The annual Eisner Awards are our industry's Oscars and we can't continue to allow projects created using generative AI to be considered alongside those created by real people. 

The issue

Stardust the Super Wizard was nominated this year in the Best Anthology category raising nearly $40 thousand dollars in crowdfunding. One of the contributors was Michael Todasco who has been posting Medium articles about using AI prompts to create comics since 2022 and according to his LinkedIn profile is  "A Visiting Fellow at the James Silberrad Brown Center for Artificial Intelligence at SDSU." His story was the only one in the 139 pages in the anthology that included AI generated content, his name is not listed as a contributor, and the inclusion of an AI generated story was not disclosed on the Zoop campaign page. This doesn't currently matter because, the Eisner’s call for entries does not preclude AI generated content. 

See below:

The solution

The intent of this petition is simple, change the submission guidelines to disqualify any submission that used generative AI as a part of the creative process moving forward.

I posted a video talking about this on Friday that has to date been see by over 10,000 people across various social media platforms. The consistent thing I'm hearing in the comments and from people DMing me is why aren't more people talking about this. I believe in the power of our collective voice as a community so I created this petition as a mechanism of collective communication to the committee that generative AI has no place in the Eisners because if nothing changes, I fear not just the future of the awards, but also its legacy, will be tarnished forever. 

I don't take this step lightly and don't wish to place any additional stress on anyone involved with the awards and I'm eternally grateful to everyone who volunteers their time to make this such a special occasion that celebrates human excellence and achievement but doing nothing isn't an option.

My plan is to see how many people we can get to sign this and then to present it to the appropriate parties towards making a permanent change to the Submission Guidelines for 2027 and beyond.

Thanks for your consideration.

Byron O'Neal

Editor-In-Chief, Comic Book Yeti