In a very recent article posted to this site by Arnie Fenner, an equivalency is made between AI generated images and fan art made by conventional methods.  It’s a short piece and I’d direct anyone interested to read it rather than having me summarize.

When I saw this, I was both surprised and disappointed.  While I understand that many folks hold low opinions of fan art, I’d hope that there is at least a clear distinction between works born of one’s genuine efforts versus images generated by an automated computer program.  Whatever subjective opinion you hold on the importance, creative merits, or even legality of fan art, it flat out is not comparable to genAI slop which has no human author.

I wanted to share my own thoughts on the nature and realities of fan art in response to that article.  And I should probably begin by defining terms.  When I write about fan art here, I’m including any art which is inspired by and directly referencing an existing creative work and was made independent of whoever holds the legal rights to that source work.  I don’t know if this is a universal definition, but I think it’s a fairly comprehensive wide net.  If you do a painting of Spider-Man that wasn’t commissioned by Marvel/Disney, that fits my catchall regardless of your motive.  Similarly if you do paintings based on a property which is in the public domain, still fan art.  If you do it for practice without showing it to anyone, still fan art.  If you have a booth full of prints at a convention, still fan art.  And if you were the actual creator of a character that was made under a work-for-hire contract and wish to draw that character again, still fan art.  You might disagree with my definition, but this is the scope in how I use the word.

This is a miniature painting on the back of the Magic card Totally Lost. I was the the original artist for this card. The character took on life as a meme and eventually became a popular mascot for the game. In doing this painting, I am creating fan art of my own work.

There are a few threads I want to pull in the question of “should artists create fan art?”  The first is the biggest elephant in the room: legal issues.  This seems to be the central pilar of Arnie’s comparison.  And I have a few problems with it.

The first issue I take here is that to equate fan art to GenAI as two comparable forms of “theft” (as infringement of copyright) is an oversimplification that I can’t personally abide.  I’m not a lawyer, but even I understand that 1. At present, the use of copyright works for AI training appears to be legal as no court is saying otherwise.  And 2. Fan art generally* would be a violation of copyright, but is rarely legally challenged.  AI court cases are pending and so we don’t actually know what the law will say.  Given how the law usually favors moneyed interests and the AI industry is so big that it is arguably propping up the US economy, I’m pessimistic that artists rights are going to triumph here in the US.  But as a creator, I know that GenAI is morally bankrupt and will not pin my assessment of AI usability on the outcomes of these cases.

Meanwhile, fan art spaces at conventions and online are vibrant, organic, free publicity for the properties they celebrate and it seems clear to me this has residual benefits to the property owners while taking zero of their resources.  I’d even go so far as to say corporations know that by looking the other way on fan art income, often done by their “official” artists, they are better positioned to underpay those artists.


In response to the simplistic closing line “If you’re going to talk the talk, you’ve got to walk the walk. And that means respecting everyone’s IP rights. Always” I say this is a false equivalency.  The laws in one area are not even consistent in the other.  The power dynamics and economics are not even close to the same.

Keep in mind the outsized legislative influence that huge corporations have compared to individual artists and who is most likely to prevail in any legal dispute between the two.  It is a sad but true commentary that some of the most promising legal battles against AI are those being brought by giants like Disney.  Because of this, I feel copyright is a reasonable and essential line of attack against a reckless and exploitative AI industry, but it is not a magic bullet.  To reduce the complaint against AI to “copyright violation” is to ignore the other ways that GenAI undermines and harms artists.  It is a massive effort backed by unimaginable financial resources designed to devalue and ultimate eliminate creative professionals.   The goal is to displace and ultimately own and control the means to produce art and culture.  This is a classic example of automation intended to eliminate workers for greater corporate profit.  Suppose the AI companies lose in court but then form a partnership with Disney to legally build a new model trained on all of Disney’s assets?  Hundreds of pieces that I’ve painted are legally owned by Disney and I would have no grounds to object.  I would loathe this until the day I die, but that would be perfectly legal.

When it comes to the IPs so many fan art works are based on: how did these companies come to own those IPs? While it may all be legally settled that DC owns Superman and Marvel owns Spider-Man and so on, anybody who studies the history of these properties will find time and again creators whose work was taken from them and the fruits of their labor keep on making money long after they’re dead.  As things currently stand (and because of legal battles over ownership with past creators) you can not work on most properties without agreeing to work-for-hire terms (iron clad and non-negotiable) and any new ideas or characters created become property of the company. And artists today understand this when signing our contracts.  We know the heavy price to be paid if you want to be in the show.   Part of being in the industry is understanding sooner or later that the industry is deeply exploitative.  Legal doesn’t always equal moral.


So what do we do when so much of our shared culture is privately owned by a very few huge companies?  What do we do when our modern myths and legends are all owned by Disney?  We all feel connection to the characters and stories that we technically legally are not allowed to draw pictures of.  If an artist wishes to make a work that connects with a deep and personal childhood experience, maybe say trick-or-treating with friends, it’s totally conceivable that it might feature characters that Disney owns.  While this specific hypothetical is not what we typically see being shown at Artist Alleys, I think the broader implication is the same: Our connection to pop culture runs deep within us and fan art is a way that this is often expressed.

To that point, most folks I know who work in genre illustration pursued this work because we were fans.  We grew up wanting to be a part of the thing we loved and we drew our favorite characters in our notebooks during math class and kept at it in art school and kept at it year after year until eventually got to a point where we could Get Hired.  The passion was often channeled though fan art.  In fact, many of the companies that own these properties literally will not hire an artist until they see that artist create work based on their property.  Fan art is literally how an artist moves from “aspiring” to “official.”

While many will dismiss fan art as vapid, predictable, and hollow, it can just as easily be transformative, innovative, and deeply personal.  And often if a work is done by a well known artist, people might not even think of it as fan art, simply assuming it was done for some licensed release.  Or people say “but they’ve worked on x,y, and z, so that doesn’t count.”  I’d argue that most of us started as fans and remain so today and that passion is what propels us.  That passion, whether in official or in fan works, is what gives the work life.

I have no similar defense for AI images.  They make us all poorer for their existing.

Note: There are abundant examples of fan art from professional artists, many who are contributors on this site, but I don’t want any of my peers to misunderstand me and feel called out or to have any negative critique as a result of my sharing their work here, so instead I have pulled exclusively from my own work for visuals

*The first amendment and fair use are often cited as defenses of fan art.  Unfortunately, laws are often shaped by those with the deepest pockets to favor corporate interests and my understanding is these are dubious defenses in most cases.