The image generation capabilities of generative AI are constantly evolving, making it possible to easily generate images that look as if they were drawn by human illustrators or manga artists. The Nieman Journalism Lab, a journalism organization at Harvard University, reported that manga generated by OpenAI’s ChatGPT included the ‘signature of a real manga artist.’
ChatGPT is adding real cartoonists’ signatures to fake New Yorker cartoons | Nieman Journalism Lab
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In late August 2026, singer -songwriter Dolly Parton and actor Tim Curry passed away in quick succession. Following this, an illustration depicting Parton, dressed in a dazzling gown, walking arm-in-arm with Curry, who was dressed in the costume he wore in the movie ‘ The Rocky Horror Picture Show ,’ as they pass through the reception area of heaven, was posted on X, Facebook, and other platforms and went viral.
The following is the illustration that was actually posted to X. When embedded on X, the surrounding area is cropped and not visible, but in the original posted image, you can see the signature ‘BLoper’ in the lower right corner of the illustration.
— Papa Woof und Krampus und Bleaken (@woofknight) August 27, 2026
The signature ‘BLoper’ belongs to Brendan Roper , who publishes comics in The New Yorker, a long-established American magazine. However, the illustration above was not drawn by Roper, but was generated by ChatGPT.
Internet users simply instructed ChatGPT to generate a ‘New Yorker-style cartoon,’ but it apparently added Roper’s signature without permission. Roper told Nieman Journalism Lab, ‘I’ve been getting a lot of emails asking if this cartoon is mine.’
This is an example of an illustration posted on Roper’s Instagram . Compared to the illustration above, you can see that the details of the people and clothing, as well as the art style, are quite different.
This isn’t the first time ChatGPT has generated an image that includes Roper’s signature; he has previously seen ‘New Yorker-style cartoons generated by ChatGPT’ with his signature on Instagram and Reddit.
While Roper knew his work was being used to train AI, he felt the AI forging his signature was a more personal infringement. ‘I’m not a territorial person, but my name is mine. It really felt like an infringement on my identity,’ Roper said. According to research by Nieman Journalism Lab, more than 15 New Yorker cartoonists had their signatures duplicated by ChatGPT.
Especially in recent years, there has been an increase in cases where only the image is cropped and reposted on social media or published on blogs, so signatures on manga and illustrations also function as a kind of watermark to identify the original author. Roper said, ‘For me, a signature is a certificate of authenticity. I only put my signature on works that I publish on the internet that I feel need to be recognized as my own work,’ and argued that the signature is also a kind of brand.
In a statement to the Nieman Journalism Lab, an OpenAI spokesperson said, ‘We believe the future of creativity is fundamentally human-centered, and we are focused on developing tools that support human creativity and creators. We are deeply grateful to the community for reporting bugs and unintended behavior in our models, which allows us to address them.’
After reporting this issue to OpenAI, a new message appeared stating, ‘This prompt may violate our guidelines regarding similarity to third-party content,’ when instructing ChatGPT to generate a ‘New Yorker-style cartoon.’ However, when the cartoon-style image was generated without mentioning ‘The New Yorker,’ it continued to include the signature of a real cartoonist.
Nieman Jounalism Lab’s ChatGPT tests did indeed generate New Yorker-style black-and-white comics characterized by clean lines and sarcastic writing. However, some had nonsensical endings, and others were signed with pseudonyms of non-existent cartoonists.
Emily Flake, a cartoonist who has been contributing to The New Yorker since 2008, points out that while the images generated by ChatGPT certainly seem to have her style in them, they don’t actually look like something she drew. ‘It’s like meeting a distant relative,’ she says.
Condé Nast, the publisher of The New Yorker, entered into a partnership with OpenAI in 2024, allowing its content to be displayed in products such as ChatGPT. However, according to a spokesperson for The New Yorker, Condé Nast did not authorize OpenAI to use its comics to train AI models, nor does the agreement permit the display of The New Yorker’s logo.
OpenAI announces partnership with media company Condé Nast, enabling access to articles from The New Yorker, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Bon Appetit, and Wired via ChatGPT and SearchGPT – GIGAZINE
Nieman Jounalism Lab points out that even if Condé Nast were to license the manga to OpenAI, the standard contract between the manga artist and The New Yorker does not include any clauses regarding AI, so the licensing would likely not be permitted. They also explain that while The New Yorker has priority publication rights for the contributed manga, the copyright itself remains with the manga artist.
Therefore, OpenAI may have collected these manga from the internet and used them to train its AI. In the ongoing New York Times v. OpenAI lawsuit , it has been revealed that OpenAI deliberately circumvented publishers’ paywalls during the development of ChatGPT.
Furthermore, the trial revealed that a Microsoft executive had described AI-powered data scraping as ‘the greatest labor theft in human history.’
Microsoft executive describes AI-powered data scraping as ‘the greatest labor theft in human history’ – GIGAZINE
Many manga artists interviewed by Nieman Journalism Lab agreed with this view, with Jason Adam Katzenstein, who contributes manga to The New Yorker, arguing, ‘The important thing is that AI is going to deal a fatal blow to the workforce. We manga artists are costly and time-consuming, so it’s going to make individual manga artists obsolete.’
- A Microsoft executive described AI-powered data scraping as ‘the greatest labor theft in human history.’
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The New York Times, a major daily newspaper, sues OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement
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OpenAI and Microsoft sued by author for copyright infringement over AI
Oct 07, 2026 20:00:00
in AI, Manga, Creation, Posted by log1h_ik
