There have been completely baseless accusations of AI use in the creation of TBE's comics, and after seeing it on-and-off for the last year I've decided to make a be-all-end-all post addressing it. Right out the gate, here's proof that my chats with the artist go all the way back to 2020, which is a year before even the extremely dodgy and rudimentary DALLE Mini was publicly accessible. These chat logs continue to still be prior to the onset of modern generative AI, and certainly anything capable of producing coherent comics like those seen in the mod: https://imgur.com/a/E7kgKy0

In refuting these accusations out of respect for the artist, Adam Rogers - a professor of graphic art who I deliberately challenged to address multiple art styles, palettes, themes, and ideas, and who volunteered dozens of hours of his time to making the comics in this mod - I have grown really frustrated at the tendency for people to accuse any art from an unusual source as being AI generated. Yeah, it's pretty rare for HL2 mods to have actual comics art in them...that was the point! I think it should also be noted that Steam requires a disclaimer about AI generated content. There's no disclaimer because it wasn't used.

It has been especially frustrating that some people have had the audacity to request proof it isn't AI generated whilst having zero proof of their own that it was. This entitled and uninformed view is despicable - modders like myself and creators like Adam work for dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of hours on products that are entirely free. That doesn't make mods immune from legitimate, good-faith criticism. It does mean you should do the barest minimum of research before accusing something that is a pure labour of love of taking shortcuts on one of its key selling points.

If you don't like the comics, that's fine, and up to you. I acknowledge the criticism that the artwork is inconsistent in direction sometimes - that's on me, to be clear, not Adam. This was my first rodeo doing anything like storyboarding and managing comic creation with a professional, and I feel extremely fortunate for the opportunity. Adam followed everything I asked basically to the letter, and never produced a result I wasn't happy with. The art style inconsistency is deliberate, as part of the whole "time travelling and changing the vibe each time" core conceit of the mod, but again, I acknowledge now with five years of hindsight there could've been better ways to get that across to Adam.

What I can't accept is baseless accusations that Adam did not sweat for dozens of hours to make a one-of-a-kind set of comic pieces of TBE. He deserves better, every person who helped make this mod happens deserves better, and you, those accusing creators of not doing that work for a product you received for free and with zero evidence, should try harder.