An AI-generated promotional image for a comics-writing panel at WonderCon 2026 cost the session at least one of its speakers, Bleeding Cool reports. The graphic advertised Writing for Indie Comics, a regular panel hosted by David Lucarelli and scheduled for Sunday, March 29, in Room 303AB, with writers Kaj Kunstmann, Ray-Anthony Height, Amanda Deibert, Pat Jankiewicz and Mary Zorilita Bellamy billed as guests. Several of them shared the image on social media before anyone realised how it had been made. The convention clashed that weekend with C2E2, which Bleeding Cool says will move to late April or early May next year.
The row grew when creator and anti-AI campaigner Kad Windness went after both the flyer and the panellists who reposted it in a video shared to Instagram and TikTok. Windness argued that any use of generative tools disrespects artists and readers alike, and that it invites doubt about whether the writers rely on AI for their own books; even panellists who had nothing to do with the image, Windness said, came off badly by promoting it.
Deibert said the image was made without her consent, that the panellists asked privately for clarification as soon as they suspected AI, and that once it was confirmed she deleted it and pulled out of the panel, calling AI art theft with no place in comics. Bellamy said the group was told only after posting and objected to being called out publicly rather than contacted first, while Height joked that a small AI scandal had not been on his list for the day.
Lucarelli then took responsibility, saying he had used AI to make the online graphic without his fellow panellists knowing, that it had been taken down, and that neither he, his guests nor the artists they work with use AI in their comics. Comics Beat's Heidi MacDonald replied that she would have scolded him but credited him for owning up, and Height told followers it was time to get back to making comics. The session, pitched as tips for self-publishers and indie writers with free comics for anyone who asks a question, was still due to go ahead without some of the writers originally listed, and Bleeding Cool wondered whether the fuss might even lift attendance.
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