You’ve seen this cartoon before: an anthropomorphic dog sits, smiling, surrounded by flames, and says, “It’s okay.”
It has become one of the most enduring memes of the last decade, and now an AI startup Artisan seems to have integrated it into an advertising campaign – an advertisement for which KC Greenthe artist who created the comic, said his work was stolen.
An article from Bluesky appears to show a subway station advertisement featuring Green’s works, except the dog says, “[M]Your pipeline is on fire,” and a superimposed message urges passersby to “Hire Ava the BDR AI.”
Quoting this message, Green said he “more and more people are talking to me about this” and that “it’s nothing [I] accepted. Instead, he said the ad was “stolen like AI steals,” and he told his followers to “please vandalize it if and when you see it.”
When TechCrunch emailed Artisan about the announcement, the company said, “We have a lot of respect for KC Green and his work, and we are reaching out to him directly.” » In a follow-up email, the company said it had scheduled time to speak with him.
Artisan has previously sparked controversy with its advertisements, particularly with Billboards urging companies to “stop hiring humans” – although founder and CEO Jaspar Carmichael-Jack insisted the message was about “a category of work”, not “humans in general”.
“That’s Good” first appeared in Green’s webcomic “Gun Show” in 2013, and even if he hasn’t entirely given up on the melting, smiling dog (he recently turned the comic into a game), it is clearly escaped his control. And of course, Green is far from the only artist to have his memorable art used in ways he finds objectionable.
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But some artists have still taken action when their art is monetized or used for commercial purposes without their permission, such as when cartoonist Matt Furie sued the right-wing conspiracy theory site Infowars for using his character Pepe the Frog in a poster. (Furie and Infowars finally came to an agreement.)
Green told TechCrunch via email that he would “look into [legal] representation, as I feel I must do. Still, he said it “takes my breath away” to have to take “time out of my life to try my hand at the American justice system instead of reinvesting it in what I’m passionate about, which is drawing comics and stories.”
Green added: “These thoughtless AI losers aren’t untouchable and memes don’t come out of nowhere. »
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Anthony Ha is TechCrunch’s weekend editor. Previously, he worked as a tech reporter at Adweek, an editor at VentureBeat, a local government reporter at Hollister Free Lance, and vice president of content at a venture capital firm. He lives in New York.
You can contact or check Anthony’s outreach by sending an email anthony.ha@techcrunch.com.