Half in Shadow, Halfway in Light: A Conversation with Rudy Johnson
by Karter Mycroft
How do you introduce an artist like Rudy Johnson? I could begin with the cold hard facts: he’s a self-described “fool from Malone, New York,” the co-editor of the seminal online literary magazine Misery Tourism, a prolific indie game developer, and most recently, an experimental poet with an artificial intelligence for a writing partner.
But these things only describe what Rudy does, while the real depth and impact of his work stretch far beyond any traditional scaffolding of form or genre. Rudy is a worldbuilder in the truest sense—for years he has quietly constructed a dazzling artistic landscape out of computer code, transcendental poetry, and everything in between. You’re as likely to encounter Tolkeinian orcs as the disembodied essence of the Ayatollah Khomeini, as guaranteed to get lost in cryptic game mechanics as you are to discover some hidden truth about yourself in the process. Rudy’s work has the wonderful quality of feeling both autodidactic and masterfully composed, charged with a unique and uncompromising focus that’s at times difficult to put to words, and always fascinating to experience.
All this is to say, I’ve been following Rudy’s output with great interest since we met on Twitter a few years ago. We’ve worked together on some projects, and I’ve been fortunate enough to benefit greatly from both his dedication as an editor and his wealth of technical knowledge. Now, to commemorate the launch of his latest project, Lady, You Shot Me, we’re sitting down (on Discord, on our respective computers, both armed with AI assistants with an unclear level of influence) to talk all this through.
Hey Rudy. How’s the weather in Malone?
IT’S GON RAIN.
First and foremost I want to ask about the new Substack. You’re working with AI-generated artwork, creating collages that then inspire narrative poems. I really love the first couple pieces you've put out. How’d you find the idea and inspiration for this?
The basic spark for Lady, You Shot Me came from just doing a trial of MidJourney, but my love of collage as an artform goes back to my days on /r/worldbuilding/, when I used to create weird infographics and in-world documents for my D&D campaign setting. My Misery Tourism piece, “Tales of the Bus Driver” was kind of in that vein: lore with a visual hook.
Ekphrasis specifically is something I learned about from Mark Blickley (@Blickwords), and is basically poetry that engages with an image on some level. I really enjoyed Blick’s pieces at [Misery Loves Company, a weekly Zoom reading series hosted by Misery Tourism], how they kind of meandered between the visuals of the images and really personal anecdotes.
I felt like that combination of personal details grounded by the immediately-expressive punch of an image could be helpful for my own work, since often I have trouble explaining the mental hooks for my poetry.
It’s interesting how these newer AI tools can help “explain things,” even if it’s kind of inscrutable at the same time. How do you “experience” neural-net image generators like Midjourney and Dall-E? Do you see them as a tool, a muse, a threat, something else?
They’re really all three of those—a great tool for people, an inspirational weapon against creative stagnation, a threat to the established art world—but for me, they’re also very game-like. Not like “gamification,” but very much a kind of playful, emergent, “play to find out” type of thing.
When I use these tools, I generally start out with an idea, but that drifts as I encounter results from the generator, and that leads to more prompts, leading to further drift of my idea. Many times, I’ll start roughing up an image and find that the initial idea I had is beyond what I can feasibly do with the tech or my skill with GIMP and the other tools I use. Then I drift.
Usually, that experience is frustrating, but when you can just go back to the muse at will, playing around with something visual in real time, it’s a lot less disheartening.
One thing I believe about any art is that the initial kernel (the artistic “vision” or whatever) is only valuable as much as it keeps you inspired. When I encounter a challenge to that vision—in the form of personal inadequacy, or just a change of mood/heart/whatever—it informs my process. Usually, the work becomes somehow about that inadequacy and its relation to my original vision.
I think it’s easy to fall into a cycle of “I can’t do this, why can’t I meet my vision?” The more art I make and consume, the more I feel like the idea of doing things in service to an immovable “vision” is toxic.
I can understand why many feel intimidated by things like MidJourney. The additional expectations they place on artists are unfair, and I think there will be lost commissions and opportunities for sure. But these tools won’t replace humans. The obvious niche for humans is the artistic process. AI can mimic styles and draw clean line work, but it can’t come up with a process that’s personally compelling, nor can it solve the fundamental problems all creatives struggle with: being seen, getting buy-in for your work, and wrangling the alchemy of how much of yourself to put into your creation.
I totally feel you on the need to reorient your vision or expectations as you work on a project. I love having an AI assistant, personally, for when I feel like I need to inject something new or surprising. I’m asking Sudowrite for help with this interview actually. Right now it wants to know: If you had to go live in a different country, which would you pick?
Here’s an answer Google’s predictive text spit back when I queried “should I go live in the country of...”
Norway. I don’t know shit about Norway. It’s cold there though, so that’s a positive.
I studied Norwegian in college. But I still haven’t visited, and now I forget everything except that their word for “outer space” is “verdensrommet,” which literally translates to “the world’s room.” Always thought that was nice. Anyway.
Aside from AI artwork, you’ve worked in generative fiction before, even creating restricted writing tools and crowdsourced flash fiction prompts. What about generative fiction appeals to you over a traditional, ‘sit down and write the story’ approach?
For me, generative fiction like prompts, or my Glyphs superhero tulpa machine, or any type of constrained writing, are muses that I can go back to easily. A process I can pick up, make something with, and feel satisfied about without the struggle that comes from shifting the goal posts of vision too much.
‘Sit down and write the story’ is an order from a General somewhere in my head, and an incomplete one. I don’t get inspired when I think “I want to write a story about X.” I get the initial endorphin hit of “this could be cool,” but not much practical, usable energy. Generative tools help maintain the creative spark and turn it into something else.
Even a lot of the non-generative fiction I’ve written comes from generative means, processes. A lot of the short stories from the superhero thing I’m sort-of shopping around now come from using Glyphs, exploring micro-sized versions of character studies that I then expand into larger works.
AI-assisted image collage, from Rudy’s Substack.
What are the big challenges of combining creative writing with computer programming? Do you ever come across technical blocks to your creative ideas, or creative blocks to your coding?
The biggest challenge is one of communication.
I always wind up putting myself in situations where the audience for a work is nebulous (who wants to play a Tolkien fanwork about problematic orcs [that’s also TTRPG] [that’s also a digital game you play with your pet] [that’s also a PHP/R-powered riff on Chernoff Faces]?). The answer is often “very few people,” and I’m not real good at figuring out how to target hybrid works that result from fusions of code and other mediums.
The technical aspect has gotten easier because of things like stackexchange (and the Google SEO wizardry that puts pretty much any answer I need at my fingertips), but sometimes the coding aspect becomes a burden. Usually when I have to use CSS. Yikes.
Creatively, I guess the game is pretty much just “how can I integrate all these weird, disparate ideas into something cohesive,” which isn’t different from any other medium. Adding code or interactivity, for me, changes the experience for the better, because even if I experience creative blockage, the sheer number of bells, whistles, and switches keeps me interested in the process of creation, which is a huge personal motivator.
Your programming skills were a huge help on the Los Suelos project, especially the RPG we made. How’d you become so good at the computer anyway?
I’m not a professional programmer (I went to school for Computer Science and dropped out), but the sheer number of tools I’ve wrangled in service of inscrutable game design goals—RECREATE DOKAPON KINGDOM IN RPG MAKER, my autistic brain screams—has given me some small degree of resilience as far as “bashing shit until it works.”
When I saw you were working in RPG Maker, I had flashbacks of my own experience with that tool, and, like the dude in the opening of Saving Private Ryan returning to Normandy, I couldn’t help but descend once again into memories of “SET VARIABLE 0001” and bittersweet Fight/Escape loops.
I mostly had a blast learning the ropes of RPGMaker, especially with all your guidance. It’s a great baby’s first game engine, I think. Learning Unity now is like stepping out of the baby pool and diving into a volcano.
I wanted to ask about your influences. We’ve talked before about our shared admiration of Henry Darger, Wesley Willis, and other so-called “outsider artists.” Do you see yourself as following in a sort of tradition there? Is “outsider” a way you like to categorize your own work, or do you prefer some other label, or no label?
I think that Outsider is only a “tradition” in the loosest sense. However, the wikipedia article for White Wolf’s Mage: The Ascension defines traditions as existing to “protect reality (particularly those parts of reality that are magical) against the growing disbelief of the modern world,” and I see the work that me and William do at Misery Tourism as basically that.
A lot of what attracts me to creatives like Willis is the wonder and excitement present in their communication of the work they do. Wesley was at his shows spitting lyrics like “At the hospital, he told the doctor to say "As-Salamu Alaykum" // After the doctor said "As-Salamu Alaykum" // He got on top of Casper and started fucking him in his ass brutally” and getting into it whole hog. He’s into his shit even if it’s weird and frightening and even though people are inevitably going to pick it apart.
At MT and Misery Loves Company, we’ve tried to make a space for artists who think like that, and whatever kind of art they create. The rise of social media has basically taken all the intrusive internal criticism that artists already use for self-harm, and put it into a toxic little jack-in-the-box that anyone can open at any time to punch themselves in the face. Nobody wants to hear themselves say shit like “well actually, your work isn’t shit because it isn’t sharply-focused enough, or marketable, and what have you written lately?” Social media sites take those intrusive brainworms and put them into your feed, then affix them with a number that shows just how right they are.
The modern world is hostile to ideas that aren’t pummeled into nondescript marketable mystery meat. One person’s magic is always going to be shut down by the consensus of, “yeah, but that’s too weird to go anywhere,” or cold, technocratic silence. At MT, and in my personal dealings, I want to see people with weird ideas have a platform, because just having that platform means that they might jump to somewhere (anywhere) instead of sinking into the void of despair and self-immolative doubt.
I think that aspect—offering a home to work that’s too strange, personal, or “unfocused” to really exist in more traditional zones—has really meant a lot to the many artists you and William have published. It was definitely bittersweet seeing MT announce its indefinite hiatus recently. How are you feeling about your work as an editor and the legacy of the site now that its sunset is approaching?
I feel like resting, honestly. As mentioned above, I really enjoyed the aspects of boosting people who wouldn’t normally get any attention and being wonderstruck by a lot of the pieces. But the social media aspect is difficult for me personally. Maybe I just need some downtime. My life is a mess and I really just want a break to do other things, work on some of my projects, etc.
Legacy doesn’t really cross my mind much. I think William and I largely accomplished what we wanted to do, and we’re planning on keeping the site running in archive mode. I hope I’ve been able to communicate to the people I’ve corresponded with the value of their work, and what parts of it resonated with me.
Absolutely. And you’ve been at it quite a while, the site has really grown and developed even just since I’ve been around. This was before my time but I understand Misery Tourism started out as a place for you and William to host transgressive tabletop games. How’d you get into tabletop gaming? Do you think there’s a relationship between it and the work you’ve done since?
My first tabletop game was Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition, played at William’s table with his sisters and our friend, Brandon.
Nearly all of my game works, starting with my first D&D homebrew classes like “Arcane Sex Criminal” and “Fringe Archaeologist,” have been a reaction to my time at that table. Most of my other creative work could be seen as an attempt to process my feelings about that time in my life (the end of High School, fleeing from early college).
Certainly, my time in the tabletop RPG “community” has influenced the type of games I make. The launch of The Misery Index was interesting, and very informative. The discourse around it didn’t make me want to “do better” (in any socially conscious way), but did help show me what types of things I value in design, and what types of things I very much don’t want to assign value to (or even tolerate or acknowledge) in communities I have a chance to shape.
How-to image for Rudy’s “GLYPHS” restricted writing program.
Early-game screen from Rudy’s dark point-and-click adventure, “Water Level.”
What’s one piece of advice you’d give to newer game developers? Asking for a friend obviously.
This is probably going to sound clichéd, but it’s advice that’s helped me: do small games that you can quickly play and assess, and build things around the skills you have. Doing anything else is just frustrating. If the main thing you’re getting off on is the technical aspect, that advice is probably meaningless, but if your endorphins peak during actual play, get a good game-maker tool that you can use for rapid prototyping (Construct 3 is my favorite) and just make shit.
That’s great advice I think. I’m always torn between wanting to Learn Everything and the fact that I don’t have 500 hours of productive time in each day.
Quick “craft question.” Something I love about your work is the way you twist and mangle genre and subgenre conventions, with results that sometimes feel at once like classic fantasy and something completely unique. What’s one storytelling expectation you’d like to see more writers and game devs challenge?
I think I’d like to see the idea of narrative design as only (or primarily) encompassing in-game, in-world elements destroyed totally. The things people take away from games, that stay with them later, that they talk about in conversations; I want to see games built around those.
For writing, I mostly like where the autofiction thing is going. I wouldn’t mind seeing more autofictional writing that engages with genre stuff as a way of expounding on the personal.
My AI keeps trying to ask you about something called “Queenside Castle,” a “game on Steam” which I’m pretty sure doesn’t exist. What would you like to say about Queenside Castle? Is it any good?
Queenside Castle is a first-person board game with JRPG elements. It has a Studio Ghibli art style, and draws inspiration from games like Dokapon Kingdom, The Unholy War, and Armello. Its tag cloud includes: “female protagonist, gender, multiplayer.”
It bad.
OK, changing channels now. My informants tell me your favorite movies are “Apocalypse Now” and “Mary Poppins.” Are there any parallels between those two or do you like them for totally different reasons?
Obviously, I love the way both of these movies use music. There are definite parallels between the inappropriately-ominous "‘alf-way in shadow, and ‘alf-way in light" interlude in “Chim Chim Cher-ee” and the Ride of the Valkyries sequence in which American GI’s in helicopters cut down scores of Vietnamese people to the tune of Wagner.
Both of these movies also have a sense of verticality that I love. Whether that’s Mary rising slowly into the air above London, or gunships hovering ephemerally over napalm.
They also definitely both have some side characters with the “same energy.” How can you not see a connection between the motherfucker who blasts off a literal cannon at the same time each day just to fuck with the neighborhood and a man like Kilgore?
To those who might see something problematic in my choice of favorite movies—a war film (dubious relationship with violence) and a children’s movie (arrested development)—yes, and also, here’s a Billy Talent song to jam out to.
Do you think it’s true what they say—that nowhere is there a more happier crew than them what sings chim chim cher-ee, chim cher-oo?
I know this in my heart to be true.
Well thanks so much for the conversation. Anything else you want to say to the readers and chimney sweeps and neural nets of the world?
/imagine [prompt] no possessions, I wonder if you can. No need for greed or hunger - a brotherhood of man.
