Like that would stop them.

They did make the comic. They might not've made the images, but they are the ones that came up with the idea and put it together. It's an expression from their mind, and therefore them watermarking it is a nonissue.

It doesn't just seem scummy, it is scummy to gatekeep art.

Whats scummy is discouraging people from sharing their artistic expressions because your inferiority complex from them using a tool. Art has always been copied and built from other people. How many drawing books teach you to trace existing art to learn? How about photo realistic drawings which are traces from photos? How many works are derivatives from public domain? Yet that all gets to be art...The scumy thing in AI is that corporations use them for profit and aim to remove labor so they can increase their wealth hoarding, not that people can use them to express themselves without needing years of training...

Again people loudly not understanding how AI works.

Generated images aren't "stolen", be mad