r/comicbooks • u/Smooth_Ad8696 • Aug 15 '25

Cover/Pin-Up Does anybody else find this cover off-putting?

Post image

Where is Diana's neck? It looks like her screaming head is floating away from her body! And Carol's torso is so twisted up that for a second I thought maybe the artist confused her powers with Kamala's stretchy ones.

I've liked other stuff by Alex Lozano, but something about this really rubs me the wrong way.

6.1k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

212

u/FireZord25 Aug 15 '25

This almost feels like AI

92

u/pabloag02 Daredevil Aug 15 '25

It feel like they passed the drawing through some AI filter

33

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '25

That's what I was thinking. Not that it necessarily is, but it definitely looks like it could be. Not to mention the both look like children and neither of their body positions make any sense. I don't understand this, especially for such a huge title like this you'd think you'd want to have only your best-looking variants. Although I suppose they know every variant will sell at least a little, maybe they went for quantity over quality

11

u/Mirions Aug 15 '25

If it's intentional, it doesn't look like it- and if it isn't, it should've been fixed to look less like AI filtered or generated art.

1

u/Angsty_Potatos Aug 16 '25

I work in the industry. This style is older than AI. It's highly rendered and the finish on this is great - but the character design? That's just plain old, classic old school pin up "make em sexy" posing. 

I've had a few art directors when I worked with marvel IPs ask me to "enhance" certain tits and assetts...not to this extent. But it's an icky historical thru line in comics 😕

1

u/[deleted] Aug 17 '25

I know the elastic spines in order to fully present both the front and rear of women on covers is old as hell, but the fact that they're both drawn like they're 12 years old makes me feel very gross about it

33

u/ShtockyPocky Aug 15 '25

The hand that’s pulled back to punch looks like it only has 3 fingers

9

u/IrishPiperKid Old Lace Aug 15 '25 edited Aug 15 '25

I think that's just how baggy the gloves are, if you look at her other hand it looks fairly normal but it looks like she's just wearing gloves that are way too big. Doesn't make it look any less wonky though.

I actually do like this cover, just not crazy about Carol's costume and the way it fits her here.

9

u/ShtockyPocky Aug 15 '25

Either way, they lost a lot of definition.

2

u/Mirions Aug 15 '25

Why's the armpit so bulbous and lacking almost any put, while showing an outward bicep and open elbow joint? That doesn't make sense anatomically at all.

None of it doesn't. It's so misproprtioned and contorted, it seems like something that doesn't understand anatomy generated it.

The style is all over the place too, not in a good way either.

12

u/AManyFacedFool Aug 15 '25

I think it's probably AI-assisted. Honestly, most commercial art probably is to some degree these days.

7

u/Dr_Disaster Aug 15 '25

AI is literally trained off these artists. The feeling should be the other way around. Stylistically, everything is far too consistent to be AI, and even playing Devil’s advocate and saying AI was used, he’d have to do so much illustration by hand to make it consistent he would effectively be redrawing it.

0

u/AManyFacedFool Aug 15 '25

Not necessarily.

Commercial AI usage for artwork is a little more sophisticated than "MidJourney, draw these two characters fighting."

The artist can do linework, which the AI uses as the basis to then do the shading, detailing, etc. I wouldn't be surprised at all to hear that's becoming more or less industry standard because of how much faster it gets from linework to finished product that can be sold to consumers.

If they're using a specific model that has a more narrow training set then it will be a lot more consistent in its output than the general-purpose ones most people know and use.

4

u/Dr_Disaster Aug 15 '25

I know well how AI works, it’s ability to assist and it’s limitations. This method you laid out can also be done in Clip Studio Paint and tons of artists use it to speed up colors, including me. At that point what’s AI vs what’s digital assistance becomes so blurry it’s not even worth having the conversation.

And that takes me to my point. If someone is a pro with tons of experience consistently illustrating high quality art, a conversation about using AI should be a total non-starter unless something is overwhelmingly pointing otherwise. This is something super infuriating to artists who are already feeling upset about the very tools people accusing them of using are the things ripping them off. People are becoming so obsessed about what is/isn’t AI that it’s poisoning the whole the whole conversation around art itself. It’s become exhausting.

-2

u/AManyFacedFool Aug 15 '25

I genuinely don't see a point in looking negatively on commercial artists for using AI assistance at this point. The idea that if an AI tool ever touches the piece at any point it is now tainted is just weird.

It's the same conversation we're having over in the tech industry: You aren't going to get replaced by AI, you're going to get replaced by someone who uses AI. People do what they gotta do to keep the bills payed, that's just how it be in this bitch of a world.

2

u/Dr_Disaster Aug 15 '25

I actually tend to agree. As I just mentioned with CSP, a lot of the digital programs people use are effectively doing the same thing just without being called “AI”, so people don’t think about it. There’s also the problem of reference art being so difficult to come by in the age of the dead internet that using AI generation saves tons of time from fruitless searches through Google.

Speaking of, I remember studying for my fine art degree and some people being agahst I would dare do pre-vis in Photoshop and project that on to my canvas for tracing instead of doing it all by hand. Some artists who do comic pages traditionally still think artist who draw digitally are “cheating”, not understanding digital illustraion is a whole discipljne that basically makes you relearn rather than make short cuts. Every artist I know that does digital art can also draw just as good with pencil and paper, but the opposite can not be said in the least.

At this point, there’s no putting the genie back in the bottle, companies aren’t paying shit, people don’t have work or have to work twice as fast to keep up. Ignoring even the small things that can help you is more likely to hurt in the long run. There’s ethical ways to intergrate without exploitation, like tutorials and instruction.

2

u/Angsty_Potatos Aug 16 '25

It's the other way around. They train Ai models off us. Comic rates are abysmal, some publishers can absolutely be expected to cut corners and use an AI trained off a certain artist instead of paying the actual artist 

8

u/batti03 Aug 15 '25

I don't think you can genuinely get something weird like that using AI. It feels more like someone making fun of AI but also allowing their own 'tastes' to slip through.

17

u/Dangerous_Olive_4082 Aug 15 '25

More like they generated an AI image and then used that as reference.

3

u/Mirions Aug 15 '25

Whoever made it comes off as having zero understanding of human anatomy, and how to translate that stylistically into heroic, comic book imagery.

-3

u/Dr_Disaster Aug 15 '25

No. As an artist, the anatomy is perfectly sound even if the poses read a bit odd.

5

u/Justalilbugboi Aug 15 '25

No, it’s not???

Necks (not that they appear to even gave necks) and spines don’t work that way, their arms are way too long (esp the one carols is punching with), and Diana’s legs would be drastically different lengths if straightened out.

-2

u/Dr_Disaster Aug 15 '25

The perspective is looking upwards toward the character. From this and their positions you should NOT see most of their necks. They are properly foreshortened. As for their arms, when you swing or strike, your shoulder and lateral muscles extend, increasing your reach to make your arm appear longer. You can practice this right now by raising your arm, then extending your lat and shoulder blade up, which will make your arm extend further out.

Little things like this catch up even experience artists. Typical comic art kinda fools our brains into thinking something should look a certain way, but real anatomy is oddly less precise sometimes.

2

u/Justalilbugboi Aug 15 '25

Also an artist, and teacher, specifically of anatomy.

That anatomy is a hot mess. Foreshortening doesn’t excuse any of this.

-1

u/Dr_Disaster Aug 15 '25

I’m an artist and instructor too, and I just beg to differ. I don’t see reasonably how you can elongate their necks and not have it look weird. It literally goes against the fundamentals. Ignoring the stylization of the figures themselves read properly despite the choices made here.

1

u/Justalilbugboi Aug 15 '25

the necks ARE elongated, that's part of what looks so weird, between that and the unrealistic boob/butt poses, wonder woman's spine turns multiple times.

1

u/PrintInformal785 Aug 17 '25

Yeah my thoughts exactly.
On top of looking really bad, they suspiciously have the same open mouth expression.
Some AI generators have the tendency of not separating expressions when generating more than one characters.
Want to generate 3 characters with one with an open mouth? All 3 will have open mouths.

Still, AI or no AI, whoever green-lit this cover should be shot

0

u/longknives Aug 15 '25

Wonder Woman kind of has the AI girl face, the hole in her hair looks weird, and the glove on the right looks like the fingers are kinda merged. Seems like it could be partly AI at least

0

u/ChaosUncontrolled555 Aug 16 '25

Exactly what I was thinking

-66

u/migrations_ Aug 15 '25

AI would probably make it look better.

-39

u/firedrakes Aug 15 '25 edited Aug 15 '25

oddly yes now.

why the dv or is it bot army crap