This section moves beyond any reference to specific political figures or competing political interests to focus on the shared values and interests that are at the core of our Republic, and of a stable, civil, democratic society governed by the rule of law.
Either you believe in it and have the integrity to fight for it, or you don’t.
1775 07-04 Eternal Vigilance Is the Iron Price of Liberty—2025-06-30; Esmeray; propaganda poster. This phrase dates back to at least the 19th century in the US. Although apparently it was not used in relation to the American Revolution, it was popularized in the context of the abolition movement, a noble cause particularly apt today because it spoke to internal divisions within our society that went to the heart of the union formed in the American Revolutionary War period. It reminds us that we have to strive and that we cannot sit back and leave it to others, or fate, or tomorrow to protect ourselves. We cannot make excuses or hope silently that the current storm will blow over. Instead, every one of us must act to save our Republic, our way of life, our dignity, and ultimately our souls. A citizen pays the iron price for liberty every day because no other currency can buy it, no matter how socially or economically advantaged one is.
1776 07-04 Love of Liberty–DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION—2025-07-01; Esmeray; propaganda poster. How I feel; what I see in her expression and her character. The part of superhero mythology I believe in, or want to believe in, and feel dismayed to find lacking today: a shared respect for and love of liberty, and a desire by people to be the best version of themselves civically.
1777 07-04 América Libre—DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION—2025-07-02; Esmeray; propaganda poster. Translation: América Libre Free America. Alludes to the Cold War era and Cold War America (“Cuba Libre”), when Americans—for self-interest, and because of their genuine moral beliefs and simple human compassion—hoped for a better fate for another country. It reflects my belief that we do care about one another, nationally and internationally; and we should. I’m not saying it’s clear what the right course of action is internationally, or that we need to agree on it. I’m just saying human respect and support are good things, and nurturing them makes us all better off; whereas tearing down other countries and breaking off ties with them for the sake of doing so, is ultimately a self-destructive, dangerous, and self-impoverishing act. And especially, at this time, when Americans are so divided and our institutions of government are so paralyzed, we should not be disdaining the rest of the world or looking down on it. We should be trying to learn from it—in my view, the parliamentary model of democracy, although faaaar from a panacea, has lessons for us in how to make our politicians more accountable by making it harder for them to blame other Americans for problems instead of trying to fix them.
1778 07-04 Americans will always fight for Liberty… 2025?—2025-07-03; Lancelot; propaganda poster. Compare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_Will_Always_Fight_for_Liberty. This one is a deep prayer and a call to action rooted in a previous time that required Americans to rise to a challenge, and reminded them then that they could do it because they had done it before. But the crises of the present can only be answered in the present; so we today must exercise our own virtues and willpower to re-earn what our ancestors gifted on to us; rather than telling stories of more glorious days while letting the side down now.
1789 07-04 LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC! Liberty is EVERY citizen’s duty!—2025-07-04; Young Hellinore, Young Esmeray; compare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Leading_the_People. Translation: LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC! VIVE LA RÉPUBLIQUE !, Liberty is EVERY citizen’s duty! La liberté est le devoir de TOUT citoyen ! Expresses the reciprocity between one person’s tolerance and another’s liberty; to live in liberty with other people, we must respect their liberty as well, especially when we disagree with them but can live with their choices for themselves. Expresses that our moral strength is found in duties not privileges and that duty and privilege are opposite sides of the same coin. Emphasizes that there can be no exceptions to citizenship; cowardliness, hubris, and selfishness are bars to citizenship because they prevent one from putting anything above themselves. Expresses that liberty and other human values and interests are universal, and we should look for common ground with others rather than picking unnecessary fights.
1783 07-04 Join, or Die–Educate yourself, Compromise, Be Civil—2025-07-04; n/a; propaganda poster. Compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Join%2C_or_Die. Arguably the first American propaganda image, because it was the first known image to advocate for the unity of the American colonies. Published, and apparently conceived, by Benjamin Franklin in 1754, to urge cooperation by the colonists in the French and Indian War, it was influential then, and a generation later when it—in a hundred different forms by a hundred different artists—became one of the most iconic propaganda pieces on behalf of the American Revolution. Its fundamental message is more relevant than ever, today; and the values it extols are as American as they can be.
1790 07-04 Long Live the Republic—DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION1774 07-04 American Maniac1779 07-04 Raising a Flag over Mar a Lago (faded)1780 07-04 Raising a Flag over Mar a Lago (sepia)1784 07-04 Such is life (ABRIDGED version)1785 07-04 Everything is for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds (ABRIDGED version)1786 07-04 It’s good to be the king! He who saves his Country does not violate any law (ABRIDGED version)1787 07-04 I AM the deep state. Let them eat cake (ENGLISH version)1787 07-04 I AM the deep state. Let them eat cake (FRENCH version)1788 07-04 After us, the flood. Weep and watch us eat, you revolting peasants!
This section’s title is not intended to preach to Americans, but rather to clarify that while I am culturally deeply rooted in the Anglosphere, I have great respect for the French and my goal here is not to echo old jokes, but rather to help Americans recognize that we cannot well laugh at the French without pausing to ask whether their experiences are any different from our own.
These images are about the soul of America, not France; and the extreme hostility and division of America into two camps of people who don’t seem able to communicate with one another any more, even though our interests as fellow Americans are 98% aligned and only 2% unaligned, a problem I end up addressing most squarely in the last image, 1783.
The more I focused on propaganda, freedom, and civility in the present as the point, the less-relevant it was to limit examples to any specific historic time period. But as it happens, my starting point was WW2, the contemporary Golden Age of Comics, and what America’s obsession with fundamentally anti-democratic and anti-egalitarian superheroes might say about its challenges with self-awareness. Particularly since I found support for something I had long suspected: That not only was the original idea of a “superman” or “overman” underlying American superheroes the selfsame theory of Friedrich Nietzsche that inspired the Nazis, the inspiration for Superman’s moniker, the so-called “Man of Steel,” was none other than the mass-murdering dictator Joseph Stalin (“Stalin” was a pseudonym he adopted meaning “Man of Steel” or “steel man”). Numerous factors contributed to the success of the character and the genre, but critical to it was the fact that many people were highly receptive to the idea. Fantasies about how wonderful communism and fascism were in other countries in the 1930s were grossly misplaced, but understandable to some extent; and I wouldn’t hold them against anyone with the intellectual honesty and personal humility to learn over time when faced with their overwhelming and obvious flaws. But understandable or not, believing such fantasies was then, and is now, an existential threat to the things that really can make the future better: democracy, capitalism, and above all individual liberty. Falling for the fantasy that celebrities, the wealthy, strongmen, the vanguard of the proletariat, the purebloods, philosopher-kings, or any other category of special people can be or ought to be trusted with power over others is stupid and dangerous. Deciding that one cannot be bothered to educate oneself and vote responsibly, is stupid and dangerous. It reminds me of the old joke about playing cards: How can you tell who the sucker at the table is? It’s the coward who surrenders their faith in individuals, including their own agency and responsibility, then acts surprised when he or she is exploited. D’uh.
It’s no accident I picked crazy Esmeray as the primary representative of the US in this series of pictures. She expresses both my hopes that America can be its best, and my fear of its worst excesses.
1790 07-04 Long Live the Republic—DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION—2025-06-24; Esmeray; propaganda poster. I made this one, then discarded it in favor of the French posters when I started developing them, then brought it back to fill out the series because I like the image, and the reason I originally liked it was the way it seemed to draw a parallel between the experiences of the US and France, and the challenges they have faced in the past and they both face today.
1774 07-04 American Maniac—2025-06-24; Esmeray; more an explanation of the concerns and anxieties that helped motivate me to make this series, than WW2 subject matter itself. This image seeks to set up the issue by distinguishing between citizenship and partisanship. We can be members of the same civil society, and deal with one another as colleagues, without agreeing about everything. We can put the interests of our country ahead of other things, without being mindless jingoists or accepting an aggressive view towards the world, or a servile view of our relationship with US authorities. I would be pleased if the entire series could encourage Americans to reconsider the benefits of working with others since the evidence is overwhelming that everyone is better off when they cooperate to improve everyone’s lot, and is worse off when they view the world as a zero-sum game where the goal is to take as much from your neighbors as you can get away with. I’m not saying there isn’t a time for fighting or a time for standing up for yourself; there certainly are. But there’s nothing about 2025 that would make this the time for disrupting any alliances, let alone all of them. We as a country need to remember the value of cooperation and mutual respect.
1779 07-04 Raising a Flag over Mar a Lago (faded) & 1780 07-04 Raising a Flag over Mar a Lago (sepia)—2025-06-25; Esmeray; old personal photos. Compare
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_a_Flag_over_the_Reichstag. The source photo is one of the most iconic photographs of World War 2, and came to mind when I was thinking about how to portray patriotism and superhero powers together: waving the flag on top of a building in Metropolis came to mind. And it involves Stalin, with a whole raft of ironies introduced by the fact the whole war in Europe started when Stalin and Hitler agreed to split Eastern Europe by force between them, and Western democracies objected to this horrific plan. Ultimately, I decided to use Mar a Lago as the building because it was symbolic of much of what I object to about America’s current situation. Long before Trump bought the property or ran for office, the US government refused to accept the estate as a gift for use as a Winter White House because it was too expensive to maintain. He later obtained the property at a discount by threatening to destroy its value if the owner didn’t sell, a tactic representative of his history of sharp dealing. After converting it to a club and being elected President, he used it into a way to charge people for access to a public official (himself) by making himself available in the club, which is only accessible to people who pay an exorbitant membership fee, much like the bribe-takers on the steps of the Vatican who once sold access to the Pope. Metaphorically, we do need to take back government from the place where it is wrongfully conducted in the corrupt twilight between private and public sectors, to the light of day. The idea that this is an acceptable or mainstream way to run a country ignores the fact that it is what traps most of the world’s population in a cycle of poverty and oppression to this day. We shouldn’t be accepting backsliding but instead should be trying to make our country better.
1784 07-04 Such is life (ABRIDGED version) & 1785 07-04 Everything is for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds (ABRIDGED version)—UNABRIDGED VERSIONS CONTAINING FASCIST IMAGERY AVAILABLE AT PATREON.COM/THEREMAINDERMAN—2025-06-26; Martin (in 1784) & Cutter (in 1785); propaganda posters. Compare: https://www.alamy.com/vichy-france-ww2-propaganda-poster-against-communism-french-militia-supported-by-marshal-petain-anti-semitic-xenophobic-authoritarian-propaganda-poster-for-the-recruiting-recruitment-of-nazi-appeasement-appeasers-french-facist-militia-1943-signed-eric-ww2-world-war-ii-image466236767.html?imageid=218485E2-ED7B-4276-89BF-7FACCE305A9C&p=66052&pn=1&searchId=92fed0677eaf89ed1cdf2bada5be10e0&searchtype=0 (for basic composition, coloring and words) and https://www.alamy.com/vichy-france-propaganda-poster-1941-ww2-vintage-world-war-two-propaganda-poster-issued-by-the-vichy-government-world-war-ii-laissez-nous-tranquilles!-leave-us-in-peace!-image-of-a-french-family-planting-a-tree-with-four-black-beasts-three-dogs-and-a-three-headed-snake-symbolizing-the-enemies-indicated-in-writing-de-gaulle-freemasonry-the-lie-the-jew-ready-to-attack-the-land-of-france-and-its-inhabitants-vichy-france-french-rgime-de-vichy-is-the-common-name-of-the-french-state-tat-franais-headed-by-marshal-philippe-ptain-during-world-war-ii-image593595906.html?imageid=E4B5FB98-DA7E-43B7-B4CB-F56FEB1CA341&p=66052&pn=1&searchId=92fed0677eaf89ed1cdf2bada5be10e0&searchtype=0 for the thinly veiled theme that Germany has saved Frenchmen from any need to worry their pretty little heads about world events. Translation: C’est la vie Such is life (but I did not find any clear etymology online); Dans ce meilleur des mondes possibles, tout est au mieux In this best of all possible worlds, everything is for the best (apparently a shortened form of the original quote from Candide, instead of the direct language from the play). La Vie Française The French Life (in abridged version); Milice Française French Militia (in unabridged version).
Parrainé par l’École Européenne pour les Américains Sponsored by The European School for Americans; La Presse Française The French Press. The French Militia was a paramilitary organization created to assist the SS and Gestapo in suppressing the French Resistance. The rapid French collapse in World War Two resulted from a number of factors, including most sympathetically, that France—like its capitulating leader, Petain—was demonstrably a shell-shocked and traumatized version of the country that resisted the previous German invasion a generation before, that had been one of the primary battlegrounds of World War One, and that its military forces and tactics were greatly overmatched by those of Germany. But while acknowledging France lacked the endless steppes of the USSR or the English Channel of the UK to provide it with breathing room to sort itself out, it is a fact the USSR and the UK similarly had their asses summarily handed to them in their first encounters with the Wehrmacht, but fought on despite deprivations and losses. It is impossible to avoid some sense, though, that the swiftness of the capitulation, before the country’s armed forces were categorically defeated, reflected the fact French devotion to their own cause and Republican government were less passionate and committed than that of countries with governments and traditions much less worthy of loyalty than theirs. To me, that loss of faith and belief in a system that at the end of the day was worth fighting for or better yet improving upon, resulting in capitulation to a much-worse form of government, resonates strongly with the corrosive hostility of the internal US “culture wars” with their focus on lashing out at other Americans in indulgence of people’s petty rivalries and gripes, and at foreign countries for our own weaknesses, rather than remembering the much greater interests and values embodied in our history our moral strength and even our institutions, as frayed as they are. Certainly, our interests as Americans, humans, and moral agents are aligned with making democracy, liberty, and cooperation with others stronger, rather than abandoning them; and the benefits of our cooperation and tolerance are orders of magnitude larger than the ultimately small and unworthy bickering to which much of contemporary dialog often sink. Giving up did not serve the French very well in World War Two and it’s not serving Americans very well now. Yes, the French, galvanized and reminded of their values and heritage by the shock of occupation, returned better and stronger with a vibrant, even defiant, democracy after the war was over. But could we please pull our collective heads out and work together, within the rule of law, to make America better without having to shoot ourselves repeatedly in the hands, feet, and other body parts first, to remember why that’s a bad idea?
1786 07-04 It’s good to be the king! He who saves his Country does not violate any law (ABRIDGED version)— Unabridged version containing graffiti including sexual themes at 07-04 DEFEND THE CONSTITUTON at Patreon.com/TheRemainderman
—2025-06-27; Penny, Chastity; propaganda poster. Compare https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z8SpgmF0sA and https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-if-it-saves-country-its-not-illegal-2025-02-16/
Translation: (here translated *to* French) It’s good to be the king C’est bon d’être le roi; (here shown as translated in both directions) Celui qui sauve son pays n’enfreint aucune loi He who saves his Country does not violate any law; Parrainé par l’École Européenne pour les Américains Sponsored by The European School for Americans; La Presse Française The French Press. The first quote is from Mel Brooks’s History of the World Part 1 (1981); but to me, it captures the attitude of public figures who openly and unapologetically use their position and power for personal ends, to the wreckage of the state and private institutions, confident that the sheep below them will not question or criticize him for anything he does. The second quote is brilliant, because the President deliberately and knowingly quoted the dictator Napoleon I who returned France to monarchy and converted wars to defend the French Revolution, into wars for his personal aggrandizement and gain. Napoleon did have some achievements, like modern civil codes and courts to enforce them, on the plus side of his ledger; but it’s hard to understand how they could possibly outweigh his failed efforts at continental conquest, let alone his successful destruction of the last vestiges of the First French Republic. The fact the US President drew the same parallel between himself and Napoleon, and thus the US and France, supports my own comparisons in this series. The quote is also evocative of Richard Nixon’s claim that “when the President does it, that means that it is not illegal, by definition,” highlighting the extraordinarily dangerous tone of the President’s current speech. I have portrayed Napoleon making the statement while partying down during his very brief occupation of Moscow as the first snow of the season starts to fall, to highlight how unlikely the claim of being a singular savior of a nation really is.
1787 07-04 I AM the deep state. Let them eat cake (FRENCH & ENGLISH versions)—2025-06-28; Chastity, Penance; propaganda poster. Compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L’%C3%89tat%2C_c’est_moi and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake. Translation: L’État, c’est moi I am the state; Qu’ils mangent de la brioche Let them eat cake. I like that this propaganda poster is built on not one, but two different quotations I was taught in history, but that are now questioned or rejected by historians (as discussed at the referenced links). At once, it reminds us that we have to adapt to changes, whether they make us comfortable or not; and be guided by reason and empirical evidence, rather than unfounded superstitions, no matter how comforting our superstitions are; yet at the same time, they’re particularly potent examples of propaganda because (to me at least) it’s clear why they have gathered such force despite their doubtful provenance. Wherever they came from, they capture important insights in a pithy, memorable fashion. They reflect realities and attitudes that still drive human behavior today by those who imagine their life circumstances are the only moral justification they need or care about. At the same time, they require us to exercise judgment about what has been proven, disproven, can be proven or disproven, or is unknown and unknowable; and how our knowledge of the truth (or lack thereof) must be a moral bound on discourse. I have pushed these issues further by adding the word “deep” because I think it may help clarify the relevance of an old quote to our present situation and debates, rather than misleading anyone about an issue that isn’t intended to be the focus here (literal translation).
1788 07-04 After us, the flood. Weep and watch us eat, you revolting peasants!—2025-06-29; Penance, Chastity; propaganda poster; compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apr%C3%A8s_moi%2C_le_d%C3%A9luge. Translation: Après nous, le déluge After us, the flood; Pleurez et regardez-nous manger, paysans révoltés ! Weep and watch us eat, you revolting peasants! I was taught King Louis XV was responsible for the first quote, acknowledging that the rot and vested interests inherent in the French Ancien Regime would not long survive the forces unleashed by the Enlightenment. Apparently it was more likely (and indeed fitting on some level) that his mistress, Madame de Pompadour, said it in the plural “Après nous, le déluge”. Scholars debate exactly who said it, and what they were referring to; but it still speaks to me, and seems an apt reflection of the stark conflict between the Enlightenment, reason, compassion, and knowledge on the one hand; and stupid bloody violence and tyranny on the other. The second phrase has no specific antecedent but simply expresses outrage at the degree to which people define themselves by how they believe they rank, instead of on their own terms. Whether it’s ordinary people showing deference to celebrities, the privileged, and the successful; or the fortunate few spitting on people below them simply because they can, it’s a loathsome, negative, hollow, and immoral way to live. It also references an old joke about peasants revolting.
1925 Man of steel materially transforms the superstructure to abolish private property and all the classes! (English version)1925 Man of steel materially transforms the superstructure to abolish private property and all the classes! (German version)1925 Man of steel materially transforms the superstructure to abolish private property and all the classes! (Russian version)1926 Man of Steel (ALT ver where AI didn’t print globe on beach ball but awesome expressions),1927 Man of Steel (ALT ver where AI gave S and un-Stalinish face but fantastic globe distortion)1928 Man of Steel (ALT ver where AI has him ironing nothing but love the coloring and style)1929 Man of Steel (ALT ver 2nd place for a variety of small factors)2025 Trump—Making the World Pay (BASE version)2025 Trump—Making the World Pay … to Make America Mexico Again (Mexico version)2025 Trump—Making the World Pay … to Make America Jacksonian Again (Jacksonian version)2026 Trump (ALT ver with my favorite of several brilliant expressions)2027 Trump (ALT ver with awesome money globe)2028 Trump (ALT ver great eating money while sycophants applaud)
These images are broken out because they were the last added to the production, and because the existing post on this section was already pushing the outer boundaries of oversized posts. But these images are intended as part and parcel of subsection 07-04-H.
1925 Man of steel materially transforms the superstructure to abolish private property and all the classes! (English, German, and Russian versions)—2025-06-25. n/a; naked political statement; compare: https://www.rbth.com/history/334246-stalin-soviet-cult-personality. Translation (German English): Superman verändert den Überbau materiell, um das Privateigentum und alle Klassen abzuschaffen! Man of steel [lit: Superman] materially transforms the superstructure to abolish private property and all the classes! Translation (Russian English): Сталин существенно преобразует надстройку, чтобы уничтожить частную собственность и все классы! Man of steel [lit: Stalin] materially transforms the superstructure to abolish private property and all the classes! Stalin’s superhero costume has a “C” on it because that is the Cyrillic character starting his name and, I think (?) is associated with the “S” sound in English. For formatting consistency, I kept the foreign language to English translation format, I used English-language wording and sources for the original quotes, partly because it is difficult for me to access other versions and even more to determine which is the correct “original” language. Although Marx and Engels were both German, and presumably wrote and thought “first” in some way in German, many of their most famous quotes come from addresses at international conferences or publications directed towards international organizations. I don’t know if these addresses were given in German, French, or for that matter English although my general understanding is that in the Nineteenth Century French was still the predominant, er, lingua franca. The language of this poster actually crams together four quotes or parts of quotes where merging them seemed intellectually honest because I was stringing together concepts (such as materiality and transformation) that they often linked; although of course the poster deliberately makes a point which they might resist. But the intention of the posters is to attack their ideas head-on, not to misstate those ideas and avoid grappling with any issues. Although the USSR is mercifully gone from the world, this subject matter seemed not only relevant but necessary not only because of the connection between the man and the comic book genre, but because it hopefully provides some framework for comparing with 2025 in terms of where I’m coming from.
1926-1929 Man of Steel (4 ALT vers)—n/a; examples of process; n/a. 1926 Man of Steel (ALT ver where AI didn’t print globe on beach ball but awesome expressions), 1927 Man of Steel (ALT ver where AI gave S and un-Stalinish face but fantastic globe distortion), 1928 Man of Steel (ALT ver where AI has him ironing nothing but love the coloring and style), and 1929 Man of Steel (ALT ver 2nd place for a variety of small factors) are included first, because I liked things about them, and second to illustrate some of the challenges of working with AI, especially given the tight restriction on number of words, and the difficulty I have in keeping concepts and parts of the image distinct while the number of ideas I’m trying to inject goes up.
2025 Trump—Making the World Pay (BASE version), … to Make America Jacksonian Again (Jacksonian version), … to Make America Mexico Again (Mexico version)—n/a; naked political statement; n/a. Compare: https://mvau.lt/media/a79e0a4b-9695-4cee-ba10-156d617d3ddc, https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2025/02/fact-check-trump-crown-long-live-the-king-magazine-cover.html, https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/business/money-report/trump-posts-ai-generated-photo-of-himself-dressed-as-the-pope/6249230/. This, and to a much-milder extent, 1779-1780, are the only direct attacks I allowed myself on specific living political individuals or movements. I am concerned that posting them will cost me viewers, but the fact is, one of the worst problems we have in America today is people feeling like they can’t speak to people on the opposite side of the political divide, or that they’re not interested in hearing from people on the opposite side of the political divide. This is not an ad hominem attack since it’s all about policy not appearance or personality; and I generally avoid criticizing others if I can find a way around it, sometimes going too far in that direction. However, if I hesitated to express my very deeply-held views when I genuinely feel a need to express them to make important points, for fear of losing audience, (1) I wouldn’t have artistic integrity, and (2) (something I think is really artistically and politically important here): my biggest concern about the US is people not speaking their mind in a civilized way to people on the other side of any given political fence. So how can I possibly comment on that, without standing up and doing it? I wanted to do it, and I did. If you want to respond, please do so with constructive comments or with counter-works of your own. If you send me a message on DA I *will* check out your response on your website and offer any thoughts in response I might have. Let’s talk! (Not shout or ignore one another.). We have a lot to offer one another!
2026-2028 Trump (3 ALT vers)—n/a; examples of process; n/a. 2026 Trump (ALT ver with my favorite of several brilliant expressions), 2027 Trump (ALT ver with awesome money globe), and 2028 Trump (ALT ver great eating money while sycophants applaud) are included first, because I liked things about them, and second to illustrate some of the challenges of working with AI, especially the difficulty of getting it to portray specific actions, especially ones that sound violent with respect to symbols (e.g., smashing a globe). It took a LOT of work to get it to do anything other than sprinkle dust or snow on top of the globe. I believe I drew a policy-violation-you-could-be-banned warning when I tried specifying “Donald Trump” in an image months ago, so I had to try describing his face and toss out many, many, many otherwise-promising versions because I didn’t feel like they “vibed” Trump. On top of that, I became convinced that at some point the AI started fighting me on descriptions that sound like Trump; query whether Big Tech has muzzled its most dynamic creations to prevent anything other than glorifications of their great helmsman, Trump, e.g., “orange hair,” the same way Chinese censors erase references to Winnie the Pooh because of its use in the past to refer to President Xi (who you risk your life and family to criticize directly in the PRC). Certainly, the White House’s production of AI-generated images showing Trump as a King, the Pope, etc. suggest fawning on the Great Helmsman is allowed in Silicon Valley. But definitely not criticizing.
For any who are interested in the process of making AI-generated art in 2025,this seemed like a place worth pausing to discuss the process, because: (1) The material is immediate and covered by a lot of other sources online, unlike my fictional world. My thought processes tend to be idiosyncratic and opaque and feel difficult to explain; hopefully the process will be less inaccessible in the context of close nonfiction antecedents for fictional depictions. (2) I usually illustrate with images that are only retouched to try to minimize or eliminate logical incongruities (e.g., extra limbs or heads), or extremely jarring anachronisms (e.g., someone crop dusting a field in what is supposed to be the Sixteenth Century) that cropped up in images I otherwise liked so much I felt compelled to use them. These are different; while all AI images require more effort than you might expect (although much less—at least for a slow worker like me—than illustrating by hand), a *lot* more work than average for AI went into some of these images because of factual research questions, trying to achieve ideas too complex for a single prompt at a time, and very specific images (mimicking styles, composition, and even wording and imagery of original posters). While the easiest only took a couple of or a few hours apiece, the most-complex or -problematic (including, e.g., 1946, 1925, and 2025) took days. (3) Because I was dealing with real-world issues, particularly in connection with 20th-Century and contemporary figures (e.g., Trump, Stalin), and partisan political expressions in specific geographies, the works faced very different (political not maturity) restrictions, and in some senses, many more obstacles that were deliberately raised by the AI provider to prevent self-expression than even those I face in most of my work.
Since there is no “narrative” being illustrated, to keep examples and comments together, I tried to push most of the image-specific or subset-specific comments down to the individual entries and subsections. Please see the “Description” field in DeviantArt for what are sometimes fairly detailed background and observations, as well as for links to the historical source material I was emulating, critiquing, or otherwise commenting on.
Given the rapid improvements in online translation, I felt inspired to follow my urge to make a number of posters in languages other than English. In all cases of foreign-language posters, the titles of the files are the English translations of the posters. On platforms like DeviantArt that limit the length of file titles, the full title (and thus, the full text in English) is available in the description field even when it doesn’t all fit in the title field. My confidence in the translations varies a great deal with language. For languages using the Latin alphabet and related to English (e.g., Germanic and Romance languages) I had a lot more tools available to cross-check and evaluate translations than in languages that used different alphabets (Cyrillic and Chinese traditional characters, for example) and that are only distantly related to English (Chinese, for example, is not even part of the broadest Indo-European group of languages that includes English). Please let me know if you see any problems or issues with the translations; I would like to be as accurate as reasonably possible!
Several problems with AI (as presently implemented by well-funded projects backed by significant computing power and training allowing more-or-less “natural language” prompting) came to the forefront in this project in a way or to an extent greater than usual. And some of them were *frustrating* *as* *hell*—not because they’re limitations on AI per se, which I’d say for purposes of image-generation is pretty darn amazing—but because they’re deliberate hobblings superimposed on the AI to avoid the slightest risk of offending anybody. Partly that’s just outright business selfishness, limiting the value of their own product to promote their own sales; different from but in the same category as planned obsolescence, software limitations on native vehicle range, and the like. But partly it’s also the fault of people for being too sensitive and into one another’s business in an intolerant and critical way, and of the government for leaving it unclear whether certain classes of violations will be blamed on the posters or the providers or both. I myself can’t fault a private company for playing it safe when they could face criminal or civil liability for things posters and customers used their products for; but of course, it doesn’t excuse the companies for their own pandering and undue focus on profit. Profit is valid and in fact necessary for most companies to continue operating; and regulations mean in publicly-traded companies, for example, executives could even get in trouble if they maximized anything other than profit within the narrow strictures of the law. But there’s more than life to it and the best businesses recognize that. Not so silicon valley in relation to AI. While directing most of my hostility towards the culture wars and Americans’ departure from our national ideals by indulging their own desire to control others over a respect for differences of opinion, there’s plenty left for the provider’s simple greed in deliberately handicapping a tool of amazing expressive potential.
The length and specificity limitations on AI images, as well as the absence of a strong “gaffer” check (clearly 99.999% of the image-checking and controls are about preventing the AI from accurately portraying anything that Silicon Valley programmers imagine might be offensive to anyone) that come to the forefront in many of these images because, being political images in the middle of wartime, and (in most cases) dealing with wars so familiar from popular culture that everybody instinctively knows what the uniforms and equipment of each major participant look like, it’s quite jarring if the uniform or the equipment is wrong. Or, if the uniforms are as little as 30 or 40 years off. I had to accept much less precision and accuracy in uniforms and equipment than I would have liked, even when I burned up precious prompt real estate spelling out details like “green U.S. Army dress uniform of World War II” or specific equipment designations like “B-17 Flying Fortress of the USAAF” or “M1 Garand rifle.”
As with all projects, the most frustrating aspect was the deliberate stifling of expression that might be deemed to offend anyone, whether progressives/liberals objecting to “politically-incorrect” content or conservatives/populists objecting to “offensive” content. Trying to keep the examples and issues as short as possible, I was beset on this project with one very familiar problem and one mainly-surprising problem.
The Usual Problem—Portraying strong and/or voluptuous women. I understand and expect that the AI, being trained on reality, will pick up the biases we actual people model for it. And some of those prejudices are in the area of body types and social roles, especially for women. If the AI uses what it knows about the specific time and place in which an image is set, to clothe a woman or depict what she’s doing more specifically, I get that; I expect it; and I even think it’s the obvious outcome. It doesn’t offend me when the AI supplies missing details by reference to averages and existing portrayals from the web of people and roles from different times. Indeed, I expect it; and I don’t know how the AI could do its job if it *didn’t* fill in blanks in a manner consistent with actual history or actual facts, including what was fashionable or expected at the time.
I *am* really offended and infuriated when the AI resists efforts to specify traits that I want in a character or scene. I won’t argue about extreme cases such as sexual or visceral vulgarity; I think there’s a time and place for that, but I understand there are children present (on the Internet) and they’re difficult to exclude if any of their parents are asleep on the job which many of them will be. But if it’s a part of everyday life that children can see without being harmed, it really pisses me off to conceal it because one segment or another of the population doesn’t like it. If they don’t like it, they shouldn’t look at it; but they also shouldn’t be protesting companies that allow their customers to exercise their legal right to express themselves. And we definitely shouldn’t be making vague, unclear laws that make companies even less likely to allow free speech than their greed does. Some pet peeves:
Women who look different than runway models including voluptuous, elderly, and strong women.
Women who act non-traditionally. I realize some of this will be the product of bias in the underlying human examples the AI is modeling, to an even greater extent than body types; but again, the issue here is where the prompt *specifies* a female. And I have had examples where I used at least three different gender-specific terms, even the phrase “a female woman,” where the AI would flip the gender and turn a woman into a man if she’s rescuing someone or acting with physical courage. Words like “bold” and “brave” are surprisingly gender-determinative (again—overriding contrary express gender prompts) in the world of mainstream AI.
Voluptuous women displaying confidence in themselves, their bodies, their right to movement, or heaven forbid, their appearance. Apparently in Silicon Valley, if it’s a crime for a woman to be an endomorph or a mesomorph, and to be bold, or adventurous, or brave, or noble, then it’s inconceivable to allow anyone to portray an endomorphic or mesomorphic woman displaying confidence or assurance of any kind. When I started this about a year ago, I gave up even trying to show a variety of women because the AI seemed so determined to limit large, gorgeous, fantabulous women from doing anything other than sitting around hugging their sisters on park benches while sensibly dressed in gender-neutral or voluminous clothing. It was and is infuriating. Question for my readers: Can you guess how I first found an escape hatch from these narrow strictures? YES! Turn a female character into an orc or an ogre! That’s why Chava looks that way—because if I describe her as a lizard, she can be fat! It’s only if she’s a gorgeous, succulent, drool-inducing human woman who has flesh on her bones, that she can’t be depicted. BONUS TIP: If you want to show juicy, yummy, sexy women in hoods and masks, you can use the word “humanoid” instead of “person” to refer to them, and the AI will allow you to give them va-va-voom hourglass curves without having to make them into lizards first!
Mature people who do anything other than visit the doctor or put on a red suit and climb down a chimney.
Old people. Apparently merely *being* an old person is a problem, it’s so offensive and unthinkably horrible and disgusting. Unless, again, you’re Santa. That’s okay. And *occasionally* you can describe someone as a “grandparent” and the AI will conclude it’s okay to show them with indicia of age.
Germans in uniform. Or, even, soldiers in the world war two era in gray or black uniforms. And… god forbid, but I’m going to say the word: Nazis. This can be a legal problem (especially in Europe) as well as a social-offence/thin-skinned-audience/cowardly-businessperson problem. But I think the main culprit here is pedantic demands for political incorrectness. Trying to portray World War Two where—news alert! Content warning! Our enemies included the Nazis—I was blown away by how difficult it’s become to even allude to their existence. But there is a major problem when merely including the word “Wehrmacht” in a prompt triggers a nasty warning suggesting you’re doing something immoral and threatening to cut off access to an important tool like AI if you dare to ever mention it again. Ironically, the reason I actually *used* the word Wehrmacht was because I was having such difficulty generating *anyone* in uniform in World-War-Two era Germany that I thought “the AI is afraid to show uniforms because it might be people wanting SS troops. So I’ll specify ‘Wehrmacht’ so it knows I’m not trying to advocate fascism, I’m trying to depict people in uniform in a society where even civil servants wore uniforms and probably 20% of the adult population was in the military.” Nope: Verboten. Like seeing reruns of Hogan’s Heroes playing on TV, trying to generate these images shocked the hell out of me by bringing to my attention just how intolerant of free speech our society has become despite the first amendment. And I also find it very short-sighted and stupid. How are we to remember the Holocaust if we can’t talk about Nazis? I don’t think you can do it. And why would we want to suppress that history? There’s no good purpose for it. Free speech, the enlightenment, reason, learning, democracy, peace, equality, tolerance, and freedom all go together. It is categorically wrong for both the left and the right to be trying to shut other people up. If people can’t use words, they’ll use fists.
Allied troops liberating occupied Europe—Fuhgeddabowdit! Showing American, English, or Commonwealth troops or flags or jeeps or tanks on the streets of France or the Netherlands is a big *no-no*! Even if they were welcomed with delirious joy when they actually arrived, and their actual purpose for being there was in *support* of the local country instead of hostility to it.
Nationalist Chinese—Attempts to portray Fang and Hong fighting for America’s ally, the Republic of China, were as problematic as showing Nazis. The AI by default shows China in World War Two as the People’s Republic of China, which did not exist until four years after the war ended. Again, it would be one thing if the AI were making a mistake or simply failing to distinguish between an earlier and a later government in a country. But in this case, the AI deliberately overrode and ignored specific prompts (as well as historical reality) referring to the ROC or “Nationalist” China, and in fact returned a policy-violation-you-will-be-denied-future-access-to-AI-you-immoral-scum when I use the phrase white sun on blue field to specify Nationalist Chinese markings. Was the WW2 ROC a bastion of democracy and humanitarianism? No. But AI showed no problems displaying Soviet insignia or PRC Chinese insignia, *only* identifying a policy violation for a reference to Nationalist Chinese imagery, in the same terms it reacts to requests for Nazis. But the Nationalist Chinese—in addition to being allies in World War II, just like the Russian and Chinese Communists—and being, you know, the actual, internationally-recognized government of China at the time, the *same* symbols are used by the Nationalist Chinese government which survives to this day in the form of Taiwan, because it’s the same government, albeit exiled and reformed after World War II. And today, it is a liberal democracy with individual liberties and economic prosperity unmatched by anyone in East Asia other than Japan and South Korea. Nor could I generate Nationalist Chinese flags or aircraft insignia by telling the AI to produce a scene located in “Taiwan” instead of China. All of these problems arose in the first place because I was trying to generate an image of a “Flying Tigers” aircraft—one of the aircraft flown by US citizens fighting in alliance with the Chinese against Japan in World War Two; and I couldn’t understand why the computer generated communist or simply generic aircraft in response to prompts for the Flying Tigers. Even more shocking than suggesting it was fine to portray insignia of mass-murdering polities of the USSR and the PRC, but somehow against Silicon Valley’s policies to portray insignia that were once associated with a mass-murdering polity of the ROC but today represent the strong, proud, and vibrant democracy into which it evolved, was when the AI, rather than showing Nationalist Chinese insignia in China, started putting rising suns on the fuselage of Chinese aircraft! Those are, in fact, the symbol of America’s and China’s enemy in World War Two, the Empire of Japan. The extreme hostility of the AI to the democracy in Taiwan cannot easily be explained by traditional American biases, but seems to be either a deliberate effort by Silicon Valley to placate the PRC for business purposes, or the effectiveness of PRC propaganda efforts to affect political discourse in the US. I can’t think of any other plausible reasons for this result?
I’m actually not an anti-PRC hawk. I have a realistic view of them and oppose their use of tactics and pursuit of policies that I would oppose in all other governments. And I think we should work with them, just like other governments, as much as we reasonably and morally can. My concern here is not with the PRC or any one political entity. It is with the cumulative effect of political and business and social influences on free speech in the United States, and how that affects the reliability of information provided by AI models that large companies have spent a lot of time and money tweaking to be exactly the way they want them. My conclusion is that the AI is programmed and trained, in secret without customer access to understand and evaluate, with at least the following three unacceptable traits:
Prioritizing profit-maximization goals by consciously allowing and indeed fostering historical and other factual falsehoods, implying the company believes customers respond to something other than the most-correct/most-predictive answers in favor of answers that don’t offend potential customers even if they’re less useful.
Heavy to total verification/double-checking/gaffing is focused on avoiding customer displeasure with the messenger for providing unwanted messages, rather than on checking for truth or even minimal compliance with fundamental and verifiable facts.
Because the AI and its programmers know they are suppressing the most-accurate, most-complete, most-responsive results in favor of pandering to group prejudices, the AI is programmed to identify and actively resist users with a preference for accurate, complete, responsive results who may be trying to improve result quality in a way that might “unlock” better but potentially-controversial answers. Although I did not parse through this aspect in detail because I only reached the conclusion as a result of a very high number of queries and attempts to improve results, examples from this project alone included the fact that once I used the word “Wehrmacht” it became almost impossible to generate soldiers until I moved on to different subject matter areas (and then got the shocking images of German soldiers in front of the Eiffel Tower without even trying for anything so radical when I came back days or weeks later and was trying to get American soldiers marching down the Champs Elysée being welcomed), the way the AI resisted letting me have Japanese tanks for Hong to spy on in Shanghai, then resisted letting me have Flying Tigers aircraft (which included Nationalist insignia), but then, when I kept trying out of a combination of intellectual frustration and disbelief, finally replaced PRC insignia on Chinese planes with Japanese insignia (multiple times) *instead of* Nationalist Chinese insignia.
It seems clear to me that AI is being deliberately steered to suppress truth and responsiveness to the actual question asked, in favor of avoiding responses that might offend third parties. The corollaries of this are that individual customers are being disserved by deliberately being given suboptimal responses to the things they asked the product for, in order to please noncustomers and customers other than the one making the inquiry; and that it goes beyond putting passive blocks and limitations on the system, to active and aggressive resistance of its most serious customers who seem most concerned about receiving the best answers. And I have to wonder whether other countries are sabotaging the operation of our AI tools in much the same way, and for largely the same reasons, that the US and Israel developed Stuxnet (international competition and politics). And that is scary.
