You’ve seen this comic before: an anthropomorphic dog sits smiling, surrounded by flames, and says, “This is good.”
It’s become one of the most enduring memes of the past decade, and now AI startup Artisan appears to have included it in an ad campaign – an ad whose art KC Green, the artist who created the comic, said was stolen.
One of Bluesky’s posts appears to feature an ad in a subway station featuring Green’s work, except the dog says: “[M]The pipeline is on fire,” and an overlaid message urging passersby to “Rent Ava the AI BDR.”
Citing that post, Green said he’s “getting more and more people telling me about this” and that “it’s not a thing [I] Agreed.'” Instead, he said the ad was “stolen like AI was stolen,” and asked his followers to “please sabotage it if and when they see it.”
When TechCrunch emailed Artisan asking about the announcement, the company said: “We have great respect for KC Green and his work, and are reaching out to him directly.” In a follow-up email, the company said it had set up a time to speak with him.
Artisan has courted controversy with its advertising before, specifically with billboards urging companies to “stop hiring humans” – although founder and CEO Jasper Carmichael Jack insisted the message was about “a category of work”, not “human beings in general”.
The phrase “That’s good” first appeared in Green’s 2013 webcomic “Gunshow,” and while he hasn’t completely disavowed the grinning dog (he recently turned the comic into a game), it’s clearly gotten out of his control. Of course, Green isn’t the only artist to see his comic art used in ways he finds objectionable.
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But some artists still take action when their artwork is monetized or used in commercial ways without their permission, such as when cartoonist Matt Furey sued right-wing conspiracy theory site Infowars for using his character Pepe the Frog in a poster. (Furie and Infowars eventually settled down.)
Green told TechCrunch via email that he would “look into it.” [legal] Acting, as I feel I should do it. However, he said it “takes the wind out of my sails” as he has to take “time out of my life to try my hand at the American court system instead of bringing it back to what I’m passionate about, which is drawing comics and comics.”
“These AI losers are untouchable, and memes don’t come out of nowhere,” Green added.
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