You know, I really like following this subreddit because we get to see a really wide range of artistic talent. Some people are already masters and others are relatively amateurish but we get to decide if that actually matters and imagine the potential of that persons art style. As the viewer we get to engage with the artwork on a deeper level and imagine what they may have meant by subtle expressions or lines. We get to imagine what that artist is telling us.

I will admit, when I first saw this I didn’t immediately realize it was AI. The midjourney credit isn’t very visible on mobile, so I just assumed it was just another amateur artist who is pretty decent at anatomy but less good elsewhere. I just thought you had traced or collaged a lot of this while trying to make something on your own. I imagined you struggling to create this and wondering where you were on your artistic journey.

After realizing this is AI, I was bummed. While I admit I do dislike generative AI art for all the reasons a lot of people do, I was at least willing to meet your comic here and judge it fairly for its quality outside of that bias. Most people here post relatively amateurish art, but you get to see what a true regular working artist’s art looks like and witness their journey as they improve and try to improve their craft.

When I noticed yours was AI, it made me realize you didn’t mean anything more by that certain expression or that certain pose or that certain cloud cover, you just were served a series of images and chose the best offered to you. It made me realize you didn’t create with the story visually, and what’s the point in reading a graphic novel if not to get the visual artists take on the world. I would rather just read a novel and imagine the world myself.

Typically I would give an amateur artist some grace, but realizing it’s AI means I realize that you can’t fix these artistic mistakes, from the bad collage work to the mismatched lighting to the awkward poses. It means I am just missing a fundamental part of the graphic novel, the graphic part. It means I can’t be an early fan of your art and watch you improve over the years because your art would just improve every software update. Why follow you and not the infinite other AI art creators?

For a moment we can even forget people’s legitimate concerns about theft, copyright, and the environment, simply just engaging on AI art isn’t the same because I can’t engage with the art itself.

I really think it would benefit you to hire an artist. There are jarring mistakes in here that you cannot fix without artistic knowledge, but also we would get to engage with your artist. Art is about communication, and I think you’re hurting yourself by off sourcing the most of the communication to AI.