Comics & AI: Critical Prompts

Thursday, 4th September 2025.

Registration deadline: 22nd August 2025, 23:59. 

Start: 9:00 AM.

End: 18:30, followed by a social at the pub.  

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

• Our keynote speaker on GenAI 101 for Comics, Dr Eduardo Alonso, Professor in Artificial Intelligence and the Chair of the AI Research Committee 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, 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, Belgium AI, comics, and creativity: or, why are we talking of ghosts in the machine 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, doctoral researcher in Comics on a University of Leicester Visual Culture PhD scholarship and graduate student on a University of York Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence scholarship To Be or Not To Be? That is the Question! 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 closing session with Beyond #NoAI: How Accepting AI Might Change Comics . The closing panel will also include 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. 

Registration deadline: 22nd August 2025, 23:59 hrs. 

Registration fee: £15 (academics / professionals), £5 (students / unwaged) 

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

Attendance at City St George’s events is subject to our terms and conditions. 

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

Final schedule as well as full abstracts and presenters’ bios will be published prior to the event.

Programme subject to change.