Many people commented that they liked my comic illustrations and asked how I create them. Here is my process: Paste a reusable prompt fragment that’ll take any content, think about what to draw, then draw it. Paste a style variation for different comic styles (optional). Paste the content itself and run it. I use ChatGPT with gpt-image-2 more often than Gemini with Nano banana 2. Here are the prompts. STEP 1: Reusable Prompt Fragment: I have a few of these right now: ...
In 2007, I extracted the first arc of the Tracer Bullet strips. I didn’t realize I never shared the second arc. So, 19 years later, here it is. It remains my all-time favourite series from Calvin and Hobbes. ...
I maintain an LLM art style gallery - prompts to style any image I generate. Since I generate several comics, I added a comic category page that includes styles like: To generate these, I asked Claude: Here are some examples of image styles I've explored. <image-styles> "2D Animation": "2D flat animation style, clean vector lines, cel-shaded coloring, cartoon proportions" "3D Animation": "Modern 3D animation render, smooth surfaces, dramatic lighting, Octane render quality, cinematic depth" ... </image-styles> In the same vein, I'd like to explore **comic** styles. Create 30 popular comic / cartoon styles, aiming for diverse aesthetics and cultural influences. Name it concisely (1-2 words) based on the source, but the description should not reference the source directly (to avoid copyright issues). Focus on the visual characteristics that define each style. Pick those KEY visual elements that will subliminally evoke the style without explicitly naming it. … followed by: ...
I use comics to make my course more engaging. Each question has a comic strip that explains what question is trying to teach. For example, here’s the comic for the question that teaches students about prompt injection attacks: For each question, I use this prompt on Nano Banano Pro via Gemini 3 Pro: Create a simple black and white line drawing comic strips with minimal shading, with 1-2 panels, and clear speech bubbles with capitalized text, to explain why my online student quizzes teach a specific concept in a specific way. Use the likeness of the characters and style in the attached image from https://files.s-anand.net/images/gb-shuv-genie.avif. 1. GB: an enthusiastic socially oblivious geek chatterbox 2. Shuv: a cynic whose humor is at the expense of others 3. Genie: a naive, over-helpful AI that pops out of a lamp Their exaggerated facial expressions to convey their emotions effectively. --- Panel 1/2 (left): GB (excited): I taught Genie to follow orders. Shuv (deadpan): Genie, beat yourself to death. Panel 2/2 (right): Genie is a bloody mess, having beaten itself to death. GB (sheepish): Maybe obedient isn't always best... … along with this reference image for character consistency: ...
Scott Adams, the author of Dilbert, passed away last month. While his work will live on, I was curious about the best way to build a Dilbert search engine. The first step is to extract the text. Pavan tested over half a dozen LLMs on ~30 Dilbert strips to see which one transcribed them best. Here are the results. Summary: Gemini 3 Flash does the best, and would cost ~$20 to process the entire Dilbert archive. But if you want a local solution, Qwen 3 VL 32b is the best. ...
We all have stuff we know well and don’t. I know the % charge on my phone to within a few percent and the current time to within a few minutes – no matter when you ask. But I have no idea how much money there is in my pocket. Things I know within 5% error Things I get wrong by ~500% Current time Time to finish my current task My weight My next meal % charge on my phone How long the phone will last Number of unread emails Time to clear them Price of my next earphones Cash in my wallet Length of this list How long it will go before I stop But this apart, it turns out generating xkcd style comic strips is harder than I thought. ...
It’s hard not to feel sorry for Miss Wormwood. Comments Suraj 13 Feb 2016 4:34 am: I pity his babysitter Rosalyn more!
Comments Vinu 28 Apr 2010 11:25 pm: Nice ! what did you do? Manually erase the text? Knowing you, i suspect there is some automation at work here :) S Anand 29 Apr 2010 7:17 am: Oh, not quite. By 2006, I’d typed out all the Calvin and Hobbes (by hand, spending 6 years at it). This was just filtering all the strips that didn’t have any text on them :-) Vinu 30 Apr 2010 5:52 pm: Ouch. That’s a lot of typing. Surprised you did not crowdsource it… Perhaps for the next assignment? Asterix comics anybody?
This morning, I was watching an episode of Finley the Fire Engine in which one of the trucks had hiccups. Reminded me of this Calvin & Hobbes — especially Hobbes’ remark in the second strip. ...
My all-time favourite series from Calvin and Hobbes. ...
My Calvin and Hobbes index is current up to June 1993. Two-and-a-half years left to complete.
Len goes in search of Bill Watterson, the author of Calvin and Hobbes. He visits Bill’s home town, and manages to interview Mom. Apparantly, Dad is quite like Dad, but Bill is more like Hobbes than Calvin.
The Complete Calvin and Hobbes will be released. (I’ve transcribed the quotes.) Comments Anonymous 20 Sep 2005 6:08 pm: btw its available at a website, all strips ever published Anonymous 20 Sep 2005 6:09 pm: and its searchable thru google, let me know if you want the link S Anand 21 Sep 2005 4:58 pm: YES PLEASE! Can you mail me at root dot node at gmail dot com?
I’ve typed up a some Calvin and Hobbes quotations Comments FrogsIntoPrinces 1 Aug 2005 2:05 pm: By the way I have the entire C S Anand 1 Aug 2005 7:26 pm: As text? Or the images? Dhar 2 Aug 2005 2:44 pm: Unfortunately images… Dhar 2 Aug 2005 2:45 pm: And for links, check out http://digg.com/spy They use Ajax, which is a Good Thing (TM). Ravi 2 Aug 2005 7:14 pm: There is a searchable text-index at http://users.rcn.com/dtweed/calvin/index.htm S Anand 2 Aug 2005 7:38 pm: I know. I wrote to David in Feb. He could not share his database with me. So I am recreating it.
Fisheye photo of a stadium. Comments Aditya Chaturvedi 7 Mar 2005 7:28 pm: Really Nice Pictures Nik 20 Mar 2005 12:22 am: Reminds me of a Calvin
Complete Calvin and Hobbes cartoons. Grab while the site lasts. (Alternate Calvin and Hobbes collection. I’ve typed the quotes.) Comments S Anand 15 Apr 2005 3:11 pm: Quotes from Calvin’s Dad
My current project: transcribing every Calvin and Hobbes into text. Because I’d like to search, using text, for the strip in which Tracer Bullet has “six slugs, one of lead and five of bourbon” or where Dad explains why the Sun rises. Comments The Calvin and Hobbes search Takedown | s-anand.net 21 May 2010 11:55 am (pingback): […] So I set out to build one. I can’t remember when, exactly, but it was before Sep 11, 2002. […]
The origin of Dogbert.
Toonopedia – encyclopaedia of cartoons