He was such a poor man, that all he possessed was his thought.
Are we moving towards a more ignorant society?
Do you reward those who do not know how to draw?
Who will continue to teach drawing and for what?
How long before the cartoonists disappear?
How does this note come about?
I read in some commentaries where they said that to be an illustrator, you do not have to know how to draw, that this had nothing to do with illustration, because it was based on feeling.
That's what they called "democratization."
The new buzzword that has replaced the one created and installed a few years ago, that everything, absolutely "everything is art" (And so we fill ourselves with garbage)
"Democratization" and that "all opinions are acceptable" are fashionable, it is good to say, it sounds "cool", it does not mean any effort, it avoids a discussion, and in that simple and flat way, we should not argue to sustain an idea, because that requires an effort that we are not willing to make, to run the risk of forcing our mind (brain if any) and therefore our critical thinking to work.
It will be better to leave him where he is, dead, than to have to take a displeasure and realize that we lead a highly technological life and very poor, very miserable.
So this note goes, for those who are still able to distinguish between wealth and owning the latest iPhone.
«To be an illustrator you do not need to know how to draw»
Those who defend this "idea" point out that:
The illustration is not reduced to academic realism; there are styles based on simple shapes, spots, textures or collage that do not require a "traditional" clean drawing.
That the idea, the visual narrative, the composition, the color and the ability to communicate can prevail over the technical skill of the stroke.
Digital tools and resources such as tracing, vectoring or the use of templates allow certain manual skills to be "jumped".
Not knowing how to draw is not necessary, it is not an ideal
It's a starting point. Even the most "clumsy" illustrator needs to master the basics (proportion, structure, clarity) in order for his message to be understood. The mistake is in confusing "not drawing like an academic" with "not having fundamental notions."
In practice, many successful illustrators have a very personal or simplified drawing, but they know how to control the shape, volume and gesture enough to tell stories. The trend is born perhaps as a reaction against the elitism of hyperrealistic drawing, but taken to the extreme it is a trap for those who start: In the end, illustration is still a visual craft, and drawing is its most basic tool.
When study and effort is required
Behind the phrase "you do not need to know how to draw to be an illustrator" sometimes hides a resistance to effort and technical study.
Drawing is a language: Like any language, it requires practice, vocabulary (forms, proportions, perspectives) and syntax (composition, rhythm). Pretending to communicate visually without mastering the basics is like wanting to write a novel without learning grammar.
False democratization: With digital tools (boots, filters, pre-designed assets) some believe that software replaces skill. But that usually produces a generic work, dependent on other people's resources and with little possibility of personal evolution.
The Difference Between Simplified Style and Lack of Craft: an "ugly" or naive drawing may be intentional, but it usually comes from someone who knows What rules he's breaking. Without study, the result is not expressive, it is awkward.
Real market: professional assignments (editorial, advertising, press) require speed, adaptation to different topics, anatomical correction when playing, and mastery of form. An illustrator who avoids drawing often clashes with those limits.
There are also those who use the phrase to encourage beginners blocked by perfectionism. The problem is when it becomes an excuse not to train. In the end, It is not that you have to draw like Michelangelo, but you have to draw like someone who has spent hours understanding what he does.. And that inevitably involves study and effort.
Being an illustrator without knowing how to draw would be like pretending to be:
Neurosurgeon without studying medicine: Nobody would accept that intuition or a huge desire replace years of anatomy, sutures and practice in the operating room.
Composer without knowing harmony: You could put up random notes, but you wouldn't create music that intentionally excites or communicates.
Writer without knowing how to read or write: I could dictate stories, but I would depend entirely on others to shape them and I would have no control over language.
The lie of “no need to know how to draw” usually works like this:
It gets confused tool (realistic drawing) with fundamental skill (control of stroke, space, proportion, narrative clarity).
It sells the lie that any stroke is valid because “it is style”, when style is a conscious choice, not a technical limitation.
It is forgotten that even the most naïve or brutlist illustrators (such as Sempé, Quentin Blake or a cartoonist of graphic humor) have hundreds of hours of drawing behind them. They know what they do and why they do it that way.
Illustration does not require academic hyperrealism, but it does require craft. And the trade is acquired with study, perseverance and effort. Whoever looks for shortcuts saying he doesn't need to learn to draw probably just wants to avoid sitting down to practice. And that, in any discipline, is noticeable.
Awarded for their ignorance
Why are those who illustrate or make comics without knowing how to draw rewarded?
If we accept that there are indeed cases of illustrators or cartoonists with a very poor drawing technique receiving awards or recognition, then the question is legitimate: Why does it happen?
Change in perception, increase in ignorance, immediacy, loss of critical thinking, are the causes that point to a broader social diagnosis.
Change in perception of aesthetic value
Previously, demonstrated ability (perspective, anatomy, chiaroscuro) was valued.
Now, in many circles, the value of authenticity, the rarity, the narrative intentionality or even the clumsiness as a sign of sincerity.
This comes from contemporary art (Duchamp, Basquiat) and has filtered into illustration. The problem is that "conscious breakdown" has been confused with "simple incapacity."
Increased technical ignorance in the public and juries
When the public (and sometimes juries) have not studied drawing, it does not distinguish between a blunder and an expressive license. A trembling stroke can be shaky from lack of control or from emotion. But without judgment, anything is rewarded. Ignorance is not only of the illustrator, but of those who reward him.
Immediacy and meme culture
In social networks, an ugly but funny or moving comic is shared massively.
The publishing industry and awards, eager to reflect the viral, sometimes confuse popularity with quality.
The result is consumed in seconds and forgotten in minutes. There is no time to examine the technical invoice; Immediate impact matters.
Disappearance of critical thinking (extreme relativism)
We live in a culture where "anything goes" and "taste is subjective" is used so as not to discriminate.
Critical thinking involves separating what has been achieved from what has been botched, arguing why something works or not. When that disappears, the prize becomes an arbitrary gesture or a fashion.
Saying "you can't draw but your message is powerful" is an alibi for not admitting that the trade matters.
There is also a reaction against academic elitism
Not everything is negative. Part of this change seeks to give space to voices that did not have access to the teaching of drawing. The problem is when you glorifies the lack of training as if it were a virtue in itself.
There is a dangerous drift, because it confuses equal opportunities with equal results.
What has changed in society?
The hierarchy of knowledge has eroded: Drawing well is no longer a universal value.
Market rewards novelty, speed and emotional impact, not the expertise.
Lack of critical visual training: few people can explain why a drawing is technically bad; He just feels like he "likes" or doesn't.
Critical thinking has given ground to tribal thinking: If something is popular or backed by a group, it defends itself without analysis.
At the social level, the answer is more disturbing: the illustrator without a trade is rewarded because society has lost the criteria to notice the absence of a trade. And that, in any other field (medicine, engineering, law) would be unthinkable. In art and illustration, it is allowed because "error is style."
It's not like all awards are like that. But the trend exists, and four causes explain much of the phenomenon. In the end, the most worrying thing is not the clumsy illustrator, but an audience and juries that no longer distinguish - or no longer care to distinguish - between conscious effort and simple ignorance.
Are we facing the extinction of the draftsman's trade?
If the one who does not know how to draw is rewarded, if technique is relativized, if immediacy and lack of critical thinking dominate …, then what future is left for the one who spends years learning to draw?
The answer is not simple, but we can divide it into two scenarios: one apocalyptic (extinction) y a transformative one (not extinction, but mutation and niche).
Scenario 1: The extinction of the trade (pessimistic vision)
If by "drawer's office" we mean the manual skill acquired after years of disciplined study (anatomy, perspective, proportion, clean layout, gesture control), then yes: This traditional trade is in danger of extinction in the mass commercial sphere.
Reasons:
Generative Artificial Intelligence: Tools like Midjourney or DALL-E produce "drawn" images in seconds. An ignorant client prefers that to paying a cartoonist.
Culture of "serves me": The public and many publishers no longer care if an illustration has perspective errors, as long as it is "beautiful" or "funny". The technical demand has fallen.
Awards for clumsiness: when the award-winning referents do not know how to draw, the new generations see no incentive to study. Why strive if being bad can be a style?
Disappearance of the teaching of drawing: In many schools of art and design, academic drawing has been reduced or eliminated by "archaic" or "elitist."
Under this scenario, the craft of draftsman (the one who draws well with pencil and paper) becomes a rarity of craftsman, as the blacksmith or the calligrapher. It exists, but as a hobby or in very specific niches (restoration, hyperrealism, classic portrait). Not as a generalized means of living.
Scenario 2: Not extinction, but fragmentation and revaluation
Drawing as a trade does not die, but it changes. The current draftsman no longer competes with AI or award-winning clumsiness on the same grounds. Moves to others:
Complex narrative: AI cannot yet maintain narrative coherence in 100 pages of comics. A draftsman with craft can tell stories with rhythm, clarity and emotion.
Unique and identifiable trace: the market increasingly values the recognizable "hand". A generic AI drawing has no signature. The trade becomes a personal brand.
Demanding markets: animated cinema (storyboard, concept art), AAA video games, scientific illustration, forensic, medical, architectural … there the precise drawing is irreplaceable.
Anti-IA reaction: There are already movements that explicitly value the work done by humans with controlled errors, compared to the cold perfection of the machine. Knowing how to draw becomes a luxury.
Under this scenario, the trade does not become extinct, but becomes more specialised and scarcer. There will be fewer cartoonists, but the ones that remain will be very good, and they will be able to charge more for their expertise.
So extinction or transformation?
It depends on what we call "drawer's craft." The classic cartoonist of the 80s (clear line, perfect ink, academic vignettes), that has practically disappeared from the market.
It was replaced first by the simplified manga, then by the loose-track independent comic, now by the AI.
The mastery of visual language through stroke (regardless of style), that one doesn't go extinct, but it's become niche knowledge. And in a niche, it is not in biological extinction (there is a population left), but cultural (it stops being transmitted massively).
The key question is not whether it goes extinct, but who will continue to teach it and for what
The craft of cartoonist will survive as long as there are people who decide to learn it for the sake of stroke, even without a mass market. As the artistic smithy: Almost extinct as an industry, but alive as luxury craftsmanship.
The problem is whether today's society actively rewards ignorance of drawing, then that craft becomes invisible. And when something becomes invisible to the new generations, yes, it ends up going extinct.
We are not facing a rapid extinction (there are still many excellent cartoonists working), but we are facing a deep crisis of the social value of drawing.
If the trend consolidates (rewarding the one who does not know, normalizing clumsiness, replacing with AI), within a decade or two, the "drawer with craft" will be a rare, almost mythological figure. And then, yes, cultural extinction will have occurred.
How long it takes for AI to get decision making, composition and narrative
Drawing (and even more so the comic book or narrative illustration) is not only to generate beautiful strokes, but making conscious decisions about composition, narrative rhythm, emotional emphasis, character coherence, etc. Today's AI doesn't do that. consciously; simulates patterns.
The question is: how long does it take for AI really make intentional narrative and compositional decisions? Here are two very different streams:
Optimistic view (of AI developers): between 3 and 7 years
They argue that multimodal models (text + image + video) are learning sequences and causality.
With enough data and scaling, AI could generate a complete comic book page while maintaining consistency of characters, expressions and narrative rhythm, without human intervention. There are already examples such as DALL-E 3 or Midjourney that understand "one vignette, then another, with continuity". They say that by 2030 he will be indistinguishable from a mediocre human.
It should be noted that AIs are "trained" by theft.
Critical vision (artists, philosophers, neuroscientists): maybe never
AI doesn't have intentionality nor model of the world real.
Doesn't know why a character looks left in one vignette and right in the next unless explicitly told to do so. Conscious decision-making involves:
Selection from multiple options according to an internal criterion (aesthetic, emotional, narrative).
Forecast of effects (how the reader will react).
Real-time correction based on that forecast.
Today's AI is a pattern recombining machine. You can simulate narrative coherence if trained with millions of comics, but not understands what he does. For it to actually "get" it, it would take conscious AI (AGI or artificial consciousness), and that has no date – many think it will never come, or at least not in this century.
The key nuance: Is it enough with the appearance of consciousness?
Here is the real sociological problem. The public and customers do not distinguish between real decision y plausible simulation. If AI produces a comic book page that visually seems to have coherent narrative decisions, does it matter to the average reader that AI does not think? Most people won't mind.
Therefore:
To replace a cartoonist in '80% of commercial tasks (simple comics, press strips, memes, quick illustration), AI He's almost done it.. In 2-3 years it will be common to see comics made entirely with AI corrected by a human.
To "get" complex narrative decision-making (as a full author: Alan Moore, Chris Ware, an author's comic), AI won't make it never if we understand "get" as do it intentionally. But if we understand "get" as deceive an average reader, then maybe in 5-10 years.
In short, with specific dates
2027-2029: AI will generate short comics (8-16 pages) with apparent consistency. Many second-line editors will publish them blush-free. The "craftsman" will already be a rarity in the mass market.
2030-2035: AI will simulate compositional and narrative decisions at the medium professional level. The prizes will no longer distinguish between human and machine. The craft will have migrated almost entirely to luxury art, teaching and hobby.
2040 onwards: Without a conscious AGI, AI does not decide really, but for practical purposes no one will notice except the most experienced cartoonists. The craft will be like calligraphic handwriting: something that a few value but most don't need.
The factor that can delay it? Critical thinking.
If society regained the ability to distinguish between intention and simulation, then perhaps substitution would be stopped. But because of the tendency you describe (to reward ignorance, immediacy, lack of judgment), everything points to the market accepting AI as a draftsman long before AI really I know how to draw.
Without critical thinking are we going to an ignorant society?
Yes, without critical thinking we go straight to an ignorant society. It's not a possibility, it's an inevitable consequence.
Critical thinking is precisely the ability to analyze, question, distinguish, argue and not accept something just because it comes beautifully packaged or said by a majority. When that fails or is abandoned, the following happens:
The ability to distinguish quality from sloppyness is lost: in drawing, in journalism, in science, in any field. Everything is leveled down because "it is subjective" or "everything goes".
Immediacy over rigor is rewarded: What comes first and easiest (AI, hoaxes, short answers) replaces what requires study and effort.
It normalizes lying and manipulation: Without critical filters, any speech – however absurd – can be believed if it is repeated with sufficient confidence or with convincing aesthetics.
Democracy eroded: an ignorant society does not vote judiciously; vote for emotions, loyalties or slogans. It is easier to handle for authoritarian or populist interests.
What is described in the world of illustration (rewarding those who do not know how to draw, normalizing clumsiness, losing technical criteria) is a local symptom of this general disease. If there is no critical thinking in art, soon there will be no critical thinking in medicine, in law, in education, in politics.
So yes: Without critical thinking, we go to an ignorant society. And even worse: a society that probably He won't know he's ignorant., because he will have also lost the tool to realize it.
We are talking about a social setback without comparison, we are facing Leviathan of Hobbes
The loss of critical thinking, the degradation of the trade, the passive acceptance of AI as a substitute, all lead to a social regression that could well be described with Hobbes' metaphor.
What does "Leviathan of Hobbes" mean in this context?
Hobbes, in the seventeenth century, described the state of nature as "the war of all against all", a life "lonely, poor, unpleasant, brutal and short". To get out of that chaos, individuals cede their power to an absolute sovereign (the Leviathan) in exchange for security and order. But this cession implies the renunciation of one's own judgment and critical freedom.
Brought to our time:
Without critical thinking, Society is not capable of discerning, questioning or resisting. People accept any speech, any image, any decision of others, because they have lost the tool to evaluate.
Modern Leviathan is not necessarily a king or dictator, but a system of technological, algorithmic and social control: platforms that decide what you see, AIs that generate what you consume, markets that reward ignorance, unique discourses that are not discussed.
Retracement without comparison It is not going back to the Middle Ages, but to a state where most live in cognitive infantilization: They don't know why they believe what they believe, they don't distinguish a well-made drawing from a bad one, they don't differentiate a conscious decision from a simulation, and the worst: they don't care.
The frightening: this Leviathan does not ask permission
In Hobbes, the sovereign is imposed by social contract.
In our scenario, the technological-ignorant Leviathan is installed without resistance because people no longer has criteria to oppose.
He's a Leviathan who doesn't even need to exert force: Voluntary ignorance and lack of critical thinking are its gasoline.
Unparalleled social backsliding: We are talking about something historical: Never before have we had such powerful tools to inform ourselves and, at the same time, such a widespread renunciation of using them rigorously.
The difference with other eras of obscurantism is that obscurantism now disguises itself as modernity, immediacy, "democratization."
the Triumph of Ignorance
It's not an exaggeration. If the tendency is to reward the one who does not know how to draw, replace trade with AI, applaud clumsiness, it is only the tip of the iceberg, underneath is effectively the construction of a Hobbesian society: docile, uncritical, dominated by a Leviathan who does not even need to show himself as a tyrant, because People have already internalized that thinking, studying and distinguishing is optional.
The only antidote: recovering critical thinking as a core value in education, art and everyday life.
But if the awards and the market no longer demand it, who will want to make the effort?
That's the most uncomfortable question.
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