"Your new operator knows the machine code and breaks down any art concept into standard symbols, cut on tape. The tape can be examined or corrected, stored or modified and used over again if need be. There — I've recorded the essence of your sketch and now I have one more question to ask you. In what style would you like it to be drawn?"
Martin made a porcine interrogative sound.
"Startled aren't you, sir — well I thought you would be. The Mark Nine contains style tapes of all the great masters of the Golden Age. You can have Kubert or Caniff, Giunta or Barry. For figure work — you can use Raymond, for your romances, capture the spirit of Drake."
"How's about Pachs?"
"I'm sorry, I'm afraid I don't know of…"
"A joke. Let's get going. Caniff, that's what I want to see."
Pachs felt himself go warm all over, then suddenly cold. Miss Fink looked over and caught his eye, and looked down, away. He clenched his fists and shifted his feet to leave, but listened instead.
He could not leave, not yet.
". and the tape is fed into the machine, the illustration board centered on the impression table, and the cycle button depressed. So simple, once a tape has been cut, that a child of three could operate it. A press on the button and just stand back. Within this genius of a machine the orders are being analyzed and a picture built up. Inside the memory circuits are bits and pieces of every object that man has ever imagined or seen and drawn for his own edification. These are assembled in the correct manner in the correct proportions and assembled on the collator's screen. When the final picture is complete the all-clear light flashes — there it goes — and we can examine the completed picture on the screen here." Martin bent over and looked in through the hooded opening.
"Just perfect, isn't it? But if for any reason the operator is dissatisfied the image can be changed now in any manner desired by manipulation of the editorial controls. And when satisfied the print button is depressed, the image is printed in a single stroke onto the paper below."
A pneumatic groan echoed theatrically from the bowels of the machine as a rectangular box crept down on a shining plunger and pressed against the paper. It hissed and a trickle of vapor oozed out. The machine rose back to position and the man in the coveralls held up the paper, smiling.
"Now isn't that a fine piece of art?"
Martin grunted.
Pachs looked at it and couldn't take his eyes away: he was afraid he was going to be sick. The cover was not only good, it was good Caniff, just as the master might have drawn it himself. Yet the most horrible part was that it was Pachs's own cover, his own layout. Improved. He had never been what might be called a tremendous artist, but he wasn't a bad artist. He did all right in comics, and during the good years he was on top of the pack. But the field kept shrinking, and when the machines came in everything went bust and there was almost no spot for an artist, just a job here and there as sort of layout boy and machine minder. He had taken that — how many years now? — because old and dated as his work was, he was still better than any machine that drew heads with a rubber stamp.
Not any more. He could not even pretend to himself any more that he was needed, or even useful.
The machine was better.
He realized then that he had been clenching his fists so tight that his nails had sunk into the flesh of his palms. He opened and rubbed them together and they were shaking badly. The Mark IX was turned off and they were all gone: he could hear Miss Fink's machine takking away in the outer office. The young girl was telling Martin about the special supplies she would need to buy to operate the machine. When Pachs closed the connecting door he cut off the grumbling reply about extra expenses not being mentioned. Pachs warmed his fingers in his armpits until the worst of the tremors stopped. Then he carefully pinned a sheet of paper onto his drawing board and adjusted the light so it would not be in his eyes. With measured strokes he ruled out a standard comic page and separated it into six panels, making the sixth panel a big one, stretching the width of the page. He worked steadily at the penciling, stopping only once to stretch his back and walk over to the window and look out. Then he went back to the board and as the afternoon light faded he finished the inking. Very carefully he washed off his battered but still favorite Windsor & Newton brush and slipped it back into the spring holder.
There was a bustle in the outer office and it sounded like Miss Fink getting ready to leave, or maybe it was the new girl coming back with the supplies. In any case it was late, and he had to go now.
