A Moment in Time for Kickstarter AI Comics

Nearly a month ago, on November 28, I posted a diatribe about the intentionally misleading use of AI-generated art in a Kickstarter campaign. That post, entitled “I Found the Most Egregious AI Art on Kickstarter” drew significantly more attention than the usual post and maintains momentum in the forms of comments, likes and restacks even today. Clearly, there’s no shortage of interest in the topic of AI-generated comic art, particularly among those of us who are crafting comics the old-fashioned way.

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I’ve since noticed some other developments and trends around the AI issue, so let’s take advantage of a slow launch week to cut a slice of basic data from the Kickstarter Comics category and refine our picture of AI-generated art and its current place there.

Some essential numbers as of the morning of December 26, 2024:

Of 112 live Comics projects, 11 (9.8%) self-disclose the use of AI in creating some or all art for the project.
Of those 11 AI-involved Comics projects, 6 are NSFW/porn comics.
Of the 6 AI-involved NSFW/porn projects, 4 have funded or appear certain to fund with 496 backers currently pledging $26,523 in total ($6631/campaign).
Of the 5 AI-involved SFW Comics projects, 2 have funded (no others are likely to fund) with 163 backers currently pledging $6856 in total ($3428/campaign).

Promotional AI-Generated Artwork from Perils of Passion 3, currently live on Kickstarter

Immediate Takeaways

1 out of 10 Comics on Kickstarter is made with AI

It’s a bit surprising to me that nearly 10% of all live projects in Kickstarter Comics self-disclose use of AI art. Believe me when I tell you there are a few others that don’t disclose it but are obviously using primarily AI art, particularly for their endless stream of nude/porn cover variants. For our purposes today, however, we’ll stick to analysis involving the self-disclosed AI projects. Kickstarter’s naive use of the honor system for AI disclosures is a topic in and of itself and best left for another day.

Most of the Comics making heavy use of AI are NSFW/Porn Comics

What’s not surprising to me is that most of that 10% consists of NSFW/porn comics. If you’re taking the easy route to cash in by splaying the (exclusively) female body across all your covers, why wouldn’t you go that extra step toward creative economy and just magically transmute verbal prompts into even more nude female configurations without paying or crediting real artists? Yes, in my sarcasm, perhaps I exaggerate, but not by much.

My point is that high funding gotten by way of miniscule effort and expense will lead many more desperate and/or indifferent “creators” to take this path. And, from a purely financial perspective, who can blame them? Even in this small, one-day sample, these projects nearly double of the average funding of SFW comics that also admit to AI use in their art, and 2 of the NSFW campaigns are funding north of $10,000. That’ll soothe a lot of creative consciences.

2 non-NSFW Comics disclose creating ALL project art via AI

I truly didn’t expect to see any comics outside the NSFW realm acknowledge crafting sequential and cover art primarily using AI sources, but there exist a couple that did just that. While The French Baron shows interior art samples that, while attractive, seem to vary broadly in style across panels, The Devil’s Coil shows off more consistency across the page without resorting to cloned images or identical cut/paste faces.

Interior art from The Devil’s Coil by Randall Rozzell, currently funding on Kickstarter

Regardless your position on the use of any AI-generated art in the making of comics, more advanced use of AI tools on the sequential (and most important) side of the process is significant. It’s worth noting that both of these projects are already successfully funded, despite their honest admission of AI involvement, and a fair assessment of their Kickstarter project pages reveals professional use of such to inform potential backers of the story details and then entice them with attractive cover and interior art. That’s more than can be said of most of the AI-involved NSFW/porn comics currently live on Kickstarter, where campaigns are simply endless scrolls of current and backlisted porn covers. It’s a distinction that deserves attention.

The Return of AI-Generated Project Launches

For the past few weeks, a few Comics campaigns launched on Kickstarter that featured 1-3 project images that were obviously AI-generated but not disclosed as such. These campaigns are similar in some key aspects that are sufficiently unusual to set them apart from those launched by experienced or well-researched creators. Some examples:

Campaign lengths at the extremes of the continuum, either 24 hours or 59 days
High-priced basic rewards tiers, starting at $75 and $80
First-time creators who never backed a single other Kickstarter
Exorbitantly high funding goals of $25,000 and $50,000 for first-time creators
Homogenized cookie-cutter campaign page text composed in that too-correct, robotic ChatGPT style
Quick cancellations of a first launch, followed immediately by a re-launch with minor changes to the campaign title, duration or text

Promotional artwork (likely AI-generated) from Tenshio Legend: Cries of Destiny (Cancelled)

Tyler James of ComixLaunch previously reported on these AI-generated spam projects in August, and these December AI launches are reminiscent of those types of swindles. Beware.

Kickstarter’s practice of auto-approving the first campaigns of new creators is part of the problem here, especially when they’re taking days to review those of experienced and engaged creators - LIKE ME - with an established track record of 100% dependable fulfillment. Plus, they need an AI-detection filter that scans submitted artwork for the hallmarks of AI usage and subsequently triggers a required AI disclosure.

In Conclusion

Until there’s clear legislation about the use of AI in creating art, there remain umpteen gray areas that art institutions, including Kickstarter, are really unprepared to handle more effectively in the current, contentious environment. However, there are steps they could take, as detailed above, to at least tighten up the whole-lotta-nothing they’re employing right now. Expecting money-hungry porn-slingers and phishing charlatans to adhere to the honor system is pollyannish to the extreme.

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The State of AI Comics on Kickstarter for December, 2024