The Digital Prosthetic: Negotiating with Colonizer Tools in the Aztecverse

I have been at the Photoshop desk since 2013.

When I launched Solar Six and began building my Aztecverse—from the high-stakes tension of The Coil to the visceral myth-making of Our Lord of the Flowers—I did so as a solo creator and entrepreneur. Back in 2010-2012 when I was writing 13 Secret Cities and decided to self publish through my own imprint, I didn't take out a business loan, I did not get venture capital money, and I only had a couple of thousand dollars to get started. I didn't have a legacy publishing budget or a studio of assistants. I had my background in product design, my camera, and a refusal to let the scale of my vision be limited by the size of my bank account.

In the indie world, ingenuity is a survival mechanism. But recently, that ingenuity was put to the test.

The Silence of the Human Hand

I recently put out a call for human artists to help me evolve the aesthetic of the How to Kill a Superhero universe. I wanted a collaborator to generate new works made by humans for new book covers. The result? Total silence thus far.

In a traditional creative model, that silence is a dead end. But as an indie architect, I cannot afford to wait for permission or for the "market" to provide me with the resources I need. I have a roadmap of book launches that I need to execute.

The Alex Ross Precedent and the Queer Body

I have always used my own body as the foundation for my photographic works in my Aztecverse. This is a tradition I share with masters like Alex Ross, who famously wore spandex and used a self-timer to create the references for his iconic paintings. His output is in paintings, and mine is in photos. But just like Ross, I am my own canvas, in many ways.

But to bring Roland into the high-fidelity future I envision for the second edition of the books, I’ve begun experimenting with what I call the Digital Prosthetic.

Negotiating with "Colonizer Tools"

I have written before that AI products are inherently colonizer tools built on extraction and data-harvesting. I don’t use them out of a desire to replace human art; I use them because, in a technofeudal landscape, the marginalized creator must sometimes use the tools of the empire to ensure their voice isn't silenced by lack of capital.

For the new cover of High and Tight, I used AI (Nano Banana/Gemini) not to generate an image, but to sculpt over my own history. It acted as a digital brush, allowing me to apply "wet-look" textures and complex environmental details that would normally require a $5,000 editorial photo shoot.

This is a strategic hybridity. It is the architect using every tool in the shed to keep the foundation of the house strong.

The Experiment is Live

I’ve documented the full technical breakdown of this transition—from 2017 spandex to the final augmented vision—over at the How to Kill a Superhero site. It is a raw look at the four stages of this evolution, and a direct challenge to the assumptions we hold about "pure" creation versus "augmented" ingenuity.

Read the Full Case Study: From Spandex to Digital Sculpting

The Crossroads

I’m sharing this because I want to talk about the future of indie autonomy. As we move further into this decade, the gap between "big budget" and "solo creator" is widening.

• Is the hybrid path a necessary evolution for the marginalized voice to reach scale?
• Can we use these "colonizer tools" ethically if the "soul" and "bones" of the work remain human-led?

I’m navigating this in real-time. I’d love to hear your thoughts on where the line should be drawn.