Creating a comic strip with ChatGPT

It’s been over 10 years since my last hand-drawn cartoon. Life got busy, my website languished, and my drawing skills stagnated.
As 2025 seems to be the big year of change, I decided it was time to return – with a little help from AI.

This post contains two comics about GeekMum. One was a completely automated 4 panel comic – using a standard single prompt that lots of people were using.

The second comic was more planned. A 6 panel comic where I wrote the script and style myself. Again, it was a single draft – I didn’t make any revisions. But it was more about discovering the correct process, to make it repeatable for future comics, if I chose to use ChatGPT. I’m in two minds – I will test Canva next time, to see if I like the output.
Either way, I hope this post helps you.

Why Comics?

They’re a powerful medium – fun, expressive, and capable of blending humour and insight in just a few panels. More fun than your average blog post.

I’ve always loved art. Despite being a maths nerd for years, art ended up being my best subject in the HSC – and got me into my IT degree. (Alongside chemistry, French, English etc).
30 years ago I wrote a book for my kids – but wasn’t happy with my illustrations and didn’t publish it. And there’s an adventure story lurking, waiting to be released.

But like many projects, the barrier wasn’t ideas. It was time. Patience. Drawing skills.

So instead of putting pen to paper, I decided to experiment with AI to shortcut the visual process, focus on storytelling, and see just how fast I could go from idea to finished strip.

The bandwagon comic

I jumped on the bandwagon last month, where everyone was asking ChatGPT to create a comic based on what it knew about you.
The prompt really was simply “create a four panel comic that you think I’d enjoy based on what you know about me”.
And ChatGPT seems to know a fair bit.

I thought this was pretty cool. Scary how accurate it was – I had spent the week updating my GeekMum plugins, doing AI courses, comparing ChatGPT, Google and Perplexity, talking about coffee, talking about a friend’s dog called Moose. And I liked that it thought I was an AEO queen. But wasn’t fond of the drab colouring, and how the coffee cup changed in the third panel.

The custom comic. Step 1: Research

For my next comic, I started by researching how other creators were combining artificial intelligence with cartooning. These were some useful posts/articles:

Ultimately, I chose to start with ChatGPT for speed and ease of scripting.

Step 2: Analysing style and tone

To establish a consistent look and feel, I used ChatGPT to analyse a few comics I admired.
The objective was to identify the terminology (aka prompt) to describe my cartoon skill – in a repeatable way.

I asked ChatGPT to break each example down by:

  • Colour palette
  • Panel layout
  • Styling and linework
  • Characters and expressions
  • Narrative transitions

This helped me define my own style before generating anything.

Step 3: Planning the Comic Strip

Once I had the style and tone of voice, I moved onto the content.
I brainstormed ideas for the next few comics, potentially a day-in-the-life series, eg:

  • geekmum
  • my garden
  • the magpies
  • the pool
  • a snake
  • the hamlet
  • the hippie town
  • the influencer town

Then for the first comic, I planned each panel as follows:

  • visual setting eg rainforest in distant background
  • character positions eg at laptop
  • dialogue eg hi, I’m GeekMum
  • any effects eg unused pencils on desk
  • any captions

Step 4: Generating the Comic with ChatGPT

With my script ready, I fed it into ChatGPT’s image generation tool (GPT-4o with image capabilities), including the detailed instructions for layout, mood, and tone. The result is below:

Is it what I wanted? No. But it’s done.
ChatGPT got a little confused about my soprano sax – it isn’t curved like an alto sax, and it’s actually purple.
One hobby was supposed to be growing bush foods. Another was learning Swedish. I don’t like the line breaks. And this was the first draft – I didn’t make any revisions.

But it took less than 2 hours from idea to image, so that’s a win in my book.

What Worked – and What I’ll Do Differently

This was a proof of concept – whether I could go from idea to visual story quickly using AI tools.

The answer was yes – but not without tradeoffs.

  • Speed: Excellent. Once the setup was in place, it was fast.
  • Creative control: Limited. I couldn’t tweak individual panels the way I wanted.
  • Polish: It’s OK – but I missed the design control of tools like Canva.

For the next strip, I plan to prototype in ChatGPT but build the final version in Canva for more visual refinement.

Final Thoughts: How Long Should It Take?

This whole experiment was driven by impatience. If you know what you want to say, how long should it take to write a blog post – or draw a cartoon?
My last blog post took around 3 hours to write, and I was champing at the bit to finish.
If I was drawing by hand, it would take me at least 4 hours to get semi-close, and I probably still wouldn’t be happy.

With AI, once I’m into a rhythm, with brand colours and style saved, it should be a lot faster.