Fans clocked the controversial technology being used in recent covers from Mattina, and that work has now been pulled from DC’s September slate.
If you read comics, you know the market is partially built on issues with variant covers drawn by different artists to entice collectors to snatch up any issue they can. This is particularly true for Marvel and DC Comics, and it’s now that latter that’s found itself pulling some of those variants entirely.
Last week, DC released its full solicitations for the month of September, and many noted the lack of covers from Francesco Mattina. He’s been a regular variant artist for the publisher for years, and you’ve likely seen his cover work for Batman and DCeased, among plenty others. Eagle-eyed comics fans later noted some of his work seemed off, and eventually determined he was using generative AI on his own covers, as you can see below with one he’d done for Action Comics #1069.
The allegations quickly spread online, and Mattina’s actions drew the ire of multiple artists within the comics community.
