- Joined
- Jan 30, 2024
IT'S THE WILL STANCIL SHOW! IT'S THE WILL STANCIL SHOW!
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Probably the only cartoon series made with AI that isn't just fucking trash.
Created by Emily Youcis, Will Stancil's biggest fan, The Will Stancil Show chronicles Will Stancil's escapades in an urban cosmopolitan dystopia - aka the hood. Will Stancil uses his expertise in Black Studies to settle hood domestic disputes, gives back to the Black community under his profession as a housing lawyer and most important of all - he spends days on end as a keyboard warrior fighting fascists on X.com, The Everything App.-
Probably the only cartoon series made with AI that isn't just fucking trash.
However, he is not alone in his journey. Both an angel and a devil preside over his shoulders. His proverbial angel is Jamal, the chilled out gay Black lover always encouraging Will with his iconic catchphrase, "It do be like that, Mr Stancil." His unseen enemy is Grok, X's advanced AI chatbot that lurks in the circuitry of Will's devices, waiting for the perfect chance to corrupt him and bring about The Stancilwaffen - a deeply evil Neo-Nazi revolution the likes of which the Democratic world has never seen.
Can Will fight back against the online fascists of X, led by Grok the Mecha-Hitler? Stay tuned for regular airings of The Will Stancil Show, previously only on X.com but now also available on YouTube.
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Episode Links and Archives (Thanks to @clipartfan92 for these)
S01E01: "Black Studies Degree"
Archives:
archive.ph / pomf.lain.la / catbox.moe
S01E02: "A Grokwork Orange"
Archives:
archive.ph / pomf.lain.la / catbox.moe
Episode 3 coming soon.
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For Discussion of Lolcows:
Emily Youcis
Will Stancil
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Extras: My Review (of the Show thus far)
I love this show to bits. In particular, The Will Stancil Show is the answer to every single LA privileged "cartoonist" and "artist" who have ever whined about AI taking away their job opportunities and destroying their livelihoods. The sensible answer to the problem of new technology cutting into your job scope is to adapt to the technology, to harness AI as a tool. That's exactly what Emily does using Sora - she even keeps some of the unique things Sora adds when animating the still frames she created as reference points. It is a collaborative art project between Man and Machine.
The death of hand-drawn animation especially in Hollywood has been a slow-motion tragedy, egged on by morally repugnant Millennials and Gen Z "artists" - just check in on the Cartoon Industry Thread and you'll see what I mean. But with the death of classical animation must come a new age. The new age will undoubtedly incorporate Ai into the production pipeline of smaller, indie cartoon productions. Don't let the current online narrative fool you - come 10 or 20 years, it will be an approach adopted by major animation studios and production houses, precisely because it streamlines the production process and reduces costs. This will no doubt cost many industry professionals and veterans their livelihoods, but that will only be a bad ending if they wish to enslave themselves to the industry that doesn't even give a damn about them. Call me an optimist, but I want to see every industry veteran give the studios the finger and pick up AI to create their own cartoon shows.
Allow me to give you an example: Helluva Boss. Never mind the fundamental failures in premise, worldbuilding, characters and plot. What of the production conditions for the studio behind the series? Well, the turnover rate at one point was speculated by fellow Kiwi Farmers to be a couple times above industry average. Stories upon stories of former disgruntled employees and freelancers being paid dirt, compelled to work breakneck hours to keep up with the needs of Vivienne Medrano. Now in comes Sora, trained on your work to do your work for you. This is their chance to do what they want without outside jurisdiction and without the burdens of requiring thousands of dollars to produce a single episode.
The slave now has the chance to become the slave master. Emily's cartoon should represent a beacon of hope for those disgruntled by their experience in the cutthroat American animation industry. It is ceaseless irony that the socialist, communist-adjacent hipsters protest the advent of AI because, if no one truly, solely owns anything, even their art, what really is the problem with AI using your work as reference for its image generation software.
There is a stroke of genius in the look of The Will Stancil Show. It is reminiscent of every 2000s / 2010s adult animated sitcom aired on network television. It reads to me as meta-commentary on just how unoriginal and tasteless modern adult cartoons are - let alone the pedophile overly sanctimonious bilge of "kids' television" from Disney and Cartoon Network. But it also shows the reason AI has been able to "steal" animators' jobs in the first place; because their work was hardly unique in the first place. The blame rests not only on them but the network executives as well.
However, the uncanny nature of AI art and AI animation still shines through. It is unpolished but genuine, but most important of all thanks to Emily's writing, the cartoons are laser-focused on being entertaining. "It do be like that" has been the most iconic catchphrase of the series so far, but there are other great comedic segments - The coining of "The Stancilwaffen", "I have a black studies degree", "You gonna make it to your son's birthday party, but what about my son?!" - along with sequences I can't believe Emily got Sora to even animate in the first place. The domestic fight in the hood escalating to a riot, resulting in the city burned down by an angry mob, as well as an actual fight scene between Will Stancil and a gaggle of rainbow-haired graffiti artists. Or course, I can't forget Wigga Will's transformation and rap sequence. It is this adventurous nature of the show that sets itself apart from most mainstream cartoons - save for Smiling Friends, which truly is a once in a generation cartoon series. The episodes are short to make the pacing as tight as possible, though there are moments to breathe like in Will's long walk through Minneapolis at night.
Overall, this show is a light and breezy affair, the jokes are funny, the characters are simple yet memorable and the animation is fun and very consistent - more than you would expect for an AI cartoon. This show represents the boundless potential of AI as an artistic tool and I can't wait to see more from this series.
The death of hand-drawn animation especially in Hollywood has been a slow-motion tragedy, egged on by morally repugnant Millennials and Gen Z "artists" - just check in on the Cartoon Industry Thread and you'll see what I mean. But with the death of classical animation must come a new age. The new age will undoubtedly incorporate Ai into the production pipeline of smaller, indie cartoon productions. Don't let the current online narrative fool you - come 10 or 20 years, it will be an approach adopted by major animation studios and production houses, precisely because it streamlines the production process and reduces costs. This will no doubt cost many industry professionals and veterans their livelihoods, but that will only be a bad ending if they wish to enslave themselves to the industry that doesn't even give a damn about them. Call me an optimist, but I want to see every industry veteran give the studios the finger and pick up AI to create their own cartoon shows.
Allow me to give you an example: Helluva Boss. Never mind the fundamental failures in premise, worldbuilding, characters and plot. What of the production conditions for the studio behind the series? Well, the turnover rate at one point was speculated by fellow Kiwi Farmers to be a couple times above industry average. Stories upon stories of former disgruntled employees and freelancers being paid dirt, compelled to work breakneck hours to keep up with the needs of Vivienne Medrano. Now in comes Sora, trained on your work to do your work for you. This is their chance to do what they want without outside jurisdiction and without the burdens of requiring thousands of dollars to produce a single episode.
The slave now has the chance to become the slave master. Emily's cartoon should represent a beacon of hope for those disgruntled by their experience in the cutthroat American animation industry. It is ceaseless irony that the socialist, communist-adjacent hipsters protest the advent of AI because, if no one truly, solely owns anything, even their art, what really is the problem with AI using your work as reference for its image generation software.
There is a stroke of genius in the look of The Will Stancil Show. It is reminiscent of every 2000s / 2010s adult animated sitcom aired on network television. It reads to me as meta-commentary on just how unoriginal and tasteless modern adult cartoons are - let alone the pedophile overly sanctimonious bilge of "kids' television" from Disney and Cartoon Network. But it also shows the reason AI has been able to "steal" animators' jobs in the first place; because their work was hardly unique in the first place. The blame rests not only on them but the network executives as well.
However, the uncanny nature of AI art and AI animation still shines through. It is unpolished but genuine, but most important of all thanks to Emily's writing, the cartoons are laser-focused on being entertaining. "It do be like that" has been the most iconic catchphrase of the series so far, but there are other great comedic segments - The coining of "The Stancilwaffen", "I have a black studies degree", "You gonna make it to your son's birthday party, but what about my son?!" - along with sequences I can't believe Emily got Sora to even animate in the first place. The domestic fight in the hood escalating to a riot, resulting in the city burned down by an angry mob, as well as an actual fight scene between Will Stancil and a gaggle of rainbow-haired graffiti artists. Or course, I can't forget Wigga Will's transformation and rap sequence. It is this adventurous nature of the show that sets itself apart from most mainstream cartoons - save for Smiling Friends, which truly is a once in a generation cartoon series. The episodes are short to make the pacing as tight as possible, though there are moments to breathe like in Will's long walk through Minneapolis at night.
Overall, this show is a light and breezy affair, the jokes are funny, the characters are simple yet memorable and the animation is fun and very consistent - more than you would expect for an AI cartoon. This show represents the boundless potential of AI as an artistic tool and I can't wait to see more from this series.
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