Colin Kaepernick’s AI-based comics company angers comics creators

Colin Kaepernick, a former NFL quarterback who mysteriously was driven from the league after becoming a civil rights activist, has raised $4 million to launch a new publishing venture called Lumi that aims to “democratize storytelling by providing creators with the tools to independently create, publish, and merchandise their stories.”

Sounds great, right? But read the next sentence. 

“Lumi leverages advanced AI technology to enhance the creative process and ensure diverse and authentic stories shape our future.”

Uh oh. 

Kaepernick was at San Diego Comic-Con, wandering around Artist’s Alley and appearing at networking events, evidently to talk about the venture. If he brought up the term “AI” in these encounters, he surely would have had to scramble out of the pocket, because angry comics creators are coming to sack him. 

News of Lumi has been floating around for a while, and Kaepernick tweeted about it on July 24th. But it wasn’t until another comics news site put the words “ai” and “$4 million” in the same headline yesterday that comics creators rose up as one and pointed out that opening up storytelling by stealing from human creators democratizes no one but tech bros. 

According to a press release, Lumi “empowers creators by providing them with the tools needed to independently create, publish, and merchandise their stories both digitally and physically.”

Lumi’s mission is to democratize storytelling by providing tools for creators to turn their ideas into finished products, as well as distributing and merchandising those stories – transforming any creator into Disney. By leveraging advanced AI tools, Lumi enhances the creative process, allowing creators to focus on bringing their stories to life, while the platform handles all of the logistics.  Creators have had a significant impact on AI, and they should be a primary beneficiary of its use.

Creators today face significant challenges, including exploitation and lack of independence. Lumi addresses these issues by providing an end-to-end solution for storytelling, leading to more financial stability, creative control, and ownership of their work. Additionally, as AI continues to evolve, it is essential to ensure that the resulting content reflects diverse and authentic perspectives. By empowering creators to authentically create their stories, Lumi helps ensure a more equitable future for AI.

Although buried at the end of the PR, the playing field for this move is comics: “The company plans to focus energy on comic book and graphic-novel creators first, a market with the need for multiple creative skill sets.”

Earlier, Kaepernick tweeted:

My new company #Lumi is empowering anyone to be a storyteller, regardless of their skill set. Lumi enables you to create, publish, and monetize your stories all in one platform.

How do we do that? By creating access to:

End to end story creation

Simple AI tools

Physical and digital publishing

Built-in merchandising

The best part is CREATORS OWN ALL OF THEIR WORK!

It’s everything a creator needs to build and scale their stories, with having to rely on personal connections into Hollywood or having to bankroll a full team.

This is how we level the playing field. This is how we create access and opportunity for the world to tell their stories.

Lumi is about to turn every storyteller into their own personal Disney.

Sign up now to start creating ↓

Kaepernick has become a hero to many for calling out racism in sports and elsewhere. I’d like to think that he was looking for something to do (he launched a publishing company several years ago) and got caught up in AI fever because it’s still easy money, and hasn’t really thought this through. Because this is some scam level stuff. We’re all already empowered to tell stories “regardless of our skill set” and we all know some people are just better at telling stories than others. Bringing in AI – which scrapes content created by actual humans and is already being proven the second coming of Pets.com – to help the hapless try to draw like Daniel Warren Johnson is just a rip-off. 

A Facebook post by Khary Randolph suggests that Kaepernick has been told several times that AI is not the way:

To be clear, I was one of a number of artists that had meetings with Colin a few months ago. He told me broadly what his AI platform was about. He mentioned that it was about removing “gatekeepers” and how he wanted to benefit people from underserved walks of life. I told him that while I was a fan of his, I couldn’t support this because those “gatekeepers” were people like me who had put our blood, sweat and tears into our craft. Hard work, a pencil, and paper is all you need to make comics. I let him that his product was going to hurt us longterm.

So if anyone is asking whether Colin Kaepernick is aware of the misgivings artists have with AI, please believe that he has been made aware. And I know for a fact that I’m not the only one who did so.

But there’s another joker in this deck. Lumi’s fundraising was led by the venture capital firm Seven Seven Six, which was founded in 2020 by Alexis Ohanian, who has dabbled in comics many times before. Most recently, he helped raise $9 million for Zestworld, which flamed out after not doing much of anything but putting out a few digital comics. According to the Lumi pr, Ohanian has “been a staunch advocate for tech-forward storytelling,” if by staunch you mean wasting $9 million on a failed venture. But he does keep coming back for more, and that’s totally staunch.

As someone who keeps regular tabs on Internet Comics Discourse, I can report that the anger at Kaepernick’s embrace of AI was universal among comics creators. It’s rare to see such a unity of opinion. I can’t even quote them all, so a few examples, taken from Twitter and the replies to Randolph’s post. 

Liana Kangis: Kaepernick jumping fields literally trying to demolish whatever creative jobs are left in this industry. Sorry dude but time and time again, we got into this industry for the craft, not the money- and we’ll prove that our story telling is better than AI’s every. single. Time.

Mark Brooks: Colin Kaepernick has raised $4 million to fund AI comics. He could have used that money to fund dozens of comics by highly skilled POC creators to show he stands behind his words with actions. Instead he’s going to actively steal from them. Sad.

J.H. Williams: Disgusting. As someone who experienced being marginalized himself, I would’ve thought he’d know better. I am now expecting those investors will lose all of the money they put in…

Ben Templesmith: I may have just left some rather irate comments on Colin Kaepernick‘s twitter account after discovering what he thinks of working comic professionals. Apparently we’re dirt. Gatekeepers & worthy of nothing but being stolen from. This joke doesn’t respect the medium. No thank you.

Cheryl Lynn Eaton: If you think that black artists are going to support AI robbing them of not only career opportunities but also the work they’ve already produced just because you’ve thrown up a black figurehead–one who has NOTHING to do with comics, mind you–you are CRAZY! (more in link)

Scott Morse:Just days ago I watched him walk by and I told friends at my booth, “He’s a good dude—I’ve got friends that have worked with him.” 

I can only imagine that someone fed him some info lacking in ethics. 

Still, friends: don’t. AI ain’t the same as drawing with ink and a brush. 

Daniel Kibblesmith: I am respectfully asking everyone to get out of comics if they don’t enjoy the physical act of making comics. I’m not out here trying to replace the NFL with Madden simulations.

Alice Mechi Li: This is so disappointing. For $4 million, Kaepernick could have started his own comics studio and paid 40 artists $100k to work for a year — way more than many artists ever make. He could have employed struggling marginalized creators and empowered them to tell the stories they never had the time or funds to tell.

Instead he’s putting $4 million into the hands of tech bros to steal art from from hardworking creators and put them out of work. Seriously upsetting.

Ray Anthony Height: There are some that are quick to erase what he did in the racial equality space due to this move. As a Black man, I’m not doing that. HOWEVER, as a working artist and know you and others explained the situation to him yet he still insisted on moving forward with AI instead of EMPLOYING y’all!?! My respect for him is greatly diminished and every endeavor he takes from here on will be considered suspect.

And on and on and on. Lumi and AI storytelling are a big flop with the comics community.

Of course, there will be skill-deprived hopefuls who give this a shot. UGC (User generated content) is huge these days. But so far this just sounds like another tech-driven mess that will further enshitify the pages.