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Jim Starlin created Marvel's Thanos. He also creates comics, both in writing comics, and drawing them. And after being unable to draw for four years due to an injury to his drawing hand, his recent return to the drawing board is something he prizes - and something he is continually learning on. And now with the advent of AI in art, Starlin sees a use for AI in the comics he draws - while at the same time giving credit to this new "tool" as he calls it to create his comics.

"I'm looking forward to seeing where it works itself into, because it's going to be a tool," Starlin tells Popverse's Joshua Lapin-Bertone. "Trying to pass off an entire piece as your own if it's an AI creation, that's completely wrong. But I can see it being used for other things."

Starlin says he plans on incorporating AI art generation into one of his upcoming creator-owned Dreadstar OGNs, that last of which was funded on Kickstarter earlier this year. He's currently working on a new volume titled Dreadstar vs. Dreadstar.

"I want to try and use it in some of these future Dreadstar books, using it is as a little AI background," says Starlin. "I come from Detroit, where the car replaced the horse-drawn carriage. I've always have tried to do additions to the medium. I do a lot of Photoshop work, you know with photos and paintings, and other things in the backgrounds of Dreadstar already, and so I think the next step is just to see what I want to do with using some AI in the books."

Starlin says he plans to "give credit where credit is due" when he uses AI in his art, and note which pages used "AI aides." The artist/writer doesn't say which AI engines he'll be using, or if the art being fed into AI to develop its art will be strictly his own or where that'll be sourced from. But Starlin thinks the adoption of AI in commercial art is inevitable.

"... I think a complete ban on the thing right now is a waste of time. You're just setting yourself up in history is being another Luddite," says the artist/writer. "I'm curious as to where it's gonna go."

Image Comics & Skybound Entertainment co-owner Robert Kirkman said recently he equates the use of AI art in comics as "copying and stealing," and Mad Cave Studios has said will only publish art made with AI if it has the consent of the original artists whose work was used by the AI engine. Starlin is publishing Dreadstar through the small press company Monkey Wrench Press, which uses crowdfunding platforms such as Zoop and Kickstarter.

Get ready for what's next with our guide to upcoming comics, how to buy comics at a comic shop, and our guide to Free Comic Book Day 2025.