Starfleet Academy Tie-Ins

[Therin of Andor]

For disgustingly using AI to generate AI slop that based itself on IDW comics. Instead of creating a great synergy and tie-in opportunity with IDW themselves.

I thought we had established that it wasn't AI generated?

Mark Martinez at Star Trek Comics Checklist has added "Tales from the Frontier" to his website, including links to Stuart Pearces's pencils (or at least b/w art), the coloured pages that appeared onscreen, and the comic prop on the set:

Star Trek prop comic from CBS 2026

 

[Christopher]

I thought we had established that it wasn't AI generated?

Correct, that's an assumption people made without waiting for the facts. The comic was drawn by a member of the show's art staff.

 

[Tuskin38]

I thought we had established that it wasn't AI generated?

Sure, the original black and white outlines weren't AI.

But I still think the final version was thrown through AI to colour and such.

AI slop that based itself on IDW comics.

But it didn't look anything like any of IDW's comics.

 

[Christopher]

But I still think the final version was thrown through AI to colour and such.

Thinking isn't evidence. People thought the art was AI when it wasn't. The human mind is very good at convincing itself of what it wants or expects to see.

Besides, the reason people keep mistaking human creations for AI is because so-called "generative AI" (which is not actual AI) is based on copying and amalgamating human creations. So people accuse things of being "AI" based on things that are commonplace in human work, like em dashes in writing or badly drawn hands in comics art.

 

[Markonian]

I thought we had established that it wasn't AI generated?

Mark Martinez at Star Trek Comics Checklist has added "Tales from the Frontier" to his website, including links to Stuart Pearces's pencils (or at least b/w art), the coloured pages that appeared onscreen, and the comic prop on the set:

Star Trek prop comic from CBS 2026

I’ve heard the claim but I don’t believe it. The panels show random subjects and don’t relate to each other. They don’t tell a story.
The characters and art style look like KEL comics either Kirk and Spock.

 

[Christopher]

I’ve heard the claim but I don’t believe it. The panels show random subjects and don’t relate to each other. They don’t tell a story.

Which doesn't mean it was AI, just that it was a prop in a TV episode and wasn't supposed to tell a coherent story, just to create the passing illusion that it did. It's no different from the joke text or lorem ipsum you'd see in screen graphics from the TNG era, long before AI existed.

 

[Markonian]

Which doesn't mean it was AI, just that it was a prop in a TV episode and wasn't supposed to tell a coherent story, just to create the passing illusion that it did. It's no different from the joke text or lorem ipsum you'd see in screen graphics from the TNG era, long before AI existed.

Like when a newspaper clipping is presented.
But in this instance we saw multiple pages of the comic in details, several times in the episode. Surely it was clear the viewers would pause and read it?

 

[Christopher]

But in this instance we saw multiple pages of the comic in details, several times in the episode. Surely it was clear the viewers would pause and read it?

Viewers have been pausing episodes ever since VCRs became common, but that doesn't require the graphic artists to make their work coherent, because that's not the primary way visual fiction is intended to be experienced, as a majority of viewers won't do that.

It's the job of a graphic artist to create something that serves the story, consistent with the story's intended pacing and emphasis. It's not their job to make an extra effort to insert easter eggs for that minority of the audience who freeze-frame everything. Yes, a lot of graphic artists insert such things as a bonus, for a bit of fun when they have the time, but it's not a mandatory part of their job.

 

[Greg Cox]

Correct, that's an assumption people made without waiting for the facts. The comic was drawn by a member of the show's art staff.

I hope this particular "AI" claim doesn't become another annoyingly persistent myth that keeps getting parroted over and over, the way some folks still insist that Ricardo Montalban was wearing a prosthetic chest in the movie, no matter how many times that "fact" has been debunked.

Or that Alan Dean Foster actually wrote the novelization of TMP.

(At least the myth that Victoria Vetri played Isis in "Assigment: Earth" finally seems to have been killed for good, now that we know it was actually April Tatro. That one drove me nuts for years -- and even made it into at least one reference book!)

 

[Christopher]

I hope this particular "AI" claim doesn't become another annoyingly persistent myth that keeps getting parroted over and over, the way some folks still insist that Ricardo Montalban was wearing a prosthetic chest in the movie, no matter how many times that "fact" has been debunked.

Or that Alan Dean Foster actually wrote the novelization of TMP.

(At least the myth that Victoria Vetri played Isis in "Assigment: Earth" finally seems to have been killed for good, now that we know it was actually April Tatro. That one drove me nuts for years -- and even made it into at least one reference book!)

And don't forget the myth about the million letters that convinced NBC to un-cancel TOS. It was never cancelled, just on the bubble, and it was renewed the way struggling shows usually are, by the producers agreeing to budget cuts. And there were only something like tens of thousands of letters. But the myth has been repeated in many references for decades and is generally uncritically accepted as fact.

 

[Markonian]

I am happy to admit I am wrong.

Definitely looking forward to reading a few SA comics.

 

[Therin of Andor]

… Ricardo Montalban was wearing a prosthetic chest in the movie, no matter how many times that "fact" has been debunked.

I remember Susan Sackett’s eyes lighting up.

“That was his real chest. I saw it every day of filming!”