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Comics & AI: Critical Prompts. A Multidisciplinary Conference on Comics, Technology and Creativity. Book of Abstracts & Bios

Reposted by Comics & AI: Critical Prompts

Ernesto Priego @ernestopriego.com · Sep 12

Number of in-person participants: 40. Number of downloads at the time of typing: 86. Number of views: 6,360. Deposited online three days ago. #ComicsAndAI: Critical Prompts. A Multidisciplinary Conference on Comics, Technology and Creativity. Book of Abstracts & Bios doi.org/10.6084/m9.f...

Comics & AI: Critical Prompts, A one-day multidisciplinary conference on the future of comics, technology, and creativity, took place on Thursday, 4 September 2025 at City St George’s, University of L...

'Comics people generally hate what I do': The Ilan Manouach Interview - The Comics Journal

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Comics & AI: Critical Prompts @comicsandai.org · Sep 11

Quoting Paul Gravett:

"It seems apt that a week ago today, on the same day as our conference [ #ComicsAndAI ], Ilan Manouach was interviewed on @comicsjournal.bsky.social:

www.tcj.com/comics-peopl... "

Ilan Manouach interviewed by Robert Aman.

www.tcj.com

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Comics & AI: Critical Prompts @comicsandai.org · Sep 10

Same file has been viewed on @figshare.com more than 3k times since at the time of typing this, by the way. doi.org/10.6084/m9.f... #ComicsAndAI

Comics & AI: Critical Prompts. A Multidisciplinary Conference on Comics, Technology and Creativity. Book of Abstracts & Bios

Comics & AI: Critical Prompts, A one-day multidisciplinary conference on the future of comics, technology, and creativity, took place on Thursday, 4 September 2025 at City St George’s, University of L...

City Research Online - Comics & AI: Critical Prompts. A Multidisciplinary Conference on Comics, Technology and Creativity. Book of Abstracts & Bios

Comics & AI: Critical Prompts @comicsandai.org · Sep 10

The conference's Book of Abstracts & Bios is also now available via City St George's Online, the University's open access research repository: openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/35... #ComicsAndAI

openaccess.city.ac.uk

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Comics & AI: Critical Prompts @comicsandai.org · Sep 8

There's been some versioning since the first deposit- for the latest version, use

doi.org/10.6084/m9.f...

#ComicsAndAI

Comics & AI: Critical Prompts. A Multidisciplinary Conference on Comics, Technology and Creativity. Book of Abstracts & Bios

Comics & AI: Critical Prompts, A one-day multidisciplinary conference on the future of comics, technology, and creativity, took place on Thursday, 4 September 2025 at City St George’s, University of L...

Comics & AI: Critical Prompts. A Multidisciplinary Conference on Comics, Technology and Creativity. Book of Abstracts & Bios

Comics & AI: Critical Prompts @comicsandai.org · Sep 8

We've deposited a PDF documenting the conference schedule, presentation abstracts, speaker bios, sponsor logos, and acknowledgements. Comics & AI: Critical Prompts. A Multidisciplinary Conference on Comics, Technology and Creativity. Book of Abstracts & Bios doi.org/10.6084/m9.f... #ComicsAndAI

Comics & AI: Critical Prompts, A one-day multidisciplinary conference on the future of comics, technology, and creativity, took place on Thursday, 4 September 2025 at City St George’s, University of L...

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Comics & AI: Critical Prompts @comicsandai.org · Sep 8

😅

Comics & AI: Critical Prompts @comicsandai.org · Sep 8

Thank you. We try not to disagree with anything a priori- what we need is the critical research and the evidence-based conversation. This is an important contribution.

💭 🥰 🙏 What an inspiring, thought-provoking, and energising day it was at Comics & AI: Critical Prompts on 4 September 2025 at City St George’s, University of London! A heartfelt thank-you to… | E...

Comics & AI: Critical Prompts @comicsandai.org · Sep 8

For our followers' kind consideration.

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · Sep 6

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n

Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or
even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in
the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or
apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we
are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not
considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This
is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse
and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece,
we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology
industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to
relevant work to further inform our colleagues.

Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI
(black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are
in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are
both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and
Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf.
Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al.
2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA).

Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms
are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe.

Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles

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Comics & AI: Critical Prompts @comicsandai.org · Sep 5

Indeed, thank you so much everyone. #ComicsAndAI

Ernesto Priego @ernestopriego.com · Sep 5

A quick LinkedIn post about @comicsandai.org yesterday- basically thanking everyone- you guys rock. www.linkedin.com/posts/ernest... #ComicsAndAI

💭 🥰 🙏 What an inspiring, thought-provoking, and energising day it was at Comics & AI: Critical Prompts on 4 September 2025 at City St George’s, University of London! A heartfelt thank-you to everyone...

www.linkedin.com

Comics & AI: Critical Prompts @comicsandai.org · Sep 4

Finally, our Closing Keynote: Dr Ian Hague: Beyond #NoAI: How Accepting AI Might Change Comics #ComicsAndAI

Closing Keynote: Dr Ian Hague, Associate Dean of Research at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London: Beyond #NoAI: How Accepting AI Might Change Comics, stands front of lecture theatre behind pod, behind Ian two large screens with slides, Should we use AI? How should we use AI and for what purposes?

Schedule, Abstracts, & Bios

Comics & AI: Critical Prompts @comicsandai.org · Sep 4

Check all our speakers bios and their papers' abstracts here: comicsandai.org/schedule-abs... #ComicsAndAI

The schedule outlines a series of presentations at a comics and AI conference, discussing generative AI’s impact on comics, copyright, creativity, and ethical considerations.

comicsandai.org

Comics & AI: Critical Prompts @comicsandai.org · Sep 4

Now speaking: Viraj Joshi: Speculation as Resistance: Mundane machine intelligence, a narrowing of futures, and plural counter narratives #ComicsAndAI

Viraj Joshi stands at the front of the lecture theatre behind the pod, four screens visible, slide with "A narrowing of futures" as title

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Comics & AI: Critical Prompts @comicsandai.org · Sep 4

Jane Burns: Comics & AI: The Intersection with Social Innovation Education #ComicsAndAI

Jane Burns, The Intersection with Social Innovation Education, stands at front of lecture theatre, slides behind

Comics & AI: Critical Prompts @comicsandai.org · Sep 4

Karrie Fransman on Creating IRL Comics for an AI Future! #ComicsAndAI

Karrie Fransman on Creating IRL Comics for an AI Future at the front of the lecture theatre, members of the audience visible, slides on screens

Comics & AI: Critical Prompts @comicsandai.org · Sep 4

Dr Despoina Farmaki: The Ink Was Never Human: AI, Copyright, and Comics #ComicsAndAI

Dr Despoina Farmaki, The Ink Was Never Human: AI, Copyright, and Comics stands at podium, title slides behind on screens

Comics & AI: Critical Prompts @comicsandai.org · Sep 4

Jasleen Kandhari on Drawing the Line: AI & Ethics in Comic Book Character Design #ComicsAndAI

Jasleen Kandhari on Drawing the Line: AI & Ethics in Comic Book Character Design , she sits at the lecture theatre pod with screens behind her

Comics & AI: Critical Prompts @comicsandai.org · Sep 4

It's been a thought-provoking and inspiring day; lots of interesting conversations, and we haven't been able to post here in real time! #ComicsAndAI

Comics & AI: Critical Prompts @comicsandai.org · Sep 4

Now on: Dr Aaron Humphrey: Tracing nationalist legacies of generative AI #ComicsAndAI

Dr Aaron Humphrey at the front of the lecture theatre with two screens behind presenting on Tracing nationalist legacies of generative AI with slide titled Image & Nation

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Comics & AI: Critical Prompts @comicsandai.org · Sep 4

We are back after the lunch break to begin the second part of the day! Now on Dr Linda Berube: “Intense Routes to Knowing”: Intersections between the Digital Sociology of Comics and AI #ComicsAndAI

Dr Linda Berube at the front of the lecture theatre with two screens behind her showing her title slide, “Intense Routes to Knowing”: Intersections between the Digital Sociology of Comics and AI

Comics & AI: Critical Prompts @comicsandai.org · Sep 4

Dr Per Israelson on Speculative Affect and Generative AI: Reading Ilan Manouach’s manga Fastwalkers (2021) #ComicsAndAI

Comics & AI: Critical Prompts @comicsandai.org · Sep 4

Dr Julian Lawrence on Fun with AI: Digital Technology Through a Lens of Comics-Based Research #ComicsAndAI

Dr Julian Lawrence at lecture theatre pod, two screens behind with his slides, one comics panel on a white space

Dr Julian Lawrence at lecture theatre pod, two screens behind with his slides, two comics panels on a white space

Comics & AI: Critical Prompts @comicsandai.org · Sep 4

Dr Giorgio Busi Rizzi on AI, comics, and creativity: or, why are we talking of ghosts in the machine again #ComicsAndAI

Dr Giorgio Busi Rizzi with his slides on the two screens behind him on image generation, memory and latent space

Dr Giorgio Busi Rizzi, slides behind on screens, title comics swiping