Posted in: Batman, Comics, Comics Publishers, Current News, DC Comics | Tagged: ai, artificial intelligence

Accusations Over DC Comics Artists Using Artificial Intelligence Mount

Lots of people are against the use of AI in comic book creation. Here are three recent examples from DC Comics highlighted on social media.

Lots of people are against the use of AI in comic book artwork creation. Some for diluting the role of artists, some for the work stealing using pirated versions of art from specific creators, and there are lawsuits against the main AI art-generating companies as a result. But from a corporate company approach, there is a much greater financial threat that the work generated can't be copyrighted by the publishers in question; they don't own it. And so, if it were confirmed that published art was generated with AI prompts, anyone could use it without permission or payment. And with Batman dropping into the public domain in ten years, if a Batman comic was created with AI, someone could just republish it then without payment or permission. Todd McFarlane was a recent victim, but that we were able to prove. What about those you cannot?

A couple of weeks ago, writer and designer James Leech accused Andrea Sorrentino of using AI in recent issues of Batman. At the same time, Andrea Sorrentino posted on Instagram, a video showing a little art process in one of the contested panels.

Leech initially wrote "First off, there are the usual telltale signs – strange anatomy, errors a human is unlikely to make. The weird hands, Joker being insanely ripped in one panel and wasting away in another. His wandering nipples!…  This shift in styles becomes more suspicious when you note there seem to be additions in a much more basic brush – look at the repetition in shape on the large black stroke in the 1st image, the daubs of red in the 2nd & 3rd. If you're actually painting these, why skimp here?"

"This image in particular feels like a prompt that's been modified to look Jokerish. Why the washboard abs, the ripped jeans and sneakers? Hardly screams "Joker". Smart move hiding the hands, though….Another thing that stands out is how low resolution the "painted" panels are compared to the rest of the art. Look at the pixelation and jpeg artefacts compared to the smooth speech balloons and non-painted art."

This was Andrea Sorrentino's seeming response on Instagram.

In response to these tweets gaining prominence on social media. James also looked at another panel. "Here's a good example of seemingly carefully painted art being modified in pretty rudimentary fashion, presumably because it didn't fit the intended purpose. The sharp outlines around the cut & pasted hair in comparison to the brush strokes around it, the repeated elements"

Twitter poster Dibujante de mierda also posted their own experiments with AI art software and got very similar results to the published panels. "As soon as I saw those panels, it reeked of AI, so I did a test. And this is what Bing generated. It looks way too similar to his results to be just a coincidence. And this one too with only Black C… I mean Catwoman."

"One of these is an actual Batman (#143) panel made by an alleged renowned artist. The other is made by an AI after I wrote a description (then I added the text). Can you guess which one is it? F-CK YOU @DCOfficial for hiring someone like that and promoting this kind of bullsh-t."

James Leech added "as this has reached such a wide audience: I don't voice this kind of suspicion lightly. I know it's a big deal, I know people have been wrongly accused before. It's why I spent time researching after someone raised the possibility, and pored over all 3 issues. separately, some of these points could be dismissed. It's the fact that all the different telltale signs stack up together, with modifications that suggest the artist did not create the base artwork… With multiple artists also facing AI allegations recently, it's clear comics companies need to have a checking process in place if they want to make a stand for actual artists. The world is changing, and it's only going to get harder to tell."

A spokesperson for DC Comics told indy100: "DC Comics has longstanding policies in place that all artwork must be the artist's original work. We are looking into the specifics of this situation." DC Comics have told me nothing else since. But this is not an isolated concern. Tumblr user Sorantus asked about recent covers by Jingxiong Guo for DC Comics, for Wonder Woman and Power Girl.
"Let's start with the Power Girl cover: At first glance it looks fine, but if you look closer you can spot the inconsistencies. There are these weird ribbons? or hair? just popping up from her head and belt that kind of connect but are just confusing to look at. The belt itself is very inconsistent. The hair ends differently in places compared to the rest of it. There are lines in weird places."

"And for the Wonder Woman cover, I admit, I don't think I spotted as many, but there are still areas where it looks weird. The lines on her "W" belt are inconsistent. The lines on her armband/gauntlet thing are all over the place with no coherence/ And the symbols on her shield don't really look like anything and they just fade away." While others highlighted his Shazam cover with similar reasons given.

These also got plenty of play on social media. Very shortly afterwards, Jingxiong Guo posted the following sketches to his Instagram page, as if to answer such claims.

While Jordan Jabroni posted his own observations, "it appears that DC Comics and Dorling Kindersley are using AI art on the cover of their new book 'DC Cinematic Universe: A Celebration of DC at the Movies'…" and posting the following…

But you know what? Different AI detectors work differently…

Talking of which…

Basically no one knows anything right now. And with anyone able to make any claim, it might be useful for any artist to start taking photos of their work in progress, or record videos of their digital process. Until people start claiming that those process videos are faked, and people start offering a service to make faked process photos for AI-created images. It's going to get a lot, lot messier.

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