For Immediate Release:
AHOY Comics Becomes The First Publisher to Adopt Matt Kindt’s “100% Human-Made” Open-Source Certification For All Upcoming Releases,
Beginning With Mark Russell and Russ Braun’s THE FORGOTTEN DIVINE The Kindt-Designed Emblem Certifies Comics and Other Creative Works Have Been Made without the Assistance of Generative A.I.
All Future AHOY Comics Will Feature the Emblem, Beginning With the Sci-Fi Graphic Novella By the Eisner Award-Winning Writer and the Artist of THE BOYS — Funding Now on Kickstarter!
(June 25, 2026) Syracuse-based indie publisher AHOY Comics — which has made its reputation since 2018 with its deep bench of witty satires, acclaimed creators, and a commitment to bold and risk-taking storytelling, with titles including The Toxic Avenger, Second Coming, Justice Warriors, The Wrong Earth, Ancestral Recall and more — recently announced that it will be the first publisher to adopt New York Times best-selling creator Matt Kindt’s “100% HUMAN-MADE” emblem on all their future titles. The new, open-source certification for comics, graphic novels, and other visual, musical and audio forms of creative work is designed to designate them as fully derived from the human imagination and otherwise free of elements designed or enhanced by generative artificial intelligence. The first AHOY title to bear the new emblem will be THE FORGOTTEN DIVINE, a satirical science fiction drama from writer Mark Russell (SECOND COMING) and artist Russ Braun (The Boys). THE FORGOTTEN DIVINE will be the first of AHOY’s new AHOY Select line, their pop-up imprint for direct to consumer releases, and is being funded via AHOY’s inaugural Kickstarter campaign. The campaign is now live.
“AI is rightly loathed throughout the world of legitimate comics, and we want to make it clear to our readers that AHOY is 100% powered by the very human blood, sweat and tears of our uber-talented creators,” said Editor-in-Chief Tom Peyer.
Featuring an emblem designed by Kindt himself that will first debut on June’s MIND MGMT: NEW & IMPROVED #1 – part of his new FLUX HOUSE imprint at Oni Press, which will launch a brand-new beginning for the creator’s widely acclaimed comics masterpiece – the “100% HUMAN-MADE” certification is created under the Creative Commons “Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International” license. Under those terms, artists seeking to utilize the “100% HUMAN-MADE” certification can “distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format” for commercial and not-for-profit purposes, as long as it carries the following Creative Commons attribution:
100% HUMAN-MADE © 2026 by Matt Kindt, LLC is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
THE FORGOTTEN DIVINE is a sci-fi drama about Rodney Coleman, an unhoused veteran whose sleep is haunted by dreams of a faraway planet. (At least, he thinks they’re dreams.) Soon Coleman connects with others plagued by dreams of the same world and finds himself at the head of a UFO cult. The group's shared effort to understand their visions is heartfelt at first—but over time it descends into unreality, conspiracy, paranoia, violence, and conceivably… revelation. The Kickstarter campaign will include a slew of unique tiers and exclusive extras that only the “Expect More-igans” at AHOY could dream up, including a paperback edition signed by writer Mark Russell; exclusive hardcover editions featuring variant covers by Russ Braun, Matt Bors, and Mark Russell; enamel pins featuring AHOY fan-favorite characters; prints; bathrobes; hour-long Zoom calls with Mark Russell, Russ Braun, and Editor-in-Chief Tom Peyer; and (most crucially) a virtual lock of Tom Peyer’s hair. More extras and add-ons will be announced during the campaign.
Potential users can download a high-resolution .eps copy of the 100% HUMAN-MADE emblem HERE and at OniPress.com.
Support the campaign for THE FORGOTTEN DIVINE here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/comicsahoy/the-forgotten-divine-by-mark-russell-and-russ-braun?ref=3v7lr3
Replies
I say good for them!
I fear that in 10-15 years everything on the internet, and much of TV and movies, will be AI-generated. I fear that the rising chorus of pushback on AI is a futile effort. Eventually there will be new Indiana Jones movies set in World War II, and starring a 35-year-old Harrison Ford, all generated by computer (including the script). Once Claude and ChatGPT and so forth become sophisticated enough to create such movies (which is happening now), the main cost will be for the compute time at xAI or someplace. And maybe fees to the actors' estates, if they were smart enough to contract for that.
But maybe not comics. They've resisted going digital, so maybe they'll resist this, too. Really, the format hasn't changed much since the '30s. The industry could well end up being a boutique sort of thing. OTOH, there are still comic shops, and my local one seems to be thriving.
What do y'all think?
I will buy The Forgotten Divine... if I get the chance... that is, unless it's available to doners only (Dreadstar, Scout, etc.).
But I've been burned too often in the past paying upfront for some "special project" or another that never materialized.
Am glad AHOY! comics are "100% Certified Human Made," but if they're available to only a select few I'm unimpressed.
Not only do I not "do" Kickstarters, I delete the press releases when they come in. I only did this one because of the AI angle.