Comics and AI: Critical Prompts

Summary

Comics & AI: Critical Prompts. A one-day multidisciplinary conference on the future of comics, technology, and creativity.

Thursday 4 September 2025, Clerkenwell Campus, 9:00-18:30hrs.

Registration deadline: 22nd August 2025, 23:59
Registration fee: £15 (academics / professionals), £5 (students / unwaged), Free (City St George's staff and student volunteers)

Don’t miss this exciting opportunity to rethink comics and AI with a multidisciplinary community!

The City St George’s Interaction Lab, The Centre for Human-Computer Interaction Design (HCID), and The Artificial Intelligence Research Centre (CitAI) cordially invite you to Comics & AI: Critical Prompts, a one-day, in-person multidisciplinary conference exploring the vibrant intersections of comics and artificial intelligence.

Speakers

Our speakers come from diverse disciplines and backgrounds combining Comics and AI, including

Our keynote speaker on GenAI 101 for Comics, Dr Eduardo Alonso, Professor in Artificial Intelligence and Director of the AI Research Centre (CitAI) at City St George’s, University of London

Dr Despoina Farmaki, Lecturer in Law at City St George’s, University of London
The Ink Was Never Human: AI, Copyright, and Comics

Dr Gareth Brookes, graphic novelist and comics scholar  
Truth Claims and Trace: The Autographic Witness in the Algorithm

Dr Julian Lawrence, Senior Lecturer in Comics and Graphic Novels at Teesside University
Fun with AI: Digital Technology Through a Lens of Comics-Based Research

Jennifer Cheuk, research archivist for the Aotearoa Asian Arts Archive in New Zealand
Inference as Narrative in AI-Generated Comics

Dr Linda Berube, Visiting Lecturer at the Centre for Human-Computer Interaction Design at City St. George’s, University of London
The Digital Sociology of AI and Comics

Dr Aaron Humphrey, Senior Lecturer in Media and Digital Humanities at the University of Adelaide, Australia
Tracing Nationalist Legacies of Generative AI

Dr Giorgio Busi Rizzi, FWO Senior Post-Doctoral Fellow and Adjunct Professor at Ghent University
Creativity as Assimilation, Reproduction and Deviation from the Existent - or, Why Are We Talking of Ghosts in the Machine Again and Again

Karrie Fransman, comics creator, Creative Director at PositiveNegatives.org and founding member of The Comics Cultural Impact Collective (CCIC)
Creating IRL Comics for an AI Future

Jasleen Kandhari, a graduate on the University of York Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence scholarship and a doctoral researcher on the University of Leicester Visual Culture scholarship
Drawing the Line: AI & Ethics in Comic Book Character Design

Jane Burns, Director of Education & Public Engagement at the Technological University of the Shannon, Ireland
The Intersection with Social Innovation Education

Viraj Joshi, designer, technologist, futurist, and Visiting Tutor in Speculative and Human-Machine Interaction Design at the Royal College of Art and Imperial College London
Eliza - The Ghost in Every Machine

Dr Per Israelson, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Media and Communication at Linnaeus University, Sweden
Affect and Generative AI: Reading Ilan Manouach’s manga Fastwalkers (2021)

We will cap off the day with a panel discussion headed by Paul Gravett, comics activist and organiser of Comica, the London International Comics Festival, with Dr Ian Hague, Associate Dean of Research at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, starting off the session with:
Beyond #NoAI: How Accepting AI Might Change Comics

The Panel also includes members of the Organising Committee:  Ed Alonso, Linda Berube, Francesca Benatti, Senior Research Fellow in Digital Humanities at The Open University, and Ernesto Priego, Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Human-Computer Interaction Design, and a co-director of the Data, Policy and Society MSc at City St George’s, University of London, and editor and founder of The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship.

Full information at https://comicsandai.org/.