A comics anthology that featured pages created with AI has been withdrawn from this year’s Eisner Awards. The book’s editor, Van Jensen, rescinded the nomination after it came back to light that a submission in the book by Michael Todasco was generated using artificial intelligence.
Stardust the Super Wizard Anthology, edited by Van Jensen and published by Blue Creek Creative, was crowdfunded through Zoop and featured a stellar line-up of talent, including Mike Allred, Francesco Francavilla, Pete Woods, Ron Marz, Zander Cannon, Cecil Castellucci, Jesse Lonergan, Jeff Parker, Tom Fowler and many more. The stories featured the legendary Fletcher Hanks’ Stardust, a public domain character from the Golden Age known for his zany adventures.
The Daily Cartoonist shared a statement from Comic-Con International that said this year’s judges did not know the anthology included an AI submission, and they “indicated that had they been aware of this information, they would not have voted for its inclusion.” It also noted that Jensen rescinded the submission, making it ineligible for an Eisner.
For his part, Todasco was open on social media about the fact that he used AI when the book came out. Graphic Policy shared a post from Todasco where he stated last year that he “trained a model on the original Fletcher Hanks artwork and story structure, and AI generated the published tale.” The story was listed as being by his “alter ego,” Alex Irons, whose initials of course are … well, you know. The Zoop campaign and the book itself, however, never mentioned that AI was used to create the story.
The removal of Stardust leaves four books in the “Best Anthology” category. Meanwhile, many online commentators, including Byron O’Neal of the excellent site Comic Book Yeti, have noted the Eisner Award rules do not exclude content created by AI. O’Neal has started a petition to change that.
“I don’t take this step lightly and don’t wish to place any additional stress on anyone involved with the awards and I’m eternally grateful to everyone who volunteers their time to make this such a special occasion that celebrates human excellence and achievement but doing nothing isn’t an option,” O’Neal wrote on the Change.org page that houses the petition. “My plan is to see how many people we can get to sign this and then to present it to the appropriate parties towards making a permanent change to the Submission Guidelines for 2027 and beyond.”
You can hear more from him on the subject by watching this video. For their part, the CCI said in their statement that “the ever-evolving landscape of technology, as it relates to art, will benefit from further review and discussion” and they plan to “produce a policy that better reflects its long standing efforts in the protection of artists and creators alike.”