Research

Paper

AI LLM March 17, 2026

One Kiss: Emojis as Agents of Genre Flux in Generative Comics

Authors

Xiruo Wang, Xinyi Jiang, Ziqi Lyu

Abstract

Generative AI has made visual storytelling widely accessible, yet current prompt-based interactions often force users into a trade-off between precise control and creative flow. We present One Kiss, a co-creative comic generation system that introduces "Affective Steering". Instead of writing text prompts, users guide the tone of their story through emoji inputs, whose semantic ambiguity becomes a resource rather than a limitation. Unlike traditional text-to-image tools that rely on explicit descriptions, One Kiss uses a dual-stream input in which users define structural pacing by sketching panel frames and set atmospheric tone by pairing keywords with emojis. This mechanism enables "Genre Flux," where emotional inputs accumulate across panels and gradually shift the genre of a story. A preliminary study (N = 6) suggests that this soft steering approach may reframe the user's role from prompt engineer to narrative director, with ambiguity serving as a source of creative surprise rather than a loss of control.

Metadata

arXiv ID: 2603.16359
Provider: ARXIV
Primary Category: cs.HC
Published: 2026-03-17
Fetched: 2026-03-18 06:02

Related papers

Raw Data (Debug)
{
  "raw_xml": "<entry>\n    <id>http://arxiv.org/abs/2603.16359v1</id>\n    <title>One Kiss: Emojis as Agents of Genre Flux in Generative Comics</title>\n    <updated>2026-03-17T10:47:19Z</updated>\n    <link href='https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.16359v1' rel='alternate' type='text/html'/>\n    <link href='https://arxiv.org/pdf/2603.16359v1' rel='related' title='pdf' type='application/pdf'/>\n    <summary>Generative AI has made visual storytelling widely accessible, yet current prompt-based interactions often force users into a trade-off between precise control and creative flow. We present One Kiss, a co-creative comic generation system that introduces \"Affective Steering\". Instead of writing text prompts, users guide the tone of their story through emoji inputs, whose semantic ambiguity becomes a resource rather than a limitation. Unlike traditional text-to-image tools that rely on explicit descriptions, One Kiss uses a dual-stream input in which users define structural pacing by sketching panel frames and set atmospheric tone by pairing keywords with emojis. This mechanism enables \"Genre Flux,\" where emotional inputs accumulate across panels and gradually shift the genre of a story. A preliminary study (N = 6) suggests that this soft steering approach may reframe the user's role from prompt engineer to narrative director, with ambiguity serving as a source of creative surprise rather than a loss of control.</summary>\n    <category scheme='http://arxiv.org/schemas/atom' term='cs.HC'/>\n    <published>2026-03-17T10:47:19Z</published>\n    <arxiv:comment>Accepted to CHI 202X Extended Abstracts</arxiv:comment>\n    <arxiv:primary_category term='cs.HC'/>\n    <author>\n      <name>Xiruo Wang</name>\n    </author>\n    <author>\n      <name>Xinyi Jiang</name>\n    </author>\n    <author>\n      <name>Ziqi Lyu</name>\n    </author>\n    <arxiv:doi>10.1145/3772363.3798758</arxiv:doi>\n    <link href='https://doi.org/10.1145/3772363.3798758' rel='related' title='doi'/>\n  </entry>"
}