! (Part 2) with Chris Haughton
00:22:47
Loading summary
Transcript34 lines
- [00:25]
Helen
Another question. A nun says, how long were you working as an illustrator before you were offered to write and illustrate your own books? Did you have an agent who encouraged you to write and illustrate your own work?
- [00:35]
Chris
I mean, I. I wasn't offered. I. So it's a funny story, actually. So for years I was trying to write a picture book, so I really wanted to do that. And I went to. I mean, I was going home to Ireland every. Every Christmas and I'd meet all my old friends and they're like, oh, what are you up to? And I was like, I'm trying to write a children'. And every year it got embarrassing saying, oh, yeah, where's the children's book? Whatever. Anyway, after about five years I was selling this to my studio mate and she was like, oh, you should go to Bologna Book Fair just as a deadline, because then you'd have to write a children's book or do a draft of children's book, you know, because that's. That's a deadline. So I booked my ticket to Bologna. I literally spent the last weekend trying to come up with a children's book idea and managed to do it. You know, a vague idea of a children's book went around children's, like all of the publishers, and I was offered a contract from a Korean publisher. And so then I made that, and then it wasn't going to get translated into English. So, like, this is like 18 months later, it still wasn't translated into English. So I went back to. To Bologna two years later and with these Korean children's books, and I was at like giving them to publishers, like asking, you know, would they consider translating it. And then it did get translated and that's when I got it published with Walker. And so, yeah, it was really just trying to get into to that. And it was funny, actually, my first. When I went to Bologna the first time, my work kind of stood out like a sore thumb because it was computer generated and a lot of the children's books were quite watercolor or traditional stuff. So there was only a few publishers that took an interest. And actually the Korean one was. It was a really artsy publisher and some of the European ones were doing more sort of graphicy stuff, but a lot of the British publishing houses weren't. So, you know, my work definitely didn't really sort of fit in with a lot of the children's books at that.
- [03:12]
Helen
Time, which is another endorsement of the whole kind of find your voice, fly a freak flag, isn't it? I can imagine at the time it probably really scared the horses because it didn't really look like anything else, did it? He didn't look like children's books. But now you have created in a new avenue for children's books in many ways because it was quite groundbreaking.
- [03:34]
Chris
Yeah, I mean, I mean it's, it doesn't look unusual now but yeah, definitely at the time there was. I mean it didn't look in any way unusual amongst the sort of. The work in magazines and newspapers, which is where I had come from. I mean I wasn't innovating anything but it just hadn't migrated over to children's books in it. So. Yeah, I mean I worked. I didn't say that in the talk or anything, but I worked for a year. When Was that? Around 2004 or something like that. 2004 in. In an animation studio in London and there was an amazing animation studio called Studio AKA and they did, they did. Hey Dougie. And they were doing lots of. They do brilliant work but it was mainly advertising and. But they were all very much sort of computer generated stuff and very. Almost like graphic designers making animation really. So I sort of picked up the ways of working from them and then sort of transferred it to the other things I was doing really.
- [04:52]
Helen
Can we ask us in relation to one of the questions in the chat. Margaret's saying, when you get demons of doubt creeping in, just thinking the confidence that you had, obviously from your early stage in your career during editorial and advertising, you knew that there was an appetite for your work but to maintain that confidence as you searched for a publisher to take that on. And I love the way that you didn't even need an agent, you found your Korean tribe and like you say, perhaps a more artsy, progressive publisher who was prepared to take a risk and could recognize the quality in your work. How have you ever dealt with doubt about what am I doing?
- [05:33]
Chris
Yeah, I mean, especially with the. I mean the early stage my career. Like you'd be pumping out illustrations so regularly like the editorial things, you know, often it's like next day turnaround and stuff like that. But yeah, the first. I mean I used to be like, oh my God, is that. Is it. It's either brilliant or terrible. I mean, you know, you know, and.
- [06:00]
Helen
But it's three in the morning and you can't tell the difference anymore.
- [06:04]
Chris
Yeah, yeah. And you know, is it, is it too simple or is it that it looks like I'm getting away with something or. And so this sort of thing. But if you're doing it again and again and Again. And I mean, I look up, you know, I kept folders for. This is the work I did in 2002, this is the work I did in 2003. And each illustration would. Would be in a different folder. And some of them have like 75 folders in it. Different. These would be illustration projects. So, like, you're doing a lot of illustrations. Some of them might be a whole campaign. And yet, like we. I had to do that amount of work to get money for rent. Like, it was just, I mean, you get like, some of them, we like a few hundred quid or whatever for sort of editorial illustration. And you know, you just have to do. You'd be doing at least one or two a week and then hoping for. For an advertising illustration. But yeah, you just sort of, after a while. Yeah. I mean, you even get to know that the art directors and everything, and you're like, they're, it's fine.
- [07:19]
Helen
They said they actually tell you, we're going to print.
- [07:21]
Chris
It's fine, Chris, don't worry. Okay.
- [07:23]
Helen
You know, the art director reassured you and you desensitized yourself by producing so much work that you, you put the doubt to sleep.
- [07:34]
Chris
Yeah, well, and the thing with, actually the really useful thing with working in animation was just how ruthless and brutal everything was. You know, you'd come up with a sort of storyboard and they're like, no accident accent. You're like, ah. And then it's just gone. And then you realize it's much, it's much better. After they edited out all the bits that, you know, you were sort of. You'd worked. It.
- [08:04]
Helen
Says, kill all your darlings. You need that with collaboration, though, don't you, for someone that you trust to say, no, I'm sorry, you can't put that in. That's going to go, yeah.
- [08:13]
Chris
And another thing that was interesting, you know, I'd never thought about using words and writing, but working with advertising copywriters and stuff like that, I was honestly jealous of their job. I just thought, wow, that's so much fun. They just sit around and come up with a slogan and it's a sort of funny, witty slogan. And I was like, ah, that seems like great fun. Then it works really well with the illustration. Or they say, oh, well, since you've done that, I'm going to change the wording like this. Oh, that. You know, I want to be doing that. So that was one of the things that, well, just sort of made me realize, oh, I could write, I could try that. It's not so hard if you just, you know, the illustration is there and you've just got a sentence underneath it, you know, what is that sentence? What makes us the funniest illustration it can be? And it's, it's just the wording and it's either funny or it's not funny, you know what I mean? And so that was very inspiring for me just getting to work with all these other sort of creatives who each were had a different angle on what we were putting out.
- [09:31]
Helen
Yeah, that whole thing of like the word is apple but the illustration is a banana so that you're never repeating it and there's the interplay between it. That's a great piece of advice for people who are a bit nervous about writing to think of themselves as author illustrators and making the story picture led in that way. Have you got another question, Helen?
- [09:51]
Margaret
There's one from Anna about AI. Should illustrators be highlighting the legal and professional guarantees we provide? The things we automatically agree to when we sign contracts but might overlook since they're non creative? Or do you think government's weakening in copyright means some clients will stop caring about getting sued? I don't exactly know what the question means maybe a little bit. And how it, do you think it's going to threaten illustrators careers?
- [10:20]
Chris
I'm very worried about this. Yeah, I, I actually when I first moved to London in around 2003 I, the AOI association of Illustrators had this, they offered this course where they said we'll teach you copyright over two weekends and if you do this course and agree to look at members contracts, you know, provide them with advice, you get free membership. So I did that and I did it for about five years and it was just a way of me to sort of connect with the illustration community here. And so a lot of the copyright advisors I'm still in touch with with them all, they were really worried and are really worried about the whole situation with so for people who don't know any work that you make, whether that's illustration or writing or music, composing, whatever, if you make it, you don't have to do anything. It's already the copyright is with you and if someone is inspired by it that's fine. If someone copies it they, they're infringing your, your copyright. And what, what has, what generative AI does is hoovers up billions of images. So the mid journey and a lot of the image gen AI image things they have been using this sort of database of 5.6 billion images and they're training, they're Basically scanning like the entire images and then reproducing the work. So you know, if you type in, do a squirrel in the style of Chris Horton or whatever, it will come up with sort of my colors and sort of a graphic sort of squirrel. And this is clearly illegal. It's absolutely illegal in, under copyright law. But the government is trying to change that because they're being paid big tech has enormous amounts of money and they've been, you know, I mean they've been cozying up to the, the, the government. Like Claire Barkley is. She was ex CEO of Microsoft uk. She's now the Minister for Industrial Strategy. Lord Valance was head of like a. Something Poly something which was bought by Google. Basically it's a Google company and he's Minister for Science I think it is. But basically there's, you know, so that I'm actually going to the House of commons with the AOI in about 10 days time to argue our case in front of MPS labor, mps. But yeah, it's, it's very worrying. I mean it's, there's lots of ongoing court cases at the moment and because anyone who produces creative work, there's 2.4 million people in the UK that are part of the sort of creative industries and that, I mean potentially, I mean Gen AI is taking your work and without taking like any permission is using your work and then producing something that is potentially competing with you. So it's completely ludicrous to, to want to change copyright to suit them. So yeah, it's a very worrying development. But yeah, the, the, the press is, is with us. But I mean I, I don't know how powerful the press is anymore. There's a statistic that I heard that Google and Facebook together earn more through advertising than every single newspaper in the world combined. Like so you're sort of fighting against a giant. Like it's, this is, this is the situation. So. But I, I actually, I have a, I have a history of copyright in the book, in my book. So there's like, it's actually, it's very, I mean it, it sounds a lot more interesting or it is a lot more interesting than it sounds, but it is really interesting and it actually. Copyright came from censorship, an attempt on censorship and that's where we got copyright. Anyway, so I've probably all gathered here tonight.
- [15:32]
Margaret
I think I, I just feel like saying thank you so much for doing all this research and going to Parliament on our behalf because I feel unequipped and I'm glad you've got the kind of brain that can hold all this information and talk about it confidently. Brilliant.
- [15:47]
Chris
No, well, yeah, please do get involved and you know, I, I, I share things occasionally follow the AI and if you're not already a member, join the aoi. They're doing amazing, amazing work and they're the thing that, you know, they are the equivalent of our union, closest thing we have to a union. So they're sticking up for our rights and there's others, you know, Dax and others. But Society of Authors and the association of Illustrators are fighting this together and, and they, they regularly have meetings. You know, Derek Brazelle from the AOI was saying it's really incredible because they literally have every, they have meetings now with all, you know, from musicians to journalists to authors, illustrators. Everybody is absolutely terrified of this. And they're all coming together and we're thinking there's a little group that we've, from the aoi, we actually met up couple of days ago and we're thinking of doing some sort of strike, I don't know, but with sort of social media strike. We're going to try and do a little animation about to explain the situation to get more and more people involved in this. But yeah, it's, it's really, really worrying because I think it's not just our creative thing. The, the, the problem is like, who holds the governments to account now if they have reduced all writers, journalists, authors, artists. We're always the annoying ones that sort of go, no, you're not doing this, or whatever. I mean, this is why we have freedom of speech. But if we don't have any way of paying any authors because Chachi PT is doing it, we don't have a voice and they're using our voice against us because it's like everything that went into chat to make ChatGPT GPT was created by us, it wasn't created by them. It's just, yeah, it's criminal. It's absolutely criminal. And I can't believe this labor government is siding with them.
- [18:03]
Helen
Yeah. Chris, is there anywhere outside of the AOI or is there a way to join without having to buy the AOI membership? I'm only asking that from a kind of. If you're economically saying I can't afford membership, they need to gather as many.
- [18:19]
Chris
Oh, absolutely. No. And you don't need to, to sign up as a member. You can just follow them on Instagram. They're always posting about any, you know, the latest developments. Simona has a blog called against the Box as a substack thing. And she's posting regular updates about. About Gen AI and. And the sort of fight against us.
- [18:46]
Helen
We just need to get all the creatives together, don't we? Musicians, artists, writers, and globally into one. Each country is going to have its own approach. Do you think. Do you think the UK is worse with the hand, with them offering to hand our copyright to tech companies, or is the US the same?
- [19:05]
Chris
Well, this. That proposal was way worse. Yeah. The US and the UK copyright is slightly different. The US has this fair use thing, which is basically like, you can use quotes and, and whatever. Well, there is a huge amount of fight back in the uk. The UK really is a cultural superpower. It punches far beyond its size in, in terms of, you know, I mean, music and, and art and writing. Really, it's so. It. It's insane and we're terrible. You know, we're not terrible, but there's not that much big tech here. It's all in the us, so it just doesn't make any sense. It's like completely shooting yourself in the foot. But, I mean, the, the big tech is just cozied up to the governments. I mean, you see in Trump's inauguration, like, but it's exactly the same all around the world and they've just got money coming out of their ears, like, it's just.
- [20:12]
Helen
Let us know about the strike because we'll put that in our newsletter and we'll put all these links to the different groups working to protect their own copyright into some of our news lists. Maybe we'll do a special. We'll get everything out there and that will bring all us good shippers on in one go. I mean, we do put a lot in the Facebook group about it whenever the AOI is putting things out there, or any of the different groups, like Dax.
- [20:35]
Chris
Yeah, brilliant.
- [20:36]
Helen
So, yeah, let's keep connected on all of that so we can. We can unleash the power of the ship on them that will stop. Yeah, well, we've kind of run over. We haven't got Katie here to help us keep to our boundaries, otherwise.
- [20:50]
Chris
Sorry for going off on one with. With AI. It's just.
- [20:53]
Helen
Oh, no, we need something to do it. Because we get questions, don't we, Helen? We are aware of things, but it's like standing in a river and the river is flowing past you and whatever you say as a statement at that point will not be true in a month's time. And it's just so hard to grasp what to do other than come out in support of artists and creatives. And join all the bodies that we can that will help fight this. But we really appreciate you talking about it and all that you've done for illustrators.
- [21:22]
Margaret
Thank you for that, Chris.
- [21:24]
Chris
Yeah, no, no worries. And there's a whole group. Jed Adamson, Simona Sirola, Mamako, Abe, Benji Davies, you know, and Derek in the aoi. I mean, there's loads of people doing great, great things and so, yeah, thanks to them.
- [21:42]
Helen
Well, if you ever want to pass any info or names or actions onto us, please do and we'll send it straight out because never mess with the middle aged ladies.
- [21:53]
Chris
And the middle aged men.
- [21:54]
Helen
Yeah, the middle aged man as well. Well, when we can bring them all together, we could solve this. But I really appreciate you talking about it and, and for sharing all your ideas and your thoughts about your work and answering our questions on the spot. It's been a. It's been really nice having you here.
- [22:12]
Chris
Oh, my pleasure. Yeah. And I, I hope some of that was useful and yeah, that. Thanks so much.