The cartoon market is grim - there are a lot of cartoonists looking for projects and an outlet for their work. Find a creative way to partner up with one of them. Offer a token stipend or make it a submission contest (if you have enough of an audience, it's a nice way to give them an audience).
Just don't tell them your funny idea. If you are inclined to do that, get a pen and draw it yourself. There's not as much risk of making "bad art" as you might think if the writing is good. If you have an idea, sketch it up - anything handmade that doesn't hide its grungy authenticity, I think, is so preferable to even the best AI cartoons.
The limited range of AI cartoons (like most, I can spot them in a millisecond) can't help but pull attention away from any message and focus it on how the cartoon was produced. But honestly, why would you expect it to be otherwise? You are using a format that is defined as the message conveyed by the combination of the image and the writing, so how the image was made is half the message. Some of the best cartoons (and they are the hardest to make) have no caption - the drawing is doing all of the narrative. They are insanely thought-through documents.
Consider this an unforced but predictable error; trying to pass a message via an endangered art form without consideration for how it was produced is going to get a reaction. Just like oil painting and sculpture, in cartooning, form and content are inseparable. That's what makes it art instead of clipart.
A Cartoonist's Perspective
The cartoon market is grim - there are a lot of cartoonists looking for projects and an outlet for their work. Find a creative way to partner up with one of them. Offer a token stipend or make it a submission contest (if you have enough of an audience, it's a nice way to give them an audience).
Just don't tell them your funny idea. If you are inclined to do that, get a pen and draw it yourself. There's not as much risk of making "bad art" as you might think if the writing is good. If you have an idea, sketch it up - anything handmade that doesn't hide its grungy authenticity, I think, is so preferable to even the best AI cartoons.
The limited range of AI cartoons (like most, I can spot them in a millisecond) can't help but pull attention away from any message and focus it on how the cartoon was produced. But honestly, why would you expect it to be otherwise? You are using a format that is defined as the message conveyed by the combination of the image and the writing, so how the image was made is half the message. Some of the best cartoons (and they are the hardest to make) have no caption - the drawing is doing all of the narrative. They are insanely thought-through documents.
Consider this an unforced but predictable error; trying to pass a message via an endangered art form without consideration for how it was produced is going to get a reaction. Just like oil painting and sculpture, in cartooning, form and content are inseparable. That's what makes it art instead of clipart.