Well, I’ve got good news and bad news for you this week starting with AI art allegations, but ending with a comics public education program developed by the NYC Department of Education.
DC has pulled Francesco Mattina’s variant covers following AI art allegations made by artist Adi Granvo. In a biting Facebook post from June 15th, Granvo identifies what appears to be the use of generative artificial intelligence on Mattina’s variant cover for Action Comics #1069. Following this accusation, fans started noting similar issues in other Mattina variants. As noted by Granvo calling Mattina a “serial plagiarist” in the post, these are not new accusations for Mattina who has been previously accused of plagiarism by other artists.
Additionally, artist Katerina Ladon defended herself on Facebook on Thursday after accusations that she used AI for her art in the new D&D Player’s Handbook. Ladon shared images from her sketching phase, including photos of an adorable white cat named Vega who serves as a model.
Peter B. Gillis, known for his writing for Marvel, died on June 20th at the age of 71. Gillis was a Ph.D. student in medieval German literature during the late 1970s who decided to take a break from dissertating and ended up penning Captain America comics. CBR has a nice overview of his work, but I want to draw attention to the fact that he wrote the comic book adaptation of Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn, a kids fantasy story that some at WWAC label as horror.
Now in good news, CBS News Chicago recently spread the word on how public school teachers in New York are using comics to teach history, social studies, and civics. As part of the NYC Department of Education Civics for All Comics Group, this program prints and publishes its own comics, and considering the size of NYC public schools, this makes them one of the largest publishers of comics in the United States! The comic books do not replace textbooks but supplement them in an effort to engage students in reading and literacy in alternative ways. Creators behind these comics include the Good Trouble Comics team of Andrew Aydin (where we first learned about this news report), Kelly Sue DeConnick, and Matt Fraction, plus many other creators doing excellent work in nonfictions comics such as Henry Barajas. Check out the NYC Social Studies & Civics Hub to learn more about this program and see the comics included in it.
Those are all the updates for now!
