Someone challenged me to write a graphic novel of my short story A Bang on the Head, which forms the basis of my experiments in style, à la Queneau*. Well, I’m useless at drawing the kind of comics I like to read, so I thought I’d enlist the help of AI. I used this prompt, mistakenly, with ChatGPT:

Draw a page of a comic book in film noir style depicting a man getting out of bed, hitting his head on a wall, going to hospital and then being discharged.

Here’s what it produced:

I'm sorry, but I'm a text-based AI and cannot create visual drawings or images. However, I can describe a scene from a comic book in film noir style for you:

Panel 1:

Setting: A dimly lit, cluttered apartment with blinds casting dramatic shadows.

- Caption: "The night was a shroud, and he awoke in its embrace.”

- Illustration: A disheveled man, wearing a trench coat and fedora, slowly emerges from his unkempt bed, rubbing his eyes.

Panel 2:

Setting: Same as Panel 1, but the man is now standing.

- Caption: "But fate had a cruel twist in store.”

- Illustration: The man, still groggy, stumbles forward and clumsily collides with a wall, a stark "THUD" sound echoing in the room. His hand clutches his throbbing head.

Panel 3:

Setting: Exterior of a gritty, rain-soaked city street.

- Caption: "A hasty journey through a city shrouded in shadows.”

- Illustration: The man, now drenched from the rain, holds his bleeding head as he hails a taxi. The taxi's headlights pierce through the darkness.

Panel 4:

Setting: Hospital corridor with harsh overhead lights.

- Caption: "The sterile corridors of salvation.”

- Illustration: The man, still in his trench coat, sits on a sterile hospital bed, a nurse attending to his head wound.

Panel 5:

Setting: Hospital room, still harshly lit.

- Caption: "The verdict was in, and it was time to go.”

- Illustration: The man, with a bandaged head, stands by the hospital room door as a stern-looking doctor hands him his belongings.