How I Used Midjourney To Bring My Graphic Novel to Life
From original artwork to digital realisation
For over a year, I have been gestating a story that has been knocking on my brain to come out into the world. It is a story that speaks of unity, hope, and helping us to recognize the strengths and similarities in one another, rather than focusing on our differences and the circumstances that drive us apart.
My story was inspired by so many things: from the isolation felt due to COVID-19, to recent political and global events that divided us, to ever-shifting climate changes that seem to threaten our future. It begs us to reflect and acknowledge how much we have all been through these past few years. We have all experienced some amount of change, loss, fear, or failure. I am motivated to bring this story into the world because I hope to play at least a small part in helping us to heal, and I believe that we can do that by opening up to support, rely on, and learn from one another. That is what this story is all about.
AI-generated art became popular right as I was figuring out how to bring this story into the world. As a designer-turned-amateur-author, I have a fair amount of imposter syndrome as I navigate the world of storytelling. Nevertheless, I believe in the power of AI-generated art to bring beautiful ideas into the world that otherwise may have never seen the light of day. Despite the controversies of AI art, I believe it truly does have the potential to spark a renaissance in how we communicate with one another and evolve our ideas.
Below you can see a bit of my process as I started with watercolour images that informed the prompts that I input into Midjourney. I decided to use Midjourney to expedite my process because it took me a year to paint what ended up being the first 4 episodes of my graphic novel (and I intend to create at least 50 episodes). After generating these images, I then further refined them in Photoshop and incorporated them into the layout of my graphic novel. Artists’ names were not used in the text prompts to generate these images, and the story is available for free. I hope that the love and intention that I put into this work is felt by its readers. Please enjoy!
You can view “The Grand Exchange” on Webtoons or GlobalComix. Viewing on a mobile device is recommended.
You can view “The Grand Exchange” on Webtoons or GlobalComix. Viewing on a mobile device is recommended.
