European cartoon artists now face a new, faceless adversary: AI

A visitor walks past a panel exhibiting characters from The Smurfs created by Belgian cartoonist Peyo (pen name of Pierre Culliford), in the Belgian Comic Strip Center in Brussels in 2014. Photo: AFP

Home to animated heroes from Tintin to the Smurfs, Brussels, Belgium is proud to display its cartoon heritage in mammoth murals that tower over the city’s stately streets. But all is not well in the self-declared capital of comics.

In an industry where animators routinely depict epic battles between superheroes and arch-villains, European cartoon artists are now in a real-life fight of their own, fending off a new, faceless adversary: artificial intelligence (AI).