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Published September 2, 2025

Creative Spark

As an artist, I use all kinds of technological tools. So why does AI feel distinctly repulsive to me?
Page 1: Panel 1: I've been thinking a lot about AI Art. Panel 2: This is a consequence of spending a week in a lodge with a lot of programmers who find this new innovation absolutely thrilling. Programmers say, "It's a new tool!" "So exciting!" Panel 3: Not to put all things in terms of "Downton Abbey," but around them I felt like an old curmudgeon. "A toaster? At Downton?! Whatever for?! We're perfectly suited the way we have things now!" Panel 4: I believe this sentiment is born from a fear of automation…she wrote, typing her handlettered font into the iPad she'll later use to draw this comic digitally.Page 2: Panel 1: I shouldn't be afraid of tools that reduce the work it takes to actualize an artistic vision. Although it feels unfair in transition, it is the path I took when I started working digitally. Panel 2: Those in tech believe that AI is a tool like any other tool I've grown used to...that ultimately it will help artists like me save time. As it is now, I can't see how. Panel 3: The very model of AI-generated art is to steal styles from human artists (some of them the most underpaid members of society!) and make them available to the public. How could that possibly help them? Panel 4: Compare this to other technological advances that ultimately benefited the art world, like the camera. When it was made cheaply available to the public, it also took jobs and commissions away from artists...like medical textbooks, advertisement, and portraits.Page 3: Panel 1: But in its place, new art movements were born, as well as new uses for photographs: photo references, impressionism, modernism. And photography went on to become its own separate artistic genre; not replacing but enhancing and evolving traditional art. Panel 2: I can't tell if my inability to see this AI-enhanced future is due to a lack of imagination or my resistance to change. I remember how bitterly unfair I felt the undo button was...before I got my iPad. Panel 3: The term "democratization of art" makes me feel elitist, like I'm high on my mountain of skill, unwilling to share with the peasants below. “I've paid my pound of flesh in the way of over a million poorly drawn hands! I earned my right to charge what I want for the art I make through countless artistic failures!” Panel 4: “I don't care what ideas you have! You can't do what I do! This is my skill! Mine! Talk to me after you've spent a decade figuring out how to draw the underside of a foot!”Page 4: Panel 1: When I really think about it, this isn’t how I truly feel. Panel 2: I want everyone to experience the thrill of creation; the joy that comes when you make something that had previously only existed in your brain…summoned it into the physical world…ready to be shared. Panel 3: In many respects, it’s one of the oldest and most intimate forms of human connection. Panel 5: Human connection.Page 5: Panel 1: I wonder if we will still feel that connection moving forward. Panel 2: How important is the creator when viewing the creation? Panel 3: We still consume media by abusers and enjoy the works of folks who held and hold harmful perspectives. Media being held up by impersonal arms that have the creators’ harms on them: A film marked “Weinstein” is held by “MeToo,” book “Orson Scott Card” is held by “homophobic,” book “J.K. Rowling” is held by “TERF,” book “H.P. Lovecraft” is held by “racist,” book “R. Crumb” is held by “where to start…” What difference would it make if it were generated instead of created? Panel 4: Would we still enjoy those same works? Would it feel hollow? Or would anyone care?Page 6: Panel 1: I suppose these concerns aren’t yet relevant, but I can see them becoming relevant in the future. Because despite my personal misgivings, I don’t see AI going anywhere. Panel 2: I wonder if I’d love the future the tech bros see in which AI art is integrated ethically. Perhaps I could use it to plug my own art into it and create comics faster (much like my hand-lettered font I use thanks to calligraphr.com) Panel 3: But what is surprising to no one is the fact that these ethical considerations are not being taken into account with each new software update. Panel 4: If anything, the popularity of AI art has highlighted a common desire for good art…good, instant, on demand, art…with no mention of costs.Page 7: Panel 1: And there are costs. You’d think by now we’d have learned that free tech is never really free. Panel 2: But can we even comprehend the costs to our culture if everyone with an idea can claim ownership to an image they’ve generated? …Now that theft-powered technology has made seemingly limitless self expression available to everyone… Panel 3: Is there a cost to convenience? To sidestepping the repeated failure of learning a new skill? Panel 4: And look, I get it. It’s all very…human…to follow the path of least resistance in order to express oneself. Unburdened by the weight of having to learn how to draw, I now find great delight in drawing and writing comics.Page 8: Panel 1: But can an unfathomably vast volume of styles from which to sample really be enough to express yourself? Panel 2: I have always believed that art does not exist in a vacuum. Neither does the artist. Panel 3: We seem to be careening toward programming the very essence of human creation into machines. But am I not also…similarly programmed? Panel 4: AI art is forcing me to consider not only what it means to be an artist…but what it means to be a human that creates.Page 9: Panel 1: Is what makes us human the randomness of our failure? “You’re only human,” a phrase we only use when one of us screws up. Is that what it means to be human? Panel 2: Can my mistakes be plotted? Predicted? Programmed? Panel 3: I have to believe there is something inextricably mine in all my flawed creations. An enduring and unquenchable source of self-expression. Panel 4: Because if it is possible to replicate this particular human quality…what are we doing?

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