Did DC Use AI Art In Batman?

Comicstorian Team Does a Lot With Your Support!

[marcosperez]

Ai art shouldn't be used by any big brand. when they can hire humans.

[TheAntiSanta]

No human would draw Catwoman like that. It HAD to be a computer.

[sangera]

Using photo references is always going to be a better option than whatever AI produces. Drawing from imagination is one of the hardest skills to learn as an artist. It takes years of drawing and understanding how things work.

[weights_and_horror]

I have a negative view on AI art. Partly from how many people get a big following on socials and use AI for their stuff and I barely get a like for anything I post, and also, because I’ve seen those AI users make comments like ‘now we can all be artists’ when they just type in prompts or steal other people’s work to alter it.

[johnwerner]

I hope not because that would be truly disgusting! Comic book artist are already underpaid and who honestly wants to buy "art" made by a robot?!

[julesa]

RIP Benny. I'm so sorry to hear of your untimely passing.

[Sioux-periorGaming]

Everytime I think about A.I. and it's art, I immediately begin having memories of playing Metal Gear Solid 2.

[Just_Some_Guy_with_a_Mustache]

For me, I've always thought AI was supposed to handle the boring stuff so we could focus on our art. And yes, economists and civil engineers, I understand there is nuance and you can't just have robots calculate taxes and some such, but that's just how I feel. And especially don't use AI art just because you're doing art commissions, and the people commissioning it just want their art now, without caring about the process. Because I've definitely seen that argument.

[tsrotmasftghhjkuujiou]

I think the most definitive one is where in one panel joker is jacked, and in the next, he's emaciated.

[HydraKittten]

The only AI art i can see being considered genuine, unique art is if a programmer tweaking reworking and tweaking an image generation program to create something abstract, perhaps a visualization of the process the machine goes through to generate an image. like, i get ai art, but it's not a replacement of human art. art needs a hand to paint, a mind to visualize, to realize, math and algorithms may be able to approximate what a human can do, but it doesn't understand what it makes, there's no emotions into it, no despair, no desire, no mania or joy to inspire a piece. this isn't the machines fault, it holds no malicious intent, no intentions at all, just numbers, humanity spurred this on, and so we must correct it

[Nor]

It’s a similar argument in the vein of the spirit of cheating or using performance enhancers in sports. Yes, the entertainment value is the same, but what matters is the human expression and effort. There’s a clear line between having art and writing done for you, and you putting in the effort to do it yourself or pay someone who can do it and support the industry. As a comic reader, paneling, story, linework, lettering, and coloring matter to me because I love to see the work artists put in. Yes, AI is a cheap and affordable alternative, but that comes at the cost of authentic human expression. And there is no reasonable way of gatekeep these massive companies from using this tech, and no line for when a company is “successful” enough to stop. Either we stop using AI art for the means of selling artistic expression, or we allow it all. The cost of paying artists for their work is literally the cost of doing business, regardless of size of set business. If we want to see human expression over AI, that’s a hardline stance we need to make moving forward.

[LPToTheEndOfTime]

I think he posted a short video on his Instagram drawing Joker from that issue a month ago.

Sorrentino's art has always depended on photo reference, tracing, and image manipulation way before AI was popular, it's part of why his art got a photorealistic look to it. And it's been very apparent since his debut back in 2010 with God Of War mini series that was written by Marv Wolfman.

At best, he might have used AI for reference, but I doubt he used AI prompts to make the comic because if that was the case then I don't see why we didn't get the entire comic in that painted art.

[everettjohnson]

A big problem we also have are those that don't know if something is AI art or not, at my local comic shop we had a guy swear that a poster on the wall was AI generated...it was Alex Ross art. Apparently his art style has been falsely labeled AI art cause it just looks too good I guess?

[garou]

regardless of what you think of AI art, people calling themselves an AI artists unironically is the funniest shit ever. Guess I'm an artist too then, made some pretty dope pieces by typing few words and waiting 10 seconds.

[deiske]

I want to state this. I don't not believe that ai art should be in comic books. To play devils advocate: Human creativity is often described as your brain taking everything it's seen and mashing then together to form a "unique" thought or idea. This includes pictures, movies, video games, comics, etc. So the process your brain and the ai take are very similar and the distain typically comes from the lack of "soul" or "heart" even in beautiful ai works.

[johne.nobody]

That’s AI. I’m a graphic artist. 200% percent touched-up AI.

[ccalvac]

It's definitely AI art, there are some anatomical errors and inconsistencies on joker's body (from emaciated to muscled and lean between panels, nipples in awkward placements), resolution inconsistencies that would suggest post-generated edits as well as other digital edits within textures like hair etc, a foggy layer/filter that permeates the alleged AI art what isn't there in other panels regardless of realism.

There's a few things beyond what I've listed as well; just errors that pro artists wouldn't make that a layman wouldn't explicitly notice but overall reduces the quality of the work.

[BandikitShenanigans]

I use ai art to get inspiration for landscapes. It's difficult for me to translate landscapes into a less realistic style and still look good, so ai has helped me obtain reference images that serve as an approximation of what I'm going for. After I generate some images, I begin drawing my own background transformed off of images already transformed from thousands.

What I'm doing is WAY different than replacing real artists with ai. It's a tool for artists. Not a free replacement for artists

[thisxgreatxdecay]

In my opinion, when it comes to determining whether AI images infringe on intellectual property rights, the same rules that apply to human-made images should apply to AI-generated images. If the produced image is substantially similar to a copyrighted image, then it's infringement. If it's not substantially similar to any copyrighted image, it's not infringement.

"Substantial similarity" means being very similar in terms of composition. "Styles" are not copyrightable. If I learn through practice to paint exactly like Dennis Hopper but create totally new paintings in his style instead of swiping his paintings, it's not copyright infringement. The same should apply to AI. If an AI is trained on Artgerm's style and spits out an image that looks just like Artgerm could have painted it, but is not a copy of any particular Artgerm painting, it's not infringement. If it spits out something way too similar to an existing Artgerm piece, then it is infringement.

Now, the question of whether AI-generated images trained on artists work should be considered infringement is distinct from the question of whether companies should replace real artists with AI. As it stands right now, I do not think the technology is good enough to replace real artists. It sucks at anatomy, lighting, small details, composition, etc. It only sometimes spits out what the prompter wanted. It's bad at making characters consistent. Okay, but what about when the technology improves and can rival real artists? Should it be allowed to replace them then? That comes down to whether we want to privilege the ease of producing images or the employability of artists. Maybe it would have been a good idea to outlaw spinning looms and textile machines to promote the welfare of textile workers during the industrial revolution. Maybe it was better to allow the machines so that we could more easily make textiles available and affordable for consumers. It depends on whether we want to privilege the textile workers or the consumers. It depends on whether we want to live in a world where images are more affordable and available to anybody who needs them, or a world where people can still make a living doing art. I'm usually against protectionism, but art is one of the few jobs that people do because they _want_ to and not because they just fell into it. I'm not sure I want to live in a world with fewer fun, intrinsically rewarding jobs. I'd prefer to live in a world where we automate the menial tasks that people don't tend to want to do, like scrubbing floors or delivering pizzas, freeing us all to pursue our passions. So, maybe there's good reason to place limits on corporations' ability to replace human artists with AI (we already have this to an extent: you can't copyright an AI image that doesn't have significant human editing, so no corporation is going to want to put out comics and books that they can't own the rights to, and so they're not going to want to automate everything with AI right now).

[SkullandSwors_art]

1:42 One issue I’ve been pointing out with the common concession, that many make, that small companies/bands/people/etc using AI because they can’t afford a high level artist, is that doing so can somewhat derail the professional art ecosystem. People become better artists by doing more art, and likewise people become better professional artists by doing more professional work. The way a young artist becomes a more competent professional is by getting work. The way they get more exposure to get more professional work is by getting the work from those entities or individuals who cannot afford a higher level Artist. By removing those lower level jobs you prevent the development of entry level professional artists and create fewer opportunities for people to develop into professional artists.