Brussels’ Cartoon Industry Battles AI: Artists vs. Algorithms
Home to animated heroes like Tintin and the Smurfs, Brussels proudly displays its cartoon heritage through mammoth murals that adorn the city’s streets. However, all is not well in the self-declared capital of comics. European cartoon artists are now facing a real-life adversary: artificial intelligence (AI).
Legal Grey Area of AI-Generated Art
AI-generated art currently operates in a legal grey area, leading to novel intellectual property disputes. Copyright laws in the European Union do not explicitly cover AI-generated art, causing uncertainty among artists about whether AI will help or hinder creativity. There is also the concern of whether low-cost AI tools will eventually replace human artists.
Rejection and Legal Challenges
Generative AI tools like MidJourney use machine-learning algorithms trained on artists’ images to create pictures in minutes. This has triggered a “complete rejection” of AI in the European comic-book industry, according to Gauthier van Meerbeeck, editorial director at Le Lombard, the publisher of Tintin. “This art is generated by stealing from artists. So morally I could never get involved in that,” said van Meerbeeck.
Across the Atlantic, Disney faced controversy in June 2023 for using AI-generated images in Marvel’s “Secret Invasion,” leading to a flurry of lawsuits in the U.S. Prominent tech companies, such as Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Meta Platforms, have faced copyright cases from artists who claim AI profited from their work without permission or compensation.
EU Regulations and Potential Solutions
European comic book publishers are preparing for litigation as new EU rules under the AI Act will take effect in mid-2025. These rules will require tech firms to be transparent about their training inputs, potentially opening them up to copyright lawsuits. Quentin Deschandelliers, legal advisor at the Federation of European Publishers, explained that understanding the technology behind AI is crucial for litigation. The incoming law may push tech firms towards licensing agreements to compensate artists if their work is used to train a generative AI model.
Several tech companies have already signed content-licensing deals with media outlets, such as OpenAI with the Financial Times and Google with NewsCorp. However, some publishers and authors fear that these agreements might lead to a flood of AI-generated works in the market.
Artists’ Dilemma: Embrace or Reject AI
Belgian comic book artist Marnix Verduyn, known as NIX, trained a generative algorithm on his own comics, joking that it would allow him more leisure time. However, fellow artists did not find it amusing, especially after the powerful generative AI model Dall-E was introduced in 2021. “It was a shock how powerful it was,” NIX said. “That’s when I thought there’s a lot of people who are not going to have jobs in the future.”
The cultural sector in Europe employed 7.7 million people in 2022, with a net turnover of about €448 billion in 2021. NIX believes AI can take on low-skilled, repetitive tasks, helping European artists compete with Japanese and U.S. comic-book giants. However, recent art graduates are concerned about entry-level jobs being filled by machines. Sarah Vanderhaegen, a 24-year-old Belgian, described how her experience with AI during an internship led her to pursue an archaeology degree instead.
The Future of Comics
Despite concerns, many believe AI-generated images lack the human touch. “AI-generated images, I can spot them straight away,” said van Meerbeeck, noting that the complexity of comics’ storyline, text, and images keeps them safe for now. NIX sees AI as a tool, with humans remaining in control. “It’s just a cocktail of ideas stolen from somebody. I see the mathematics (of AI), so there’s no soul in the mathematics,” he said.
