Marvel Writer Ethan Sacks Has a Strong Message About AI and Artist Rights
Comic book writer Ethan Sacks has no shortage of concerns about artificial intelligence. After being a journalist at the New York Daily News for twenty years, he moved into comics where he’s now known for the critically acclaimed Old Man Hawkeye series and several Star Wars titles for Marvel. Sacks spoke with us about why he sees AI as a serious threat to comics, artists, and creative work.
His biggest concerns include machine learning systems being trained on artists’ work without permission or compensation, the environmental cost of running AI servers, and the possibility that human artists could eventually be replaced by tools trained on their own work. For Sacks, art is a human act, and removing the effort, training, and personal voice from the process takes away something essential.
He also discussed the problem of transparency. If a cover, image, or piece of writing uses AI, he believes audiences deserve to know what they’re looking at and where it came from.
Sacks made it clear that he would not use AI for his own writing, even for smaller tasks like newsletters. While he acknowledged that AI may have valuable medical uses in the future, his view of its current role in comics and creative industries is sharply critical.
The interview took place at Montreal Comiccon 2025.
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