Will this anger turn into violence? In the past week, things have gotten very real for those using AI art to create comic books. Comic book artists who use AI art as part of their workflow have been forced to go underground. “I can’t believe we are getting death threats. AI presents an incredible storytelling tool, but I have a family and a career, and I don’t want to get blackballed,” commented a creator who has requested anonymity.
The comic art world is in turmoil over allegations that AI art used in comic books is a form of theft of original artists’ styles. AI art is text-to-image, where an AI bot is given a written prompt and the bot returns an image. So, if a prompt refers directly to an artist, particularly one with a very distinctive style, the AI bot will create an image in that style.
There is a growing movement towards “ethical uses” of AI art, with two immediate implementations: 1) no artist names are directly included in the prompt used to generate the art, and 2) an opt-out database of artists who do not want to be included in any of the AI datasets. An example of this is: “A woman” and “A woman in the art style of Picasso.”
The question becomes more complicated if someone references four artists in a style, for example: “A woman in the art style of Picasso, HR Giger, Frank Frazetta, Charles Klauder.”
“Hopefully there will be a way to license or pay a royalty for the use of a style, but it feels like when Napster turned the music industry upside down,” the anonymous artist continued. “The vilification of artists who see this new technology as just another tool to create with should not be taken lightly. We must adopt AI art – there is no going back, no way to put the genie back in the bottle – but we shouldn’t be subjected to death threats against us or our families.”
AIComicBooks.com is the largest independent collection of free AI art comic books. The site celebrates this new tool in storytelling and promotes the ethical use of AI art in the creation of comics.