Who is this “we” in your postulation? If you’re using AI for your “graphic novel” I object to thinking yourself one of the creative class. To put it another way, if AI was a human being and a slave to you, where you simply prompted it and appropriated its output, would you reasonably be considered a “creator” of that work? I assert you would not.
The entire framing of this question, as posed, is transparently self-serving as a justification to seek validation for a process which, fundamentally, contradicts the purpose and definitions of art.
Code is a functional set of orders to a machine, nothing more. Nobody is buying paperbacks of source code to read on an airplane, correct? It’s refreshing to have this opportunity to confront these absolutely infuriating equivocations which have momentum in the present day.
There’s a reason the term “AI slop” is floating around with such frequency. I am an artist and a musician and a writer. You are not a part of our “we” buddy. Sorry not sorry.