Publishers Weekly reports Art Spiegelman used AI for a cover sticker on a new edition of In the Shadow of No Towers, released to mark the 25th anniversary of 9/11 earlier this year. Spiegelman, 78, disclosed using the technology in an interview with PW following a talk to mark the occasion at the Brooklyn Public Library in September. Spiegelman told PW that the sticker ironically depicts the burning Twin Towers as candles on a birthday cake.
So he’s also included an anniversary present of sorts: a cover sticker ironically depicting the burning towers as candles on a birthday cake. The sticker marks Spiegelman’s first use of AI-generated artwork. “I wanted it to look like an old engraving, and I was lazy,” he told PW. “I said, let’s do it with AI and see what happens.” Mouly lent a hand with the prompts: “She’s good at Claude whispering,” Spiegelman said.
Unsurprisingly, Spiegelman and Mouly’s use of AI has not gone over well. Evan Dorkin responded with a cartoon of Spiegelman vomiting into a bin called “Pulitzer prompts,” titled Slop Bucket Kids (referencing Spiegelman’s creation Garbage Pail Kids), describing it as a “Bad Art response to bad art”.
Chris Burnham also posted a parody of the book’s cover, titled In the Shadow of Poo Towers, with outlines of stools instead of those of the Twin Towers. In the alt text, he writes, “I kinda wanted to say In the Shadow of No Talent, but I liked Maus. And Garbage Pail Kids are fucking great. [Spiegelman] had the sauce!”
Ironically, Mouly has been quoted as saying “AI can’t give you the emotion of a book.” She and Spiegelman aren’t the only aging artists who’ve used AI, as Alison Bechdel admitted this year she had deployed it to generate reference for a cartoon. She commented that as a result, “I’m [likely] just going right down a chute to hell.”
In the Shadow of No Towers, which was originally serialized from 2002 to 2004, was Spiegelman’s personal response to 9/11, which he experienced from his home in New York City. The book is available now from Pantheon’s Graphic Library. While writing this article, we found it impossible to find a copy of the sticker online, suggesting Pantheon is well aware of just how unpopular AI-generated imagery is.
