Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween? Is that a thing? Do people say it?

Don't look at me. It's not really my holiday. I could ask Mrs Bhagpuss, who always says it's her favorite, although she never seems to do much for it. Mostly makes pumpkin soup and watches the Addams Family. More specifically, Wednesday Season 1 this year.

Speaking of the Addams Family...

I Enjoy Being A Girl 

Carol Burnett, Chita Rivera, Caterina Valente

I happened on that completely randomly a few days ago. I wasn't looking for Halloween songs or videos for a post or anything but I thought "OK, I can take a hint."

It's from the CBS Variety show The Entertainers, hosted by Burnett and Valente and also starring Bob Newhart. This skit was first broadcast in 1965, which makes it exactly sixty years old. Like everythng from that era it goes on a bit too long but it's still great. Boris Karloff turns up half way through, too, which is a bonus.  

The Addams Family TV show was mid-run then, having started in 1964 and lasting only until '66. It was a big deal, I guess. Carol Burnett is a legend and I'd heard of Broadway star Chita Rivera but Caterina Valente didn't ring any bells. It would have if I was on TikTok.  (That link goes to YouTube, by the way, so don't freak.)

At this point I imagine everyone's hoping I have lots more gems like the above to share. Well, I don't. Do you know how hard it is to search for unusual Halloween songs on YouTube? If not, be glad.

I tried to get some help from AI, this being exactly one of those research-assistant type jobs the megacorps keep trying to upsell their performing seals as being perfect for. Long-time readers may remember I've made several previous attempts to get ChatGPT or Gemini to do the leg-work for me when I'm putting posts like this together.

It didn't work then and it still doesn't work now. Gemini did at least explain why it doesn't work, which is because "The built-in YouTube search tool explicitly states that it "cannot filter by popularity" (which includes sorting by number of views)." Did you know that? I didn't. Don't say AI never teaches you anything.

On that basis, I wouldn't do any better acting as my own researcher, either. I was reduced to caveman level, where I just plug in keywords and hope for the best. My best was not best enough, I'm afraid. If Calishat reads this, maybe she'd like to build a low-view-count search tool for YouTube...

A deal of effort did not get me much but it did introduce me to the Hawkbirds.  

Pet Semetary - The Hawkbirds

The Hawkbirds are one of those family bands - mum and dad on guitar and drums and daughter on bass and lead vocals. I didn't even realize that's what it was until after I'd watched the video. Thanks mostly to the costumes, I thought they were all the same age, i.e. a regular teens/twenties indie band. It was only when I had a look through what else they'd done that I figured out the set-up.

They specialize in covers of punk-adjacent bands, specifically the Ramones, although they occasionally switch lanes. There are covers on their YouTube channel of songs as diverse as the Crystals' He's A Rebel and Radiohead's Creep. There are a few originals mixed in, too.

They've covered several Halloween-appropriate songs and they take the trouble to dress up so I'll throw in another. They even wish us all Happy Halloween at the start of this one. See? I knew it was a thing!

Horror Business - The Hawkbirds

Just in case that felt altogether to wholesome for Halloween, try a little of this...

 

I Go Where The Party Takes Me

The Phantom A.D.

Can you believe that comes in under two minutes? Feels a lot longer, doesn't it? He looks like he's dressed as Handsome Dick Manitoba for Halloween, which would certainly be a costume you could guarantee no-one else at the party would be wearing.

And finally, because Halloween isn't all about having fun, here's something a lot spookier.

 A Ghost - The Mall Goth Moths

Obviously I initially picked that one for the name of the band but it's a good tune and the video is... actually, genuinely disturbing and not necessarily in a good way. It would be a tough note to end on for a holiday post, too, so let's have something a bit lighter to send us out into the night dancing.

Pumpkin - The Regrettes

That's better!

Happy Halloween! 

A Plague On Both Their Houses (It's What They Would Have Wanted)

In recognition of the season, Mrs Bhagpuss, far spookier than I, has been re-watching the Addams Family movies along with the Wednesday TV show, which was presumably why she came into the kitchen as I was sitting there, eating toast the other morning and asked, a propos of nothing, "Munsters or Addams Family?".

Clearly there could only ever be one correct answer to this question, an answer which I duly gave without hesitation. That evening, though, as I was trawling YouTube for even more obscure and ludicrous Christmas songs for the 2024 Inventory Full Advent Calendar (Oh yes, it's coming...) I found myself wondering if there were any covers of the theme tunes to either of those shows.

Of course there are. Fricken' hundreds of them. There were so many, I gave up scrolling after a while. It was like one of those spiral staircases that keep going down and down and down until you scent the faint reek of brimstone wafting up to meet you...

I guess it's not surpising so many people have felt entitled to take a tilt at these two. They're both insanely catchy, as was the way of TV themes once upon a time, most especially in the 1960s, when subliminal advertising was an actual thing and the goal of most TV theme tunes seemed to be to embed a short, musical phrase so deeply into the viewer's brain it could never be dislodged even by years of therapy. 

Advertising of the time worked on the same principle, which is why anyone over fifty can sing you the jingles written to sell several dozen products and services that ceased to be a commercial proposition before you, my little angel, were ever born.

No, the question wasn't so much would there be any covers. It was would any of them be any good?

And the answer? 

Not really. 

I listened to far too many of them. Or, rather, I listened to fragments. Most of them I couldn't stick for more than the time it took to register how dull they were. Here's the thing with theme tunes of the era. They're really short and yet far too long and for good reason. 

Back in the days of broadcast TV, when it was be there or miss out, the theme needed to be highly distinctive so that everyone in the house, no matter where they were, could prick up their ears at the opening bars, put down whatever they were doing, dry their hands or adjust their clothing and have time to get to the lounge or the living room or wherever the one TV set in the house was casting flickering black and white shadows across the floral wallpaper, in time to get settled down on the sofa for the start of the actual show.

At the same time, the theme had to be short enough not to wear out the patience of anyone already watching when it began, so as to minimise the chances of their switching to another channel. A delicate balancing act, especially when the music also needed to be supported by something to watch while you were waiting for the damn show to start.

None of which really leans into the strengths of three minute pop songs, which is what theme tunes turn into when musicians get their claws into them. Even if you cut that three minutes in half it seems long. Most covers of The Addams Family theme clock in around 1.45 and it still drags.

The Munsters theme benefits from having no words. It's easier to listen to an instrumental that overstays its welcome because it's easier to tune it out. Which isn't much of a compliment, now I think about it. 

The odd thing about that is that the Munsters theme actually does have lyrics. They just aren't used in the opening to the show. You can hear them on an L.P. (That's a kind of vinyl record they used to have in the olden days before the Beatles invented The Album.) It was called "At Home With The Munsters" and it came out in 1964, which seems surprisingly early, although I imagine in the UK we got the show several years late.

Being an instrumental also fits the Munsters theme very well for the kind of bands who seem keenest to take a crack at it. Given the macabre theme, you might expect it would be goths but I imagine most goths wouldn't be willing to acknowledge the comedic influence even of the genuinely macabre Addams Family, much less the cartoonish slapstick of the Munsters. 

Surf bands, though... they freakin' love this kind of stuff. And the theme itself is kinda surfy already so it's not a long reach. The early sixties was the heyday of surf rock so the synergies are clear. The Munsters theme does work as a surf tune, even at three minutes plus. I found it far easier to listen to a few of those all the way through than to hear all that finger-clicking and herky-jerky, stop-start performance art from the folks who like to dress up as Wednesday and Fester.

Because oh yes, you have to drag up if you're going to cover the Addams Family. It's the law. I mean. quite a few of the guys doing the Munsters theme give a nod to Fred Gwynne's goofy take on Frankenstein but it's so much easier to put on a black frock and white socks and do your hair up in pigtails than it is to get a bolt through your neck...

Anyway, that's enough pre-amble. Let's have some of the more listenable examples I found. Somewhere in the Addams Family's sub-basement there's a helpless fan who stopped by to get an autograph and just happened to mention they loved the theme tune, who's now trapped there, doomed to watch every cover version ever recorded on a loop. Forever.

Sorry. That was The Good Place bleeding over I think. Which is kind of appropriate. That show is turning out to be a lot spookier than I was expecting...

First up, I think we should remind ourselves of the originals.

There's a version someone hand-colorised, too, if you're into that.

Good job! As Miss Rachel would say. Up against this, though...

Class will out, as the saying goes.

And now, the covers. I think three of each ought to be more than enough. Let's have them take it in turns, like it's some kind of competition.

That's Surfquake. The sound's a bit muddy but bonus points for working a little Led Zeppelin in towards the end there.

From the aptly-named "Covers No-One Asked For" channel, this stands out for being what a good cover should be, namely recognizable but also very different from the original. Bonus points for doing Morticia and Gomez not Wednesday and Fester.

At this point you should have just watched a video credited only to "4 sisters". It's four sisters. In their house. And a fifth sister who runs in and out of shot at the beginning and the end. Unfortunately, they turn out to be on one of those irritating channels that blocks playback anywhere other than YouTube so you'll have to go there to watch it. It's worth the trip. The concentration on display could fuel a mission to Mars. Bonus points for no-one dressing up as Wednesday. Not like any of them needed to...

Anyway, I had to substitute, so what better than fourteen (By my count.) kids playing the spooktacular theme outdoors on a blazingly sunny day? They're Miramonte's Modern Band because nothing says "modern" like a cover of a sixty year-old TV theme. Bonus points for there being so many of them and not one of them looking like they ever saw the show.

I don't know about you but I'm always saying how there just aren't enough washboard covers on YouTube. Worth watching all the way through. The ending is really weird. Bonus points for dressing up as Wednesday and getting it right, for once.

I'll see your washboard and raise you a harpsichord, a tuba and an accordion. Bonus points for keeping it really short.

And finally, a Blues Rock band from Lyon France because who doesn't want to hear that? Especially with guest vocals from a woman who sounds like Violet Elizabeth Bott on helium. The band is called Midnight Burst, which doesn't sound very french to me and the singer is Astrid Gaspari, "singer of B-Odd, Fancy Hell and Back to the Seventies", all of whom I'm going to check out immediately I finish this post. Bonus points for... well, everything.

That's it. I'm done. Happy Halloween!

Why Keep A Hellhound And Bark Yourself?

After the comprehensive collapse of my clever plan to have a couple of generative AIs do all my work for me this year by getting one to write a script for another to illustrate, I decided to let them play to their strengths instead by getting one to create some seasonally-appropriate spot illos (As we used to call the pictures we added to break up the text back in my 'zine days.), while another found me some suitably spooky musical selections to accompany them. Granted, I'd have to paste the damn thing together but it would still be a lot easier than writing the whole blasted post myself.

I asked ChatGPT 

Please give me ten prompts suitable for generating images using an AI text-to-image Image generator like Midjourney. They should all be themed for Halloween and be suitable for use on a gaming/music/entertainment blog with a literate and educated readership.

You can preen now.

If anyone's doubting just how lazy I can be, there's the evidence right in front of you. I have never used Midjourney. It's just the best-known AI of its kind and I couldn't be bothered to check the exact name of any of the ones I do use. Also I wanted to be sure ChatGPT knew what I meant and it seemed a fair bet it would have heard of Midjourney, although now I come to think of it, ChatGPT 3.5 uses a training set that only goes to September 2021 and Midjourney wasn't created until July 2022. 

Not to derail my own post (Bit late for that now...) but as this reddit thread explains, there are other operations going on behind the scenes that mean the AI can access more current data. It has access to something called "knowledge graphs", which are updated daily. Or failing that, as one redditor succinctly and accurately puts it, " it will confidently make shit up". Which, as we're about to find out, is just what one of them did. 

Of course, is also something people on reddit were doing long before we had generative AI to do it for us so that's another thing to consider. Primary research, guys. It's the only way. Bummer!

With ten somewhat lengthy descriptive prompts in hand, I moved across to NightCafe, where for some reason, most probably extreme laziness again, (I'd have had to scroll the page down to get to DreamShaper.) I opted for good old Stable Diffusion. I did at least stump up the credits for SDXL 1.0 rather than using the older, free option of SD 1.5. I may be lazy but I'm not mean. Well, not with imaginary money, anyway.

I was fully expecting the long prompts to result in barely recognizeable results. I was sort of hoping for it, actually. I thought it might be amusing. The AIs' ability to understand complex instructions is improving at an alarming pace, though, so I was both impressed and slightly disappointed to find the ten images largely matched the prompts pretty closely.

This turned out to be a pretty long introduction. Better have some art to break it up.

You can judge for yourself how well SDXL 1.0 did. I've used the exact prompts as captions. Well, except for the image directly above, which I just generated on the fly as I did the edit. The prompt for that one was ""There's a helhound on my trail" Robert Johnson. Blues. Crossroads. Midnight. 1960s album cover art." for those taking notes. Great job on Robert Johnson, the blues and album cover art but that's the prissiest hellhound I ever saw. Is he wearing a cravat?!

The image  I've used for the header came from the prompt "a dark, enchanted forest with twisted, gnarled trees and glowing jack-o'-lanterns illuminating the path of a lost traveler encountering supernatural creatures." You'll notice there are no supernatural creatures and no lost traveler, but it has managed to include every salient point up to and including "path", which is pretty good going, if you ask me. All of them are about on a par with that.

As I was considering what kind of post I could make out of the results and how I might best manage something halfway entertaining for the minimum effort on my part, it occurred to me I might liven up an otherwise static set of images with a few choice Halloween-themed tunes. I briefly considered going to YouTube to search for them myself until I realised it would be a lot easier to let Bard do it for me.

For some reason I prefer Bard for anything pop-culture related. Somehow I seem to have anthropomorphized the various leading AIs without ever meaning to and now I'm stuck with their imaginary personalities in my head. Bard is the younger, marginally hipper, slightly less nerdy one; ChatGPT is the pedantic, school-masterly one who's never really comfortable with anything you wouldn't hear discussed at High Table, and Bing is that one uncle everyone tries to avoid at family gatherings.

I asked Bard

Please give me a list of ten odd or unusual pop, rock or indie songs that reference Halloween.

I wasn't expecting much but at first sight the resulting list didn't look at all bad:

Here is a list of ten odd or unusual pop, rock, or indie songs that reference Halloween:

• "Halloween Parade" by the Louvin Brothers (1959) - A haunting country ballad about a couple who attend a Halloween parade, only to find that the other revelers are ghosts.
• "Monster Mash" by Bobby "Boris" Pickett & the Crypt-Kickers (1962) - A campy novelty song about a mad scientist who creates a monster that becomes a dance craze.
• "Transylvania Twist" by Allan Sherman (1962) - A parody of the "Twist" dance craze with a spooky Halloween theme.
• "Purple People Eater" by Sheb Wooley (1962) - A novelty song about a one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater that terrorizes a small town on Halloween.
• "Screaming Lord Sutch" by Screaming Lord Sutch (1964) - A proto-goth rock song about a vampire who rises from the grave on Halloween night.
• "Witches' Brew" by Cream (1967) - A psychedelic rock song about a witch's potion that turns people into strange creatures.
• "Season of the Witch" by Donovan (1966) - A folk-rock song about the dark magic of Halloween night.
• "Halloween" by the Misfits (1977) - A punk rock song about the night when "the dead and the living collide."
• "Halloween Man" by Yello (1982) - A synthpop song about a mysterious figure who appears on Halloween night.
• "Jack o' Lantern" by The Residents (1983) - An avant-garde rock song about a pumpkin that comes to life.
• "Halloween" by Sonic Youth (1988) - A noise rock song about the dark and dangerous side of Halloween.

I hope you enjoy this list of odd and unusual Halloween songs!

A few are a bit on the nose - Monster Mash especially - but most of the rest look more than promising. Until you run a sanity check, that is. 

I can't find any evidence the Louvin Brothers ever recorded a song called Halloween Parade, although Lou Reed did, on his New York album. It'd be hard to think of two musical acts further apart on just about every imaginable spectrum than Lou Reed and the god-fearin' Louvins. 

I asked ChatGPT to tell me what song matched Bard's description and it told me with complete confidence "The song you're describing is "Halloween Parade" by Lou Reed. It's a haunting and melancholic song that tells the story of a couple attending a Halloween parade where they discover that the other parade-goers are the ghosts of their friends and loved ones who have passed away. It's a poignant and eerie take on the theme of Halloween and loss." I ran that past lyrics.com. It's a complete misreading although I can see how you'd get there.

No-one's going to question the Bobby "Boris" Pickett classic so we'll let that pass. I confess I was completely ready to believe Allan Sherman had recorded a version of Transylvania Twist, but sadly he didn't. He recorded Bla Bla Bla Bla says Count Dracula aka My Son (Count Dracula) aka My Son, The Vampire. No-one seems able to agree on the exact title. Whatever you call it, it's terrible.

Transylvania Twist is actually by Baron Daemon and the Vampires. It's not bad, especially when set to clips from The Addams Family.

Purple People Eater is by Shep Wooley but contrary to what Bard claims, has nothing to do with Halloween. It's contestable whether the creature ever threatened anyone  - it just wanted to be a rock 'n' roll star - but even if it did, there's no evidence it happened on October 31. 

 

Perennial parliamentary wannabe Screamin' Lord Sutch released plenty of records suitable for a kitsch Halloween party (Aren't Halloween parties kitsch by definition? Ed.) but he never recorded one with his own name as the title.

 

Sixties supergroup Cream never recorded a song called Witches' Brew, either. They did record one called Strange Brew, which is about a witch, in as much as it's about anything. There are a few songs called Witches Brew (Apostrophes optional.) by other people, including Katy B and somewhat incredibly, Janie Jones, the self-same underworld entertainer celebrated by The Clash on their first album.

Season of the Witch is, of course, by Donovan as Bard says as well as a host of others. I thought I'd done a post of covers of that song but search tells me I haven't so there's one for the draft folder. Halloween by The Misfits is also real and pretty good in a Ramones pastiche kind of way. 

Swiss synth-pop duo Yello made an astonishing fourteen albums but as far as Google can tell me, they never recorded a song called Halloween Man. A couple of people did but the results are so obscure no-one's thought to upload them to YouTube. Spotify can help you if you're that interested but I can't. Similarly, situationist smart-arses The Residents do not appear to have included anything called "Jack o' Lantern" in their satirical repertoire. Shame. I was looking forward to hearing that one.

 

Last and most definitely not least, Sonic Youth and Halloween. It's real. Here it is. Worth the wait, I think.

I make that evens for Bard making up its answers. Less than evens if you include the descriptions of what the songs are about. If you ever find yourself in need of an object lesson in why you should never trust a generative AI to pick a party playlist, feel free to link to this post.

We seem to be an awfully long way down the page without any of those Halloween pictures I promised, don't we? I guess I'd better fix that now or next thing you know it'll be Bonfire Night. (Go look it up. Or ask Bard. Wait... don't do that.)

 

A hauntingly beautiful scene of a Victorian mansion surrounded by an eerie, mist-covered forest under the light of a full moon. A lone figure stands on the mansion's porch, holding a flickering lantern.

 

A spectral symphony orchestra performing in a decaying, overgrown amphitheater deep within a haunted cemetery. The musicians are ghostly figures, and their instruments emit an otherworldly glow.

A witch's apothecary filled with rows of ancient, dusty bottles containing mystical potions and ingredients. A black cat with piercing green eyes perches on the counter.

A chilling moment in a Gothic cathedral as a hooded figure in a crimson robe conducts a ritual with a mysterious, ancient grimoire while a swarm of bats spirals overhead.

A masquerade ball held in a forgotten, cobweb-covered ballroom. Elegant and eerie masks conceal the faces of phantom dancers gliding through the night.

A spooky carnival at midnight, with dilapidated rides and game booths shrouded in fog. A grinning, skeletal ringmaster beckons visitors to the eerie attractions.

A haunted pirate ship emerging from the ghostly fog, its tattered sails billowing as spectral pirates prepare to unearth their cursed treasure.

An abandoned, ivy-covered library in an ancient, cursed castle. Dusty spellbooks and scrolls are strewn about, and the ghostly librarian hovers nearby, ready to share forgotten knowledge.

A spectral ballroom where phantom dancers waltz to the eerie strains of a spectral orchestra. Their gowns and suits are adorned with spiderwebs, and the atmosphere exudes a macabre elegance.

 

And there we go. My favorites are the pumpkins at the top, the deserted library and - predictably - the cat. They're all pretty good, though. They'd make a nice Halloween slideshow. A lot better than Bard's ideas for the soundtrack, that's for sure.

As for saving me time, if anything it's taken longer than it would have if I'd gone into a game and taken some screenshots before hitting up YouTube for some keyword searches. We seem to be a good ways off the combined reliable research assistant, photographer, sketch artist and general helpmeet I was hoping for. 

Let's meet back here this time next year and see if the Halloween 2024 is the year the AIs write the post without any help from me. 

 

Now that really would be scary.

One Hundred Hours And Whole Load Of Pumpkins

Yesterday evening I finally clocked up one hundred hours in Dawnlands. I'd been stuck at 98.5 for several weeks after I suddenly and entirely unintentionally stopped playing. I'd been logging ifor an hour or two pretty much every day since the game launched back in August and then just like that I wasn't playing any more. No reason for it. I just stopped.

And now I've started again and look what's happened while I've been away. They've only gone and decorated the whole place for Halloween! And what a great job they've made of it, too.

The first thing I was greeted with was a splash page telling me there were eight days of the Enchantment Night Gala left. It didn't tell me eight out of how many but I checked and it's ten so I only missed the start.

There are four main strands to the event, three of which revolve around the inevitable special event currency, Enchanted Night Candy.  It's for spending only. Don't try to eat it. You'll get sick.

Daily quests give candy as a bonus on top of their regular rewards and if you find yourself with too much candy on your hands, the ever-hungry Carromu will happily swap it for Diamonds. 

For the more active Warriors (We're all called Warriors in Dawnlands, just like other games call everyone Adventurers.) there's the opportunity to steal candy from babies monsters, specifically the pumpkin-headed ones who only come out at night. 

Technically, it's not stealing because the monsters stole it from us and we're just taking it back. Although it's candy that only monsters can eat and it's made specially for monsters. Just not these monsters. It's complicated. My advice is just kill 'em, take the candy and don't think about it too hard!

A very nice touch is that some of those pumpkin-headed monsters are the regular little goblins who've dressed up for Halloween. Not all of them, either, just a few, which adds a weirdly convincing gloss to the nightly murder spree. I pity the poor saps who got so excited by the thought of Halloween they couldn't resist getting all dressed up - they might as well have painted targets on their backs.

There are also some new, spooky, wraithlike creatures whose pumpkin heads look a lot more sinister. They're tough, as I found out when I attacked the first one I saw but not that tough. Or maybe it's me  that's tough now. Pretty sure I wouldn't have wanted to fight them when I was new here.

The final event is double yield when you grow pumpkins. I'm not sure I want that many pumpkins but thanks for the thought.

The candy gets you all kinds of season-appropriate items in the aptly named Candy Exchange. Although the new store stocks a few items that can only be bought with cash shop currency, there's far more you can get for candy. 

That seems to be how Dawlands usually works. I'm really not sure how they're making money on this game although it appears people are playing it still. I got a big message when I logged in, reminding everyone about the rules against botting and trading accounts for real money, so I have to assume there's enough interest in the game to fuel some kind of black economy. That suggests some level of popularity, at least.

There are a few things in the candy store I'd like. Furniture, mostly. A couple of recipes. Maybe one of the wearable pumpkin heads, although I've never been a huge fan of those. Prices range from a steep 100 candies for rugs and tapestries all the way down to just twenty for a pumpkin lamp hanging from a dead tree. 

Unusually for an event like this, there's a hard cap on how many candies you can collect during the whole event. You can only do three daily quests and the night-time killfests are capped at 60 per real-world day, 440 for the whole ten days. It's a clever way of reducing the compulsion to overdo things. 

So far I have about 160 candies. There were several new one-off quests that gave me about 40 or 50 and then I did the dailies two days running, which took me over a hundred. The rest are from kills.

I haven't worked out how many I need for the things I want but I'd guess even half of what I'm allowed would be more than enough. I'll be logging in every day to do the dailies, anyway. It's a chill, fun event and it's new to me so I'm enjoying it quite a bit.

The decorations in the villages are very impressive, if not wildly over the top. There are pumpkins everywhere. There's also a nice backstory about the lore behind the festival. It would be nicer still if the translations were better but I appreciate the effort that went into it, all the same.

All in all its a very solid effort for a first major holiday. Makes me wonder what they'll do for Christmas. 

I just hope the game is still around come December. I'm not done with it yet.

Are We Nearly There Yet?

It's Halloween again and as usual I'm wondering what I can dredge up for October 31 this time.

Last year I dragged out the Adult Wednesday Addams videos which I thought were both hilarious and seasonal but no-one seemed very interested. At all. Just like no-one cared the first time I did it, which for some reason was right after Valentine's Day, although it seems I was just celebrating Wednesdays in general, which seems weird even for me.

Anyway, yesterday I began to feel the pressure of another Halloween with nothing much to bring to Show and Tell, when the obvious occurred to me: let the AIs do it! I was saying only a few days ago how they seemed to getting so good I might try getting one to draw a comic for me. Why not now?

Yeah. About that. It started out looking like it was going to be easy. It really wasn't. It was impossible.

Impossible for me, anyway. I'm far too lazy. Which is why, even though I can write, I wasn't going to be writing this script myself. As the saying goes, why buy a robot butler then fetch your own drinks? If the AIs were going to draw the damn thing, they could write it, too.  

That part was easy. Really easy. ChatGPT is getting very good at this sort of thing. So good, I didn't even bother to put the job out to tender with Bard or Bing. I asked the latest free version of ChatGPT - 3.5 - to do it. (There's a later model, 4.0, but you have to subscribe and it's $20 a month, which I think is a bit steep. I'd seriously consider $10 just to get the speech but I'm confident that will come to the free version in time and I can wait.)

I wanted to keep it simple and short so I asked:

Please write a Halloween-themed script for a comic-book featuring a talking fox, a talking cat and a young girl.  The script should be suitable to give to an artist to draw and should result in 2-4 pages of finished work. The script should include both dialog and necessary descriptions.

ChatGPT started typing instantly. It finished the whole script before I could read the first panel. When it responds that fast you know its on familiar ground. It must have seen lot of "Halloween" and "script" and "comic-book" data during its training.

The first draft was about what I expected. It was cheerful, bland and unoriginal but also very coherent. As a story it doesn't really go anywhere but then neither do most human-scripted amateur comics. I've read plenty of worse comics that were written by real people giving it their very best shot. Like some of mine, for example.

Here's the full script:

Title: "Halloween Haunters"

Page 1:
Panel 1:

    A full moon casts eerie light over a small, suburban neighborhood. Decorated houses line the street, with carved pumpkins and cobwebs adorning the porches.
    In the foreground, a young girl named LILY (around 10 years old) in a witch costume with a pointy hat, stands beside a gate, clutching a trick-or-treat bag.
    Beside Lily, a TALKING FOX named FINN (who's wearing a wizard hat and cloak) sits on his haunches. His eyes are wide with excitement.
    Beside Finn, a TALKING CAT named WHISKERS (wearing a vampire cape) lounges on the gatepost, looking nonchalant.

LILY:
(Excited)
Alright, guys, let's fill this bag with goodies!

Panel 2:
    Lily, Finn, and Whiskers approach the first house, which has a spooky skeleton decoration on the porch.
    The front door opens, and a WITCH (in a classic witch costume) hands out candy. A cauldron with treats sits nearby.

WITCH:
Happy Halloween, little witch!

LILY:
Happy Halloween!

Panel 3:

    Lily, Finn, and Whiskers each receive a candy from the witch and place them in their bags.
    Finn whispers to Lily.

FINN:
(Whispering)
I heard there's a legendary haunted house nearby. Want to check it out?

Panel 4:

    Lily, now holding a full bag of candy, grins at Finn and Whiskers.
    Whiskers looks skeptical, while Finn winks at Lily.

LILY:
Absolutely! Let's go on a spooky adventure!

Page 2:

Panel 1:   

Lily, Finn, and Whiskers stand before the infamous HAUNTED HOUSE. It looms in the background, dark and foreboding. Eerie sounds emanate from within.
LILY:
(Excited)
This place looks amazing! Let's go in!

WHISKERS:
(Skeptical)
Are you sure about this, Lily?

Panel 2:

    The trio enters the haunted house. Cobwebs, eerie portraits, and mysterious sounds create an unsettling atmosphere.
    Finn leads the way, lighting the path with a small glowing orb.

LILY:
(Laughing)
This is fantastic! So spooky!

FINN:
(Whispering)
Keep an eye out for surprises, you never know what you'll find in a place like this.

Panel 3:

    Suddenly, a GHOST (semi-transparent with a mischievous grin) appears in front of them, blocking their path. It hovers in mid-air.

GHOST:
(Playful)
Boo! Did I scare you?

LILY:
(Laughing)
You almost got me!

FINN:
(Admiring)
Nice costume!

Panel 4:

    The trio shares a laugh with the friendly ghost as they continue their journey deeper into the haunted house.

Page 3:

Panel 1:

    Lily, Finn, Whiskers, and the friendly ghost approach a door with an eerie green glow. The ghost gestures towards it.

GHOST:
(Cheerful)
This is the spookiest room! You have to check it out!

Panel 2:
    Lily, Finn, and Whiskers push open the creaky door, revealing a room filled with FLOATING PUMPKINS and GHOULS. The pumpkins have wicked grins, and the ghouls dance around, creating a mesmerizing spectacle.

LILY:
(Amazed)
Wow, this is incredible!

FINN:
(Wide-eyed)
I've never seen anything like it!

WHISKERS:
(Pretending to be unimpressed)
Eh, it's not bad.

Panel 3:

    The friendly ghost joins the dancing ghouls, and they all laugh and have a great time.

GHOST:
(Laughing)
Happy Halloween, my friends!

Panel 4:

    The trio continues to enjoy the mesmerizing room, filling their Halloween night with enchanting memories.

Page 4:

Panel 1:

    Lily, Finn, Whiskers, and the friendly ghost exit the haunted house, waving goodbye.

LILY:
(Smiling)
Thank you for the incredible adventure!

GHOST:
You're welcome! Have a spook-tacular Halloween!

Panel 2:

    The trio, now outside the haunted house, sees the moonlight casting an enchanting glow on the neighborhood.

LILY:
(Reflective)
That was the best Halloween ever.

FINN:
It sure was, Lily.

WHISKERS:
(Smiling)
I have to admit, it was pretty fun.
Panel 3:

    Lily, Finn, and Whiskers head back down the moonlit street, bags filled with candy, sharing in the warmth of their friendship.

LILY:
(Filled with joy)
Happy Halloween, everyone!

FINN:
Happy Halloween!

WHISKERS:
Happy Halloween, indeed.

THE END

(Note for the artist: Feel free to add your own creative touches, especially in panel layouts and the design of the haunted house and its spooky inhabitants.)

Now, I think everyone can agree that's not really a story. It's more of a slice-of-life vignette and not a very interesting one at that. It is, however, exactly what I asked for and excellently presented. You could absolutely hand that to an artist and have them draw you four pages of a comic book. Your problem would be getting anyone to read it.

It also looked a bit long for my purposes. I know I asked for 2-4 pages but that's a full-on four. I hit the Regenerate button to see if take #2 would be better. 

It kind of was and it kind of wasn't but it was definitely shorter:

Title: "Spooky Adventures with Foxie, Whiskers, and Emily"

Page 1:
Panel 1:

    Full-page panel. It's a dark and eerie Halloween night, with a full moon shining above the creepy old forest. The wind is blowing leaves around the ground, creating an unsettling atmosphere. The shadows of the trees are long and ominous.
    In the foreground, we see our three main characters: Foxie, a cunning and sly fox with a mischievous grin, and Whiskers, a charming but sardonic cat, are both dressed in makeshift costumes. Foxie wears a black witch hat, and Whiskers is dressed as a vampire with a small cape and plastic fangs. They stand on a cobblestone path leading deeper into the woods.
    Behind them is Emily, an adventurous young girl of about 10 years old. She's in awe of the spooky surroundings, clutching her trick-or-treat bag tightly.

Caption (top):
Narrator: "On a night like this..."

Foxie: "Alright, Whiskers, let's find that legendary haunted house!"

Whiskers: "This better be worth the candy, Emily."

Page 2:
Panel 1:

    Three-quarter page. Foxie leads the way, and they follow the winding path, flanked by tall, gnarled trees. Emily holds a small flashlight, which casts eerie shadows in the darkness.
    Emily looks nervous but determined, while Whiskers appears skeptical. Foxie, on the other hand, is full of excitement.

Emily (whispering): "I can't believe we're doing this."

Whiskers (grumbling): "This better not be a wild goose chase."

Foxie (grinning): "Oh, it won't be, Emily."

Panel 2:

    A close-up of Emily's face, illuminated by the flashlight. Her eyes reflect her sense of wonder and trepidation.

Emily (whispering): "What if we see real ghosts, Foxie?"

Panel 3:

    A wide shot that shows Foxie and Whiskers exchanging a glance of disbelief.

Whiskers: "Ghosts? Seriously?"

Foxie: "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it, Em."

Page 3:
Panel 1:

    A small panel at the top of the page. The trio continues down the path as the wind howls, making it more ominous.

Panel 2:

    Emily stops suddenly and shines her flashlight ahead. The path leads to a dilapidated, ancient mansion. Broken windows, overgrown ivy, and a rickety gate give it an eerie vibe.

Emily (whispering): "There it is... the haunted mansion!"

Foxie (whispering): "Well, well, well... Let's see what this place has to offer!"

Panel 3:

    Emily takes a step closer to the gate, her heart pounding with excitement.

Emily: "Are you ready, guys?"

Whiskers (sarcastic): "Ready as we'll ever be."

Page 4:
Panel 1:

    A full-page panel, with Emily pushing open the gate with determination. The mansion looms ahead, and the moonlight casts long, eerie shadows on the overgrown garden.

Emily: "Let the spooky adventure begin!"

Narrator (top):
Narrator: "Little did they know that their Halloween night was about to get even spookier..."

End of script.

This script should result in 2-4 pages of comic book art. Feel free to adjust or expand upon it as needed for your specific project. Happy Halloween!

I was intrigued to see that Finn became Foxie and Lily turned into Emily, neither of which seemed like an improvement to me, while Whiskers, who I'd have liked to see renamed, stayed the same. Their personalities, such as they were, seemed to have survived the transition reasonably intact but the tone felt a tad darker, especially when the script inexplicably ended on a cliffhanger. 

It was closer to what I wanted and although it was also four pages it seemed much more compact. I thought maybe one of the Text-to-Image AIs might be able to make something of it. Spoiler: they couldn't. 

I fired up NightCafe, selected DreamShaper XL alpha2 and pasted the whole of ChatGPT's description of Panel 1 into the prompt field with "1960s comic style" as a prefix. I was surprised it accepted it all. I certainly wasn't expecting it to use much of it. I thought I'd be lucky to get "a dark and eerie Halloween night, with a full moon shining above the creepy old forest".

I didn't get anything except an error message telling me I'd used a "forbidden word". I had a look at the text but nothing was highlighted. Well, actually, all of it was, which was no help at all. Knowing what issues all of the AI projects are concerned about, I guessed it might be balking at "young girl of about 10 years old", which eventually did turn out to be the problem, although I had to Google to be certain because just removing either "young" or the specific age didn't work. 

"Girl" alone was acceptable so I carried on with that, which is why all the panels featuring Emily show a woman who appears to be in her late teens or early twenties. I mean, I guess I did specify "1960s comic style" so "girl" and "woman" would arguably still have been synonyms then. The acceptable use policy doesn't quite seem to have caught up with sixty years of feminism.

Outdated usage and moral panics were the least of my problems. After the first couple of panels it was obvious the whole project wasn't going to work. Text-to-Image AI is nowhere near being capable of interpreting the kind of long, detailed descriptive passages generative text AIs are fluent at creating. To get a meaningful result you have to stick to very short, declarative phrases.

I already knew that so it was no surprise. What I didn't know, and which was quite surprising, is that adding speech bubbles to pictures is also something AIs can't yet handle. It seems like it would be fairly straightforward but no, it's not. 

It's also not all that easy to do manually. I did a bit of reading on how to make and place speech bubbles in Paint.net and frankly life's too short so I settled for the old Classics Illustrated trick of using captions instead. Even then. getting the text to appear legibly was more work than I wanted to take on for what was supposed to be a gimmicky, throwaway blog post, which is how we ended up with the half-assed affair at the top of the page.

It was a learning experience in which what I mostly learned is that the technology isn't there yet to have AI write, lay out, illustrate and letter a comic-book page without a human doing most of the heavy lifting. Indeed, as things stand, it would seem to be a technology that's only of interest to people who can neither write nor draw because if you can do either, you'll be a lot more efficient than someone trying to speed things up by using AI. 

Also, your comic might make sense, which admittedly isn't a pre-requisite to success in the field...

I'm not going to say you couldn't produce a coherent, enjoyable, visually appealing comic by way of generative and interpretive AI but I'm definitely not going to be doing it. On the evidence I've seen, though, I'm convinced I could produce an illustrated children's book as good as many currently on the shelves where I work in a matter of hours. 

I'm pretty sure someone could write an app to generate them automatically, which would be very popular with the under fives and even more popular with their parents. If anyone ought to be worried about their career choice it's probably the people who pump out Peppa Pig spin-offs, although they presumably have enough to worry about already, what with the crushing weight of their own shame.

Sorry, where was I? Oh yes, AI comics.

The most interesting thing I learned is that there's a new AI app called AI Comic Factory that's specifically designed for making comics. I tried it and it works amazingly well, so long as what you're after is the comic-book equivalent of Midjourney or DreamShaper. 

It produces really excellent full pages from a prompt but they're as random as you'd expect. It's not capable of rendering a recognizeable graphic version of a script. It is, however, potentially much faster and more successful at producing a number of possible panels that could be used for that purpose.

But that's a post for another day. And speaking of posts for other days, for Halloween itself I've asked the Text-to-Image AIs to do what they do best, namely make me some single images suitable for use on the blog. We'll have to wait until Tuesday to see how well that worked.

Easy, Igor...

What's the proper greeting for Halloween? Anyone know? 

Clearly not "Happy Halloween" but "Have a Horrific Halloween" doesn't sound quite right, either. Why do holiday salutations have to be alliterative, anyway? I know, I know... no-one said they did. I mean, "Happy Easter" isn't. Nor "Merry Christmas", for that matter. Or, indeed, "Happy New Year". In fact, now I come to think of it, none of them are.

I'll go out and come in again.

Here's wishing you a Spooktacular Halloween!

Yeah, that'll do it.

Okay... I've been sitting on this one for a while. It's a really great cover of the quintessential Halloween party-starter. Enjoy!

It does absolutely everything a perfect cover should, reinventing the song while leaving its true essence intact. Alex has such a warm voice, too. Just the thing for a cold, October evening.

So, I had that one cued up but I really didn't know what else I was going to run with. I figured maybe I'd double down on the monster theme and do werewolves, vampires and ... mummies? Is that the Big Three? 

There are lots and lots of songs about both werewolves and vampires, metaphorical and literal. I spent a couple of hours sifting through some yesterday and barely lifted the coffin lid. In the end I decided I'd just pick one of each. You can have too much of a good thing, even when the good thing is a bad thing. (Monsters are bad, right? Or is that old thinking?)

When it comes to songs about werewolves, there's really only one choice.

I have always loved that song. Even when I haven't heard it for years, sometimes the chorus will just pop into my head, while I'm out walking or just sitting quietly at home. When that happens, you just have to howl it out. Seriously, you have to.

There was a time I howled at the moon quite often, if we're playing Never Have I Ever. It's really thrilling if you get a bunch of people doing it, more disturbing if you're on your own. Haven't had a good howl for a long while. Too long, maybe. Tonight'd be the night for it, I guess.

Not that I ever actually believed I was a werewolf. Or a vampire. People do, you know.

Which is fair enough. I mean, if you identify, you identify. We're all on a journey. Who's to say where it ends?

So, songs about werewolves and vampires was easy, just like I knew it would be. Mummies, though? I mean, you see the problem there, right?

There are more than I thought there would be, I'll say that. Are there any good ones, though, that's the question.

Well, kinda ... although no-one takes Mummies seriously, do they?

For bonus bandage points, try this. Bet you want to see the whole movie now, eh?

Hollywood monsters and high camp are all very well but some people like to be truly terrified for Halloween. If you're one of them, try this next one. It scared the bejeezus out of me and I'm not kidding. It's that smile that does it.

Props for going with "Happy Halloween", though. Maybe it does work, if you give it enough spin.

Just one more and then we're done for this year, I think. Not sure I know how to categorize this one so I'm not even going to try. It shows you don't have to pick a season-appropriate song, though. You can just get all dressed up. I hear people like to do that around this time of year.

Five million views on that one. I guess someone's heard of them before. I hadn't. It comes from a Halloween Special. They do one every year, apparently. All they do is other peoples' songs, too. I'm amazed they've never come up in a YouTube prompt before, given the number of times I've searched for covers. Just goes to show... something. Not sure what.

While we're on the subject of Halloween Specials, since I gave Wednesday a whole post to herself yesterday, let's end with the rest of the family. I watched this all the way through last night and found myself wondering the same thing I always wonder, whenever I watch the Addams Family, namely just what is Gomez' deal, anyway?

Answers on a gravestone, please.