you see this in many products this days. they get made to serve the shareholders and rich owners and not the customer.

Please draw the artist and art enjoyer kissing

Nah I ain’t apologizing

"You don't hate AI, you hate capitalism".exe

Shareholder Chan can die, be eaten by and defecated by vultures.

Shareholders Chan can be hit by the isekai truck for all I care.

But they have jobs. That makes them superior.

trading stocks isn't a job any more than owning property is a job

But it's still a job, and that's all that matters to sell-outs.

I mean, it's literally not though. Workers and owners are very distinct classes. Job doesn't mean "thing that makes money", it means you have an agreement to exchange your labour for money. No labour...not a job.

I think you misunderstood, my point is that it is NOT a job. It's a way to make money, sure, but it's not a job. Just like owning property is not a job.

Awww, shareholder-Chan....kill yourself

sooo true

my thoughts exactly

holy crap it's the guy who makes the comic strips that turn into memes

now make the artist and art enjoyers kiss while the shareholder looks at them longingly

Won't someone think of the shareholders?

"Art Enjoyers" is very @kartoonistkelly.bsky.social coded sorry

"And thus, with the advent of capitalist moe-anthropomorphizations, socialism was destroyed entirely, baka."

Abolish corporations ね

Shareholder? 🤢

Man fuck you Shareholders-Chan, stop being a bitch-made wuss and pick up a PENCIL

Investors only care about the almighty growth line 📈

100 men vs 1 gorilla? Nah Several billion of us vs a handful of billionaires.

Next time I'm having a party I will very aggressively NOT invite shareholders-chan because she's annoying and no one likes her and she smells bad! >:(

They should've just said "No." and left the shareholder to seethe alone in the dark.

That's a bit of a bubble you're in though. Ai is being rapidly adopted by both new and old artists for production and professional work or just hobby art. There's just a very loud vocal minority screaming against it.

Sorry share holder chan if you don’t care about the artists i won’t care about you

I'll probably get roasted for this but I like the initial weird AI art. Misplaced body parts, uncanny valley faces, architecture that makes no sense. Real horror show. Still wish it was made by someone getting paid to make it though.

grok, redraw this comic only give them all huge anime gazongas

Y'all think Shareholder-chan might be a manipulator? Like she always seems to be trying to make number go up. And I get the impression that she only cares about her own feelings? I dunno I might just be paranoid, or jealous 😳

The morally correct response to Shareholder-chan would be "STFU, nobody cares what you think."

I'm screaming

splatoon reference,...

Bet she’s actually a masochist

Artists: AI "art" compared to real art is like comparing a sirloin to hot dog meat Shareholders: yet, hot dog meat sells Artists: So, say you're given the choice. Sirloin or a plate of pink slime? Shareholders: I'm just in it for the money, you don't have to be disgusting

The only issue with this is that ppl will pay for fast food GenAI hasn't turned a profit for the companies making and pushing it. None of the LLM providers have made money off of it other than shareholder giving the money. McDonald's might be nasty but it's not an economic bubble lol

But that's part of what's so extra infuriating about this, is that the "automation" here actually loses companies money bc it costs so much to run these overstuffed models

“Isn’t there someone you forgot to ask?” “Nope.” Fixed it.

people dont understand. its sooo hard being a billionaire, u have to work so so soooo hard, and face so much online bullying. guys, we need to have more empathy for the 1%. just thing about how difficult it would be to be a poor poor billionaire.

ikr it's sooo hard having all the money you could eeeverrr want :,( boohoo ;P

my eyes glazed past the word ai so i read "we don't really wanna MAKE art" and thought yeah that's real

oh man, so good

yeah, this one doesn't land well chief, maybe the expression the artist and art enjoyers should have been just plain ignoring her instead

Corporations should be illegal.

If you're a shareholder of any sort you should consider not being

They're clearly not all on the same page here. Clearly they should cut Shareholders-chan out of the relationship.

Me to all the AI trash enjoyers, especially the ones who are angy that ppl hate AI for valid reasons:

Had to redo this because no edit button and stupid autocorrect changed enjoyers to enjoyed. I hate that.

Sorry; I seem better than you at art now. I'm supposed to have an illustrator, I'm not a cocky "queer friendly" guy from California like this app has, I'm a New York type A Ashkenazi Jewish Polish creative writer and musician . I'm just using ChatGPT, I'm just better than you at art now.

Jane from Daria is my sister compete with me for love heh

Fuck shareholders. They do any of the work.

Those hair clips tho

i'm not. fuck you, shareholders-chan.

Fuck shareholders.

Shareholder chan go sell your AI shares and buy shares that won't make you look like an asshole and would be beneficial to the planet like buy shares in solar.

Shareholder (deragatory)

Because I love me a good jojos meme my fourth panel would have been this:

True ending

Better

yup. exactly.

Good ending

not sorry

i hope Shareholder-chan returns soon!

I’ll take shit that never happened for 500.

I should get a print and put it on my bathroom wall, facing the toilet.

At best they just tolerate it

For the record i was referring to the artists feeling bad for the shareholders

there is something deeply substantial about this thread that i greatly enjoy

What is this image, who made it, and why have I never seen it before? It's a goddamn delight.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_a_Ro...

Thanks, that's awesome.

Lol I so love this painting.

You should take Understanding Jokes 101 instead

Your judgement has no power over my autism. Fear me .

Am I allowed to be angry about the premise of this extremely topical comic?

I know this is hard for you Shareholders-chan but AI Art-kun is just using you for your money! He's not good for you and you deserve better!

How could I have been so blind...

Please please please check out StopGenAI.com We also have fundraising to help people with a merch collection that features original human art: stopgenai.com/fundraising

I vote we eat shareholder chan!

I’m going steal your bicycle and you will thank me

I need to see artist and art enjoyer double teaming the corperate entity WHO SAID THAT!?!?

Has appeasing shareholders ever turn out great for society overall?

I'm mean, don´t care about shareholders-chan >:C

This is not true, if there wasn’t a demand for ai art (aka cheap, fast art), then it would fail. The reason there’s a job displacement is because a bigger percent of consumers don’t care as much as artists do.

It literally isn't profitable lmao

Wdym? If a client is happy with what they get from prompting AI image gens themselves, then they won’t pay artists, and demand for human art goes down. But the AI company gets money in their pocket from the subscription, or API rate, or whatever

But they don't get enough. AI is running on the assumption that it will someday become profitable, but the sheer cost has made trillions of dollars disappear. Businesses continue to run with it because they're operating on the sunk cost fallacy. To actually profit, the price would need to be higher.

To the point that, in order for AI corpos to make money, they would need the current level of demand to remain after jacking the prices up so high that it becomes more affordable to pay an artist or hire a network manager. Even the CEO of Microsoft said there's no path to profitability.

Thing is, maintaining generative AI is REALLY expensive. It's not profitable at all for the AI companies

Oh that’s fair. If that’s true, then AI art isn’t here to stay. But I suspect it will get cheaper and people will value convenience over the human touch

I want you to find the nearest AI prompter, put in these keywords, “stupid asshole, complete moron, absolutely brainless, gruel eater” and hit the submit button. Look at those responses and then look in a mirror and tell me which is more satisfying to you, the client.

Hope your depression clears up

X3

Spend your money on making the world a better place and I might shed a tear for you.

I don’t care how cute you make em; Shareholders need to suffer

I live in the alternative ending where they pull out comically large hammers and smash shareholder chan.

I have a feeling that AI art exists far less for anyone's benefit than AI art existing as propaganda to normalize AI. Especially in using AI to spy on people.

That's a take I haven't heard of before, but honestly makes sense. Especially with how it's mostly the US who's trying to normalize AI and how the US LOVES its companies

This is how I'd end the last panel: kicking shareholders like that one JJBA meme.

I mean... As an artist I've found plenty of uses for LLMs though it's more like "use content aware scale in PS rather than spending an hour with the clone stamp tool" rather than 1 prompt wonder nonsense.

Shareholders seemed like a myth, a parasitic god who feeds on sacrifice, with their most devoted followers at the top of the world & everyone else as sheep, whose suffering is meant to satisfy these always hungry deities

I understand artists are pissed off. It’s like a person who spent years on becoming an expert on martial arts and then someone invented the gun.

The gun in question

but 2 people agreed that they don't want A/I art while 1 person disagreed the majority should win out

quick someone pick up and stone and throw it

I wanna see Shareholders-chan getting jumped

How the stock market wishes we’d react to just about anything lol Have “shareholders” even considered what happens to any creative-field adjacent markets when artists can’t afford anything?? Adobe, who buys your shit if not artists???

They should have been first to disavow AI stealing from their client base, not rushing to implement *more theft* from their customers. 🫠

Nah throw her off a bridge lol

her hair clips are a nice touch 📉📈

hi, i hope i'm not going too far out on a limb or upsetting anyone, but i have the impression that so many art enjoyers don't care whether it's AI or not that it's partly to blame for the boom. -- please don't roast me 🥲😭

No, we forgot no one, who related to the process. If shareholders want profits, they should think about risks, they should play in casino. Their money is their responsibility, not customer's or company's. Period.

I would like shareholder Chan to meet leadpipe chan

too real

Yes

Me to Shareholders-Chan :

Fuck Shareholder-chan and Fuck Capitalism!

So you will do custom images of my dog in the studio Ghibli style for the price a working class person can afford/ free? Awesome!!! where should we start emailing photos and instructions??

Hey guys, just wanna set a boundary: No glorifying or encouraging acts of violence in the replies, even as a joke. I like to make comics lightheartedly poking fun at stuff sometimes, but seeing stuff like that discourages me from making them in the future. Thank you.

You 're a light in these dark times Shen. Thanks for keeping it positive, or trying to!

Like, your comics are for laughs and jokes, if people are thinking and commenting on acts of violence then they aren't making a good impression

Apologies, I will refrain from doing so again.

Y'all don't get it—Shen isn't saying you can't want to hurt bad people or even that he thinks you're wrong to do so, just that he doesn't want his comments section to be full of that. It's not a big deal.

Good for you setting a boundary

What is capitalism if not the glorification of economic violence?

The only violence I ever see in your comics is when life is punching you in the face.

You're a real one Shen

Thanks for this. Getting real tired of talk of killing people being normalized by the community.

its almost like people being killed was already normalized by shareholders who do it in a polite and socially acceptable way.

people have really confused their need for some kindness in life with trying to apply it to everything, including the people actively trying to kill us all

Oh I am so sorry It’s just genuinely something I expected, being on the internet

(I deleted the comment)

Thanks not just for the empathy, but for showing how to set a boundary clearly ❤️

Listen, everyone, you and Shen could be arrested if you call for violence on his social media posts. Do it on your own posts, so you don't drag him into this. Better yet, don't do it on your very public social media at all!

This is the only valid angle on this, not humanizing the pieces of shit who are actively starving and burning the world

No he couldn't, that's straight up paranoid

It's called an Actionable Threat and people have literally been arrested for it before.

"I'm going to set fire to a police station" Are *you* now at risk of being arrested because *I* said something threatening in reply to you? "Hey officer I only posted that because royalbluemeowth pointed out the injustices of the system so make sure to arrest them too!"

You're really gonna claim the US legal system is capable of making reasonable decisions and understanding nuance with a straight face?

With love, you are being a weenie. It does make sense to be scared, the USA is a fascist country that will arrest people for literally no reason at all. But opsec is not paranoia, saying Shen will be in danger from other people's comments is not nuance, it's practically fearmongering propaganda.

But to be clear! Not posting threats because Shen set a boundary is already more than enough reason to not do it. And if you still feel the way you do that's also fine. "Propaganda"s a scary word but I don't think you're being harmful.

You say I'm a paranoid propagandist, but also end by saying the same shit I am. At least stick to your guns.

I'm not going to glorify anything. I don't think stock and public shares should exist. And one day that will come true.

🙏

No, no I don't think so. I didn't think anyone was forgotten in this matter.

If a persona with 100M $ only goal is to get the number even bigger, it's a person anymore?

I honestly just use it for making stories. Stories that will never see the light of day, mind you, as they are all NSFW as all hell. I tried AI art a couple times, and even the decent results creeped me out with how fake they were, so it's permanently off my computer.

Listen I don't give a rat's ass about shareholder-chan I don't got not one shareholder friend.

Le capitalism.

SHAREHOLDERS CHAN NOOOO AI ISNT PROFITABLE LONG TERM!!! SHAREHOLDERS CHAN THIS IS JUST LIKE THE CRYPTO SCAMS YOU FELL FOR NOOOOOO

😑

I want to zip-up shareholder-chan in a sleeping bag and roll her down a mountain

Man ai 'art' can suck itself like ouroboros, take it back behind the barn and put it out of its misery

Like I get it, I cant draw for shit, and money's even tighter with alllll the shit going on, but cmon Even drawing a wobbly stick figure is more original. Please.

Grind her into paste

Id love to see shareholder chan thrown into the mouth of an open volcano. Cutely, of course

it happens in the intro. shareholder-chan, landlord-chan, ceo-senpai, and eugenicist-kun all hold hands in a circle as they fall

Shareholders are worse than the British during the Revolutionary War, and the South in the Civil War. Imagine a group of people that can cause your favorite products to suck, and make you lose your job. Just so they can have tens of millions instead of millions. And will sue if they don't get it.

That's who AI art is for, not artists, not enthusiasts, but for executives and their profit margins.

All my homies hate shareholder chan. Great comic though.

Gotta admit shareholder-chan is adorable, but she owes me lunch for the next 700 years before I have much concern for her feelings. She can afford it.

You know exactly what you're doing, Chief. bsky.app/profile/autu...

Keep crying, share holder chan. Great comic.

There’s another voice. The largest of all. Corporations.

We should throw big gulps at her head

I will gladly hurt Shareholders-chan 😂

Quick, prompt the AI to show us Shareholders getting absolutely fucked.

Its nice to see that X is back to its hijinks and self fueled blind jistice beliefs. Oh wait a minute... Anyways, I love the expressions, you killled it again, Shen

We have to support her, things have been difficult for her lately, due to her losing billions on AI art

Thanks, Stalker

Especially since so many people hate her! Seriously, we shouldn’t harass people who want money and don’t care about the wellbeing of the people that put time and effort into their passions! 👀

Thank you Sebastian Solace!

Could've chosen ANY of the characters Gianni voiced, and you chose the fish. I respect that.

i woulda chosen that little rabbit bunny from the meme

Wait. Which bunny? Must see the bunny! Is it the "hough." Bunny?

youtu.be/6a-tnmyXjAE?...

Oh! Its this silly goober! Yeah makes more sense than this one: youtu.be/lgpHuGSy3Jk

I actually haven't seen this one, thank you

you're welcome!

That one kills me everytime I see it.

This one is always amazing to see, always a mood

Goddamn Gianni, did you wake up and choose violence? Because I'm here for it.

Not to mention her last venture, several NFT chains, evaporating into digital either.

The ones where the chains didn't evaporate, the image hosts did, leaving it as a receipt to a dead link.

All her apes, gone.

This would make a good final line for a senryu.

gabriel 🫵

Shareholders always get the theory of consent backwards.

Golden Rule of Capitalism: Those who have the gold are the ones who make the rules.

Ferengi actually know better. Their society hasn't been able to maintain a investor dominated market, giving the invested project more negotiation power.

I would argue shareholder-chan is basically a ferengi due to the rules of acquisition, but we can agree to disagree.

Can I bite Shareholder-chan? I just... want to bite some humans. But my human keeps telling me no biting good humans. And... frankly, Shareholder-Chan does NOT look like a good human.

Tech bros and investors are the only ones that want ai “art”

"It's leveling the playing field!", says person who has no interest in putting in the thousands of hours that are necessary to be a capable artist but is totally fine with ripping the work from people who have put in those hours and pretending they have just as much claim over what is spat out

I'm sorry Shareholders-chan, but I do sincerely hate you 😔

What about the art grifters? How will I feed my family without the ability to sell my prompts! Little Prompty needs a 4090.

The financial market is your enemy, and it wants you dead.

I don’t get it.

Sequel idea: artist and art enjoyer nod grimly at one another behind Shareholder-chan's back while she's looking away. They then pull out Glocks and empty them into Shareholder-chan.

Now I want to fuck the shareholders literally and figuratively.

🤣

They won't hurt her anymore if they burry shareholdesr-chan alive in a ditch and fill it with cement or concrete

Anyone else miss spaghetti hentai?

Great comic, huge fan of your work~ (also to the comments below please be civil; the one thing we were asked not to do was encourage violence~)

I love your comics! But it reminds me that a lot of people make ai voiceovers for them, are you usually asked about this by them?

shareholders? no sympathy shareholders-chan? sure

The worst possible polycule

We love toxic yuri, but this is a little much.

Is that Karina Drawfee as the artist?

Shen I’m so sorry but, this goes a lil beyond toxic yuri, she’s that ex that tries to get into the things you like to get back with you but keeps ruining them and my only reaction to seeing her is “oh. its you”. She might not deserve it but, yeah.

My kink is harming shareholders You really shouldn't kink shame, and you can hear them saying "buy the dip!" Every time I whip another million dollars out of them... That's not the safe word, the safe word is "humanitarianism" but "bankruptcy" means yes more please

now draw her stabbing them both, thats how this logically ends

We don't really want to enable people to unconsentially train to make AI art. Fuck you shareholder$-chan, I know what you did, on Epstein Island.

Only noticed her *stonks* arrows after reading the brilliant alt text!

Between AI, video games, and bad remakes in theaters, I've decided that shareholders are a customer's natural enemy.

*capitalism

what, every videogame?

Lots of AAA bad decisions are being made. Nintendo bricking switches, half-baked rush jobs, trying to make everything a live service, that sort of thing.

Unironically one of the main causes of capitalism going to shit is publicly traded companies' legal duty to maximise shareholder return above all else. There's some good details on this in the book 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism

Think I'll see if my library has a copy of that book. Sounds right up my alley.

Can't believe you'd hurt shareholder chan this way especially after she just lost billions investing in NFTs.

This counts as a Gijinka because shareholders aren't human

Shareholders can eat dirt 🥰

Shareholders can share holding my balls

Shareholders can share holding my bills. They make enough.