Comic creators mourn the death of human craftsmanship as AI slop takes over

Savio Mascarenhas, Group Art Director, Amar Chitra Katha  | Photo Credit: BIJOY GHOSH

Remember how last year social media timelines were flooded with people posting their wide-eyed cutesy images in the distinctive style of Japanese animation house Studio Ghibli recreated by ChatGPT. But amidst that craze, a video emerged of Hayao Miyazaki, the founder of the legendary studio, who back in 2016 had shared his utter disgust for such technologies, saying whoever created AI work “has no idea what pain is”.

Within Miyazaki’s scathing criticism lies the issue of ‘artistic labour’ that the use of AI in all forms of art ignores, artists and cartoonists told businessline on the sidelines of the Chennai edition of Comic Con India 2026.

When prompts take over

Savio Mascarenhas, Group Art Director, Amar Chitra Katha believes that while AI can produce significantly higher volumes of content faster and cheaper, it lacks the ‘essence’ of hand-crafted work. “The individuality that each artist brings, both in terms of style and the stories that they tell - AI cannot recreate that,” he said.

Beyond just stylistic concerns, comics are often a labour of years with multiple iterations before the page reaches print. Rajesh Nagulakonda, an independent comic artist, believes that comics or any artform usually reflects a journey or a culmination of a vision built and nurtured over a long time. “It is impossible to commodify that process,” he said.

Not all technologies are necessarily bad, he added. “When we went from drawing on paper to drawing digitally, it made things a lot easier. But that is not the same as generating content with no human effort. Similarly AI might also have its place, in fringe cases, but the process of comic-making itself, should continue to be human,” he said.

Beauty in imperfection

Artists also perceive a dip in terms of the quality of work itself with the cheap and easy AI generated content. Ron Marz, known for his work on titles such as Batman/Aliens and Green Lantern says that when you look at something generated by AI, there is a sense that something is missing. “There is that uncanny valley that I think we have conquered in CGI and other digital effects which still feels very present in AI. I would rather have something imperfect that was made by a person than something that tries to be perfect, that is just culled from everything else,” he said.

Published on February 22, 2026