Some fake-artist AI-using twit decided to alter a Michael de Adder cartoon. UPDATED.

[highplainsdem]

Last edited Sun Jul 5, 2026, 10:21 PM - Edit history (1)

EDITING to update: When I posted this message 8 hours ago, I pointed out that @pissed-off-g.bsky.social, who'd posted the altered cartoon, might have just copied an already-altered version found elsewhere. But they've been back and posting on Bluesky for hours since Michael de Adder and others have pointed out that the cartoon was altered, and there has been no correction. No apology. No explanation that a mistake was made. Which makes it look much more likely that @pissed-off-g.bsky.social did alter the cartoon and apparently has no intention of apologizing.


De Adder's post about it:

I don't understand why this person felt the need to change my cartoon.

— Michael de Adder (@deadder.bsky.social) 2026-07-05T17:46:56.925Z

The original cartoon is here

https://deadder.substack.com/p/tick-season

and here:

— Skye (Antifa: Phantom Division) 🇺🇸🌎🇺🇦 (@dramaticskye411.bsky.social) 2026-07-05T17:52:28.933Z

FWIW, I don't know if the person who posted that altered cartoon did the alteration or found it elsewhere.

But as for why some AI-using jerk altered it... A lot of AI users are simply unethical, egotistical frauds, who not only see nothing wrong with the AI companies having stolen all the images they trained image generators with, but who become deluded enough after having AI spit out fake art for them that they imagine they're better than real artists, even professional artists, or at least their equal.

[Intractable]

1. 'imagine they're better than real artists' - You're giving them too much credit.

Most are just low-grade content creators trying to get views and clicks. They're not thinking about the value of art, copyrights, decency, or self-image.

It's a brief moment of feeling relevant or important -- a cheap thrill before the next image or meme comes along.

[orthoclad]

3. Oh, the ones I see obviously think they're witty,

But my exposure to such is slim and selective; I don't do oligarch media.

[highplainsdem]

6. Well, the one who altered an award-winning cartoonist's work has one hell of an ego. And - as the

edited OP explains - it's looking more likely that it was altered by the Blueskyer whose post Michael de Adder had commented on, and that.they hadn't just found the already-altered cartoon elsewhere.

[orthoclad]

2. AI is theft, purely and simply.

It has stolen the work of generations of artists so that some Grinch can pretend he's a cartoonist.

That's the moral perspective. The pollution perspective is even worse. The AI-enabling data surveillance centers burn huge amounts of fuel to run the processors. And they destroy entire water sources.

The entertaining convenience of pretending to be an artist is fed to us to distract us from the main use of these server farms: surveillance and analysis. These centers scavenge and store every single fact of our lives, then they make use of the analytic abilities to associate every fact with every other fact and fit them into a bigger picture - in the service of our tech-ish oligarchs. Think Palantir.

So in addition to the moral and environmental downsides of AI cartoons, there is a political dimension.

[highplainsdem]

4. Kicking after editing the OP to add an update.

[dalton99a]

5. Kick