Burda transforms Comic Creation with Black Forest Labs' FLUX.1 Models

Burda - a major publisher in the DACH region - transformed their comic creation process for the LissyPony series, one of the most recognized children’s magazines in central Europe. By augmenting their classic content creation process with BFL’s FLUX.1 models, Burda produced the first fully AI supported LissyPony magazine and greatly improved their production speed while maintaining character, style and brand consistency.

Summary:

• 50% reduction in comic creation time by using FLUX.1 models
• 70% projected efficiency gains for future productions
• September 2nd 2025: release of the first fully AI-supported magazine
• First-to-market with a fully AI assisted production

From Traditional Illustration to AI-powered Content Creation Workflows

What started as a proof of concept to explore the potential of generative AI models as tools for content creators soon became an initiative targeting the acceleration of professional production workflows. By using the entire BFL tool stack - including FLUX.1 Kontext, FLUX.1 Fill, FLUX.1 Depth and the BFL Finetuning API - Burda’s creatives reduced the time required to produce their magazines by 50% while achieving highest levels of precision and consistency - core prerequisites for professional productions like LissyPony. The first fully AI generated magazine will be released on September 2nd..

Moreover, Burda created a reproducible production pipeline that can be mapped to various use cases, making BFL’s models a core part of their content creation. Further efficiency gains are expected in the future.

"By using the most recent and future BFL models we anticipate to further speed up our content creation process to up to 70% compared to the traditional process." - Rebecca Gottwald, COO, BurdaVerlag

Using the full FLUX.1 Family for Precise and Consistent Image Generation

By using different models of the FLUX.1 model family for their different use cases, Burda’s team achieved highly precise results.

Character Fine-tuning via the BFL Finetuning API. To achieve precise character consistency Burda created a unique fine-tuned model with the BFL FInetuning API for each main individual of the story.

3D-Based Environment Generation.with FLUX.1 Depth To render the environments surrounding the characters precisely and consistently across view-angles, Burda established a 3D-guided workflow with FLUX.1 Depth

Fine-Grained Edits using FLUX.1 Kontext Early access to FLUX.1 Kontext enabled Burda’s creative team to edit small details such as slight changes in character pose or view direction, without re-generating the entire scene, leading to significant time savings for each component of the production workflow.

The Future of Comic Creation

Burda's implementation demonstrates how the use of BFL’s FLUX models significantly speeds up production workflows without sacrificing quality or brand identity. This collaboration between BFL and Burda is a blueprint showing the impact of generative image AI as powerful tools for professionals.

"FLUX assisted workflows will fundamentally change the way comics are created. Not simply by making the process faster, but by allowing much more room for testing different variants, flexibility even at late stages in the process and even more creative results." - Rebecca Gottwald, COO BurdaVerlag

Read more about it at Burda's blog post .

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