AI Comics

Submission 5,134

Part of a series on AI Art. [View Related Entries]

About

AI Comics or AI-Generated Comics refers to a series of comic strips generated by AI systems like Bing Image Creator, DALL-E and Stable Diffusion, among others. The trend started on Reddit and iFunny in 2022 and 2023, spreading via reposts across social media platforms like Twitter / X.

Origin

As early as May 2022, internet users began experimenting with comic-related prompts for AI image generators. Currently, the first known example of an AI-generated comic was shared to /r/dalle2 on Reddit^[1] by /u/Wiskkey on May 12th, 2022. The prompt was "A Far Side comic about pizza, in color, with an elephant." The post gained 77 upvotes in a year (shown below).

Spread

Going into 2022, AI-generated comics continued to surface on various subreddits dedicated to AI art. For instance, on June 25th, 2022, Redditor /u/bemmu shared an attempt at a Garfield comic to /r/dalle2 on Reddit ^[2] gaining over 250 upvotes in a year (shown below, left).

On July 21st, 2022, Redditor cerealkillr shared an AI-generated comic to Reddit's^[3] /r/dalle2 that was made with the prompt "A four-panel comic of a man rushing into a hospital to check on his pregnant wife," gaining roughly 1,600 upvotes in a year (shown below, right).

Going into 2023, AI-generated comics became increasingly accurate and refined, primarily surfacing after the launch of Bing Image Creator that ran on DALL-E. For instance, on September 29th, 2023, Redditor ResponsiveSignature shared an AI-generated comic about a podcast to /r/redscarepod on Reddit,^[4] receiving over 190 upvotes in two months (shown below, left).

In November 2023, AI-generated comics started to go viral on iFunny.^[5] For instance, on November 17th, 2023, iFunnier^[6] @Pastor_Fartbuttman posted a seven-panel comic about a Walmart with mayonnaise paint and the boss firing a pregnant employee for it, gaining over 17,500 smiles in 10 days (shown below, right).

Later on November 17th, 2023, X^[7] user @newibz reposted the Walmart comic, stating, "This is an AI generated comic," gaining over 18,000 likes in 10 days. Viral AI-generated comics persisted on iFunny^[8] going into November 2023.

Ethnically Ambiguous AI Prompt Injection

Ethnically Ambiguous AI Prompt Injection refers to discussions about how AI engineers may have attempted to rectify DALL-E3 and Bing Image Creator racial bias by forcing prompts to occasionally include the phrase "ethnically ambiguous" in order to generate images that don't feature solely white people. Discussions about the phrase "ethnically ambiguous" appearing on AI-generated images and AI-generated comics without users submitting it as a prompt took place in late 2023.

For instance, on October 4th, 2023, X^[8] user @neilkli tweeted four AI-generated comic panels, stating, "if you tell the bing AI to make a cartoon with a caption, but don't tell it what to put in the caption, it usually chooses the name of a race, which is cool," gaining roughly 11,000 likes in a month (three examples, shown below).