A vendor under the name Oriana Gerez Art was escorted out of Dragon Con 2025 because they were accused of selling AI images as original art over the weekend. Gerez Art was located at the A10 booth in Pop Artist Alley, and according to photographer Pat Loika, “After complaints came in, he was asked to present a process video and sent in…an AI video.”
“[the vendor]lied when he applied for the booth. Used his girlfriend’s name, supposedly. After complaints came in, he was asked to present a process video and sent in…an AI video. (This is what I learned from an artist who lobbied the complaint)
Artist Shawn Crystal (@inkplulp) made a post accusing Oriana Gerez Art of selling AI images, which prompted an unapologetic reply from the Gerez Art page:
“I’d share a screenshot of my sales this weekend but don’t have to show it give any explanations to you losers.”
“You guys are sore because you don’t sell sh*t and will be forever broke. Have fun being a broke bitch.
After words of the incident spread and internet outrage grew, Oriana Gerez Art has privated their Instagram account and deleted their CV from their official page.
The move provoked widespread comment on social media, with footage of the police arriving being widely shared. The ouster of the artist was widely hailed as a victory for humans.
Dragon con remains undefeated.
— Dane 🔜 DragonCon Comic and Pop Artist Alley A11 (@monkeyminion.com) 2025-09-01T19:44:00.931Z
Exactly what befell and how it all rolled out has been hard to clarify, although there have been many social media posts, like this video:
Creator Dane Ault of Monkey Minion also posted an account on Bluesky:
I was next to (one of) the AI slop booths at DragonCon and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.So, as you may or may not know, there was a booth selling AI slop images printed on acrylic panels at DragonCon. They were in booth a-10. I was in a-11. Here’s what happened from my perspective.
— Dane 🔜 DragonCon Comic and Pop Artist Alley A11 (@monkeyminion.com) 2025-09-02T23:33:50.659Z
Here’s his whole account, from the booth next door, reformatted as text but keeping the post breaks:
I was next to (one of) the AI slop booths at DragonCon and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.
So, as you may or may not know, there was a booth selling AI slop images printed on acrylic panels at DragonCon. They were in booth a-10. I was in a-11. Here’s what happened from my perspective.
Thursday during load-in, the folks in charge of that space (a young woman, a young man, an older lady, and an older man) showed up and were clearly displeased with the layout of the area. As they set up their propanel walls, they began to have issues because their equipment was the wrong size.
The staff came and told them to rearrange it and they did, but not happily. As we were getting ready to leave they had started to put up product on the walls and the stuff they started with was, while not to my taste, clearly made by a person.
Messy paintings of pop culture characters with abstract brushstrokes and Grafitti style text. Not my thing, but that’s how art works: there’s something for every one. This is important later.
Friday, we get in and the younger woman, Oriana (who’s name was on the booth) and the older man are nowhere to be seen, but the young man and older woman who helped set up were there. But there was different stuff in the booth.
The paintings were still there, but now so were new images of various anime characters & comic characters, monopoly man and snoopy, all bloomy and blurry with weird details and various numbers of fingers. I immediately clocked it as AI, but was too busy Friday to get away from my table
to ask someone about it (thanks, DragonCon!), and too tired by show close to track someone down. I did ask the guy in charge of the booth “so, how many different artists do you represent? Because I see like 6 different styles here.”
He replied with “just her [the older lady’s] daughter & son.” Riiiight.
Saturday, we came in & I tracked down a staffer and told them “hey the booth next to mine is selling AI. I know yall have a policy against that, so I thought you’d like to know. She wrote it down and said she’d tell the AA head.
Again, Saturday was crazy, but I saw the AA folks milling around and checking out the products in the booth next door, which was cool. It told me they took my observation seriously and At least investigated it.
Sunday came and I saw the AA folks around more, but the booth was still up. So I just assumed they were going to let them finish out the show and blacklist them. Not ideal, but also not the worst, given how many ways a confrontation during show hours could go sideways.
Then… Monday came. That morning, I got in at 9:45 & the AA folks (plus a few others and a cop) were already at the booth. The owners weren’t in yet. I got set up, the show opened and then the booth folks showed up, about 15-30 minutes late. At which point the AA staff descended upon them
like avenging angels. They took up positions, creating a wall across the entrance to the booth, telling attendees who stopped that they were being removed and were no longer available, and the scammers took down their displays and angrily packed their gear and left.
The rest of the day passed without incident. Someone (another artist, I think) put a sign in the booth telling attendees (and other artists) that they were removed from the space for selling AI slop, and then (as often happens at DragonCon) it became a shrine for folks to leave offerings at.
I had a lot of fun watching people walk by and pose with the empty booth and snap pics of the signs, as well as explaining to anyone who asked what happened. I spoke to the AA head after the show
and he told me that the people in that booth submitted the pop art paintings for their application and were approved for those. He had no idea they were going to offer AI garbage and started working on the process for deleting them from the show as soon as he learned about it.
(For more details on that I’d suggest reaching out to DragonCon) I thanked him (and am doing so here again – thank you!) for doing it. Confrontation at a convention isn’t fun or easy.
And that’s the story of how (one of) the AI sloppists at DragonCon got bounced from the show – from the perspective of the guy next door.
I apologize for any formatting weirdness or typos. I was posting this while the plane home was taxiing.
Dragon Con, like many pop culture events, bans AI art from being sold, but it’s a hard rule to enforce, especially with so many booths already selling thinly veiled “tributes” to other artists and copyrighted characters. Artist Alley – it’s a wild place.
The incident came just a week after a booth offering AI portraits run by the huge telecom Bell came under heavy fire at Fan Expo in Toronto.
While the flood of AI slop may have been halted for a couple of weeks – and other attendees felt vindicated in standing up for human-generated art – this is undoubtedly just the start of a long process. AI has infiltrated every aspect of our lives – some of it helpful, some of it wildly inaccurate and some downright dangerous. Artist Alley may have stood up for human this time, but there will be many confrontations to come.
–Reporting by Javier Perez and Heidi MacDonald
