Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Current News, Marvel Comics, X-Men | Tagged: ai, tom brevoort

When Marvel Comics' Tom Brevoort Opened The Pandora's Box Of A.I

When Marvel Comics' Tom Brevoort Opened The Pandora's Box Of A.I

Yesterday, Bleeding Cool looked at Marvel Executive Editor and Senior Vice President Tom Brevoort's take on artificial intelligence in his Substack newsletter, playing with image generation in a purely personal fashion before posting the results on Substack, while also acknowledging the various issues around it. That column, as well as Bleeding Cool's take on it, seems to have exploded rather. We rather lightheartedly cited Supervising Storyboard Director on The Simpsons, Matthew Schofield, and his response to Brevoort in our original piece, but he had a serious point to make and he has returned to make it, adding;

"In my opinion, the problem of AI and its threat to the livelihoods of workers in creative industries (like myself) lies not so much in the tool itself (though I believe it is a problem, ethically and environmentally) but in corporations' willingness to embrace the technology at the expense of human labor and creativity. It was disappointing, and admittedly triggering to me, to see Tom, a long-time Marvel editor, working in a creative field that is under threat from the adoption of AI technology, express the sentiment that this technology was inevitable. We all have the choice to use the technology or to avoid it as much as possible, so in my opinion, it's only as inevitable as we all choose to make it. The companies developing this tech have sunk hundreds of billions of dollars into AI at this point with very little ROI, so they need to convince the public that this tech is the next big thing in order to keep investors interested. They need us to believe we have no choice but to embrace it. A public endorsement from figures like Tom, which is what his post seemed like to me, only helps further the "it's inevitable" narrative. I think we all, as humans, and especially as writers, artists, editors, filmmakers, etc, need to resist using and endorsing the use of AI whenever possible."

Former Marvel colourist and staffer Gregory Wright also replied on that thread, saying

"I used to play with AI when It was first coming out and YES…it was fun…until I realized I was recognizing where much of the generated images I was getting were originating from. There ARE uses for it in conjunction with actual artists…in some cases more artist are hired to work WITH the AI stuff than without which confuses me, but that's when it is being utilized as a tool instead of a replacement for an actual human being."

And Mark Paglia asked;

"Since you brought up generative AI, what is Marvel's policy regarding its use? I don't want to kick off a whole debate here, but I hope the answer is "completely forbidden in the creation of comics.""

As far as I understand it, and I am sure Brevoort will elucidate, it is. Not for any moral reason, but because the courts say that you can't own AI-generated work, and Marvel does insist on owning everything. But maybe I am wrong. Outside of the Substack responses, ‪Cheryl Lynn Eaton‬ makes a major point about that, saying,

"Anything produced by AI is stolen work. It is utilizing existing art without credit or payment. Google is scraping the hard work of creative professionals and remixing it. If a musician did the same thing without credit or payment, they would be sued into oblivion. They HAVE been sued into oblivion. Ask Sisqo how much money "Thong Song" made for Ricky Martin. Here's where it gets VERY interesting. What is stopping Disney or Warner from creating a bespoke AI program that only pulls from work owned by the company? Work that they have already paid for? What is stopping Disney from creating new X-Men comics from Jim Lee's old Marvel work? I don't think there is anything stopping them legally. And they may find it to be appealing financially. However, it would be the death of a culture socially. Because nothing new reflecting the existing society would be produced. No advancement. Just a never-ending sifting through a bigoted past."

Replies to Brevoort's thread on Bluesky, also included the likes of;

• ‪Scott Gray: Tom, I'm sure you don't mean any harm, but you're a senior editor at Marvel – posting "AI" images is not a good look for you. It's all just plagiarism software.
• ‪Zak Simmonds-Hurn‬: Gross. Gen AI steals from real artists. By using it you are endorsing the theft and devaluation of the work of your artist colleagues. Incredibly disrespectful.
• bluexy: Massive canary in the coalmine. A Marvel editor saying AI art usage is inescapable? Every single artist — every single creator — for Marvel should be panicking and demanding Marvel address this subject now. On f-cking Labor Day, of all days.
• ‪Illmatic on JK Rowling‬: Tom I need you to understand this is the equivalent of taking a meeting with one of your creatives and breezily spinning the loaded barrel of a revolver as you talk to them.
• ‪Guildmarm: Oh cool, a public endorsement to steal marvel comics from one of their top editors! That's sure to go over REAL well. lol. lmao even.
• BreadCat‬: For the sake of every artist at Marvel please retire, or resign.

And it only goes downhill from there on that thread. But there is more commentary of note across social media…

• Kevin Newburn: Love seeing AI artists get thrown out of an artist alley the same day the most tenured editor at Marvel is like "hey AI is kinda fun, and probably inevitable".
• ‪Comic Book Herald‬: Gotta love the executive editor and longest tenured leader of Marvel Comics talking about AI with the same clueless energy as a grandparent making an AI happy birthday dinosaur for a grandchild
• Michael Scally‬: Seriously, at least three of his current X-Office writers were found to have their works stolen by Meta to feed their LibGen LL. Setting workplace ethics aside, how is anyone supposed to take the Mutant Metaphor of the X-Men seriously when you're happily using artificial intelligence routinely used by bigots and hate groups to generate racist slop?
• Aaron Meyers: What a weird take for Tom Brevoort to have. The ozone burning plagiarism machine can be fun but you have a duty to the human creative experience. To recognize that the medium you claim to love exists because of artists. You don't have to embrace slop just because its there.
• Adrian Barker: Tom, I'm a huge fan, but that's pretty sh-tty to dismiss the concerns of artists just so you can "have fun".
• Rah-Rah-Ramona: Ai is embarrassing and an insult to the writers & artists you work with daily. You expect to be the House Of Ideas while using a stale, generic system built off of unmoderated plagiarism, which will make YOU replaceable before any other creatives. Do f-cking better.
• Mark: As an editor at one of the big two, you should have more respect for the artists you work with rather than spit in their face using ai.
• Patrick@derbycomics: I wonder how Marvel's creative teams are feeling after seeing one of the publisher's top editors posting this endorsement of AI
• Traditional-Tax-5291: This is especially funny coming from an X-Men editor who came on board right after a 5-year status quo that went pretty hard on how A.I. is a greater threat than any differences between the inhabitants of Earth.

I normally try to find comments that go both ways when doing this sort of thing, to give some kind of balance. It's just a lot, lot harder this time. But graphic novelist Ibrahim Moustafa may have made the most cutting comment…

• ‪Ibrahim Moustafa‬: It's F-CK Ai, but y'know what it can probably do a lot better than "create art"? Manage or "edit" a project; respond to emails in a timely manner, act as a go-between when compartmentalizing communication between collaborators (for some f-cking reason), abstain from giving arbitrary notes… It too can have an encyclopedic knowledge of a specific comic book universe; it can find spelling and punctuation errors. That's not the f-cking point. The point is not to replace people with machines just so shareholders can have another vacation home while poisoning the Earth."

Now of course, all of Brevoort's posts on Substack are his own opinion and should never be mistaken for Marvel Comics policy. But I bet it will make for an interesting conversation or two in Manhattan this week…

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!