style-transfer on S Anand

LLM Comic Styles

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 19:24:58 +0800

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:

Suggest a single drawing prompt (i.e. an actual comic strip to draw) that I can apply with each of these styles to compare them. Think about what description will concisely help me differentiate between the styles and choose one, and suggest that, explaining why

It suggested:

A cat deliberately pushes a coffee mug off a desk. The owner watches in helpless horror as it falls.

Why? Two very different characters. Extreme emotional contrast. A midair object. A minimal but implied environment. Inherently comedic staging. One panel is enough.

To be on the safe side of copyright, I asked it to:

Rewrite the comic style descriptors to include source references where there is clearly no copyright issue. Also ensure that the description will clearly evoke the style intended.

Then I generated images using these prompts.

But this still had copyright issues on Gemini and OpenAI. So I asked it to:

Run `uv run generate_images.py` and generate the comics (which are pending).

In the process, the image generation models may complain, e.g. saying that the image generation is prohibited, perhaps for copyright reasons.

In that case, modify the prompt / name in config.json so as the achieve the same effect but without triggering copyright issues.

As expected, OpenAI had a problem with four of them:

The 4 missing styles all reference specific copyrighted artists/works by name (R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman’s Maus, Frank Miller’s Sin City, Dave McKean). I need to rewrite them to describe the visual style without naming the artists.

Now I’ll fix the 4 blocked prompts — removing copyrighted artist/work names while preserving the visual style description:

underground-comix: removed “R. Crumb and Zap Comix tradition”

graphic-memoir: removed “Art Spiegelman’s Maus and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home”

neo-noir: removed “Frank Miller’s Sin City visual language”

vertigo-dark: removed “Dave McKean and Bill Sienkiewicz…at DC Vertigo”

After these changes, OpenAI accepted all of them. So did Gemini.

But it turns out there were still some issues.

Some of these are TOO stereotypical.

For example, the Amar Chitra Katha images ALL have multiple hands - but that's crazy, most Amar Chitra Katha comics are about normal people with two hands!

Look for similar stereotypes and remove that. Don't change ALL the prompts -- only change those prompts where there is CLEAR stereotyping that won't generalize to the majority of comics.

Which it did.

Fixed exactly 2 prompts — the clearest cases analogous to the ACK example:

indian-mythological: “multiple symbolic arms in formal gesture poses” → “expressive two-armed figures in formal seated or standing poses”

african-pattern: “stylized human-animal hybrid figures in ceremonial contexts” → “stylized human figures in everyday contexts” (the Kente/Ndebele/Adinkra heritage is geometric textile patterns, not human-animal hybrids)

The other prompts with some specificity (golden-age with capes, silver-age with cosmic villains, gaulish-romp with winged helmets, british-anarchic with school uniforms) are accurate to those specific styles — they describe a majority of the comics in those traditions — so those were left alone.

That gives me my current list of ~30 comic styles to use.

The Periodic Table by Primo Levi and Randall Munroe

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 15:32:26 +0800

I read The Periodic Table by Primo Levi, written in Randall Munroe’s style.

Here is the conversation.

I began with the prompt:

Rewrite the first chapter Primo Levi’s The Periodic table in the style of Randall Munroe. Same content, but as if Primo Levi had written it in Randall Munroe’s style.

After that, for each chapter, I prompted:

Continue! Same depth, same style.

It began wonderfully.
It began humorously.
It was enjoyable.
It was fun.

And then it turned darker.
No, not darker. Grayer. Something else.

Something to learn from.
Something to cry on.

Something that sticks. (I’m writing in its style.)
Something that drains. (Yet, somehow, enriches?)

I could not have read this book without the Randall Munroe rewrite.
I did not read the original, so I cannot compare it with the original.
I probably would NOT have read the original, so maybe it does not matter.

I wanted to write about the process:
Using AI to narrate each chapter in someone else’s style.
This is a useful technique.

But it feels like so small compared to the book itself.
Or the author. Or his experience.

I can read 30 book summaries in the time this took.
That probably has more utility.
But …

Some posts are meant to for reading.
Some are meant for the author, just to write.
This is for me. Not to read. Just to write.

Creating data stories in different styles

Fri, 09 Jan 2026 17:20:00 +0800

TL;DR: Don’t ask AI agents for one output. Ask for a dozen, each in the style of an expert. Share what works best.

AI agents build apps, analyze data, and visualize it surprisingly well, these days.

We used to tell LLMs exactly what to do. If you’re an expert, this is still useful. An expert analyst can do better analyses than an AI agent. An expert designer or data visualizer can tell an AI agent exactly how to design it.

But you’re not an expert in everything.

Instead, “style transfer” experts.

LLMs are trained on the styles of experts across the world. Tell them to adopt an expert’s style. That’s a shortcut to improve output quality. It won’t be as good as that expert, but likely better than you.

For example, Linux Foundation leaderboards evaluates open source projects - are they active, who’s behind it, do they follow security best practices, what’s their popularity, etc.

Varun use GitHub Copilot with GPT-5 mini to scrape the data Then, he had Claude Opus 4.5 create data visualizations in five different styles:

A Wall Street Journal style. Prompt
Malcolm Gladwell + NYT style, i.e. written in Malcolm Gladwell’s voice (who writes for the New Yorker), but with the New York Times’ visual style. This ability to remix is powerful. Prompt
The Polygraph / The Pudding style. We aren’t specifying a single publication here, but providing multiple publications, allowing it to mix and match from those. Prompt
From Shirley Wu, who is a data artist, allowing us to go to the style of a specific individual. Prompt
An “open source data adventure”. That’s not a publication or a person, but a theme. Prompt

Same input. Five different styles.

For example, while The New York Times comes up with transitional scatter plots (which are great for rich interactive explorations):

… Shirley Wu comes up with these hidden gems, focusing on the smaller projects that have a remarkably diverse contributor base.

Or, while The Wall Street Journal opens with the state of the economy:

The open-source software that underpins trillions of dollars in global commerce is showing signs of strain.

… Malcolm Gladwell opens with perspective:

In the spring of 2023, a small project called CBT Tape caught my attention. Three contributors. That’s it. Yet they had pushed 3,414 commits in twelve months—a rate of 1,138 commits per person. To put that in perspective: a “normal” project sees perhaps 20-30 commits per contributor annually.

At least for the next few years, the ROI is less from expertise. It’s more from style.

Try out different styles. Learn to guide AI towards your preferences. Pick what works best.

And share!

New ways of reading books

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 11:03:07 +0800

I’m using AI to read books by:

Summarizing. This tells me what the books is about, the key points it makes and the main takeaways. It also helps me decide if I want to dig deeper.
Fact-checking. I can find mistakes, alternate perspectives, and biases. That’s a huge win!
Re-authoring. I can write it in the style of Malcolm Gladwell, Randall Munroe, Richard Feynman, or anyone else I like. Makes dense prose much more enjoyable.

So far, I’ve applied this at different levels - and I’m sure there are more possibilities:

A book. I can summarize & fact-check books like How Not To Die and learn what’s really established.
A chapter. I can turn each chapter of Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table into a Randall Munroe article that makes me laugh.
A sentence. I can take a single proverb like 忙しいほど幸せ or a Kural like அடக்கம் அமரருள் உய்க்கும் and turn it into an essay that makes me cry.
Multiple books. I can compare and fact-check multiple books on the same topic, e.g. Make It Stick, A Mind for Numbers, Ultralearning, and How to Take Smart Notes.

But I suspect this is just the beginning. AI opens up many more reading styles. For example:

Reviews over time. Could we read Lolita along with the 1950s interpretation, the 1970s feminist critique, the postcolonial turn, the contemporary reassessment? Understanding how meaning evolves over time?
Character story. Reading just the sub-novel of a single character, e.g. Hoid across the Cosmere?
AMA with the author. Interpret what the author might have meant or said, e.g. What caused the quake in Arelon?

We should be mindful that artistry is not understanding. Assessing, teaching, applying, debating, … these are better tests. But accessibility, enjoyment, and novelty are meaningful too. Let’s go exploring!

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 05:36:05 +0000

Style transfer is my newly discovered AI super-power: having AI rewrite in someone’s style.

EXAMPLE 1: Kalama Sutta. I asked Claude to “Rewrite this Kalama Sutta translation. Pick an author whose style is modern, thoughtful, and VERY readable. Mention the author and rewrite in their style.”

The original sounds like this: https://lnkd.in/gQhi8CBY

“It is proper for you, Kalamas, to doubt, to be uncertain; uncertainty has arisen in you about what is doubtful. Come, Kalamas. Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor…”

Here it is in the style of Pico Iyer, an essayist who writes the way good conversation feels: https://lnkd.in/gMFpc74y

“Your confusion makes sense. When things are genuinely doubtful, doubt is the appropriate response. So here is what I suggest: Don’t accept something just because you’ve heard it repeated many times. Don’t accept it just because it’s tradition, or rumor, …”

EXAMPLE 2: AI Personhood. Here’s a fascinating paper by Google: https://lnkd.in/gikMnUzj

“Assuming some essence of personhood is “out there” waiting to be discovered, or a metaphysical fact about what AIs or persons “really are” that can settle our practical questions seems to us, unlikely to prove helpful. We propose treating personhood not as something entities possess by virtue of their nature, but as a contingent vocabulary developed for coping with social life in a biophysical world.”

In Tim Urban’s style, it becomes this one-liner: https://lnkd.in/g8t8fG4g

“Given this mess in front of us… what vocabulary actually works?”

Both articles have amazing content. But now they’re accessible to me, thanks to style transfer.

PROMPT: Here’s the prompt fragment I’m using:

Think about whose style of writing would be the most engaging and informative to write the following content.List options, mentioning their style, why they’re suitable, and pick the best, with reason.Then rewrite it in their style.

Claude has better style. ChatGPT has higher rigor. Pick what works for you!

PS: Image by Nano Banana Pro. “Draw Keanu Reeves as Buddha but wearing jeans, addressing a crowd of villagers. He is clearly modern. The village and villagers are clearly ancient. The image is very realistic, like from a modern digital camera.”