# COMIC: Agentic Sketch Comedy Generation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.11048 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.11048/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Multimodal and embodied agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use.
- Builds on 24 of its 42 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 11 Mar 2026.

## Placed in

- LLM agents and tool use / [Multimodal and embodied agents](https://mlsanity.com/agents/multimodal-and-embodied-agents/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 24 of 24)

- [Wan: Open and Advanced Large-Scale Video Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.20314/) (2025)
- [AlphaEvolve: A coding agent for scientific and algorithmic discovery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.13131/) (2025)
- [Large Language Models as Optimizers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.03409/) (2023)
- [Promptbreeder: Self-Referential Self-Improvement Via Prompt Evolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.16797/) (2023)
- [Illuminating search spaces by mapping elites](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1504.04909/) (2015)
- [Darwin Godel Machine: Open-Ended Evolution of Self-Improving Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.22954/) (2025)
- [Evolution of Heuristics: Towards Efficient Automatic Algorithm Design Using Large Language Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.02051/) (2024)
- [StreamingT2V: Consistent, Dynamic, and Extendable Long Video Generation from Text](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.14773/) (2024)
- [VideoDirectorGPT: Consistent Multi-scene Video Generation via LLM-Guided Planning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.15091/) (2023)
- [OmniHuman-1: Rethinking the Scaling-Up of One-Stage Conditioned Human Animation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.01061/) (2025)
- [EvoAgent: Towards Automatic Multi-Agent Generation via Evolutionary Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.14228/) (2024)
- [One-Minute Video Generation with Test-Time Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.05298/) (2025)
- [Automated Movie Generation via Multi-Agent CoT Planning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.07314/) (2025)
- [LLM-grounded Video Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.17444/) (2023)
- [Free-Bloom: Zero-Shot Text-to-Video Generator with LLM Director and LDM Animator](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.14494/) (2023)
- [Vlogger: Make Your Dream A Vlog](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.09414/) (2024)
- [DirecT2V: Large Language Models are Frame-Level Directors for Zero-Shot Text-to-Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.14330/) (2023)
- [Captain Cinema: Towards Short Movie Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.18634/) (2025)
- [Anim-Director: A Large Multimodal Model Powered Agent for Controllable Animation Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.09787/) (2024)
- [VideoGen-of-Thought: Step-by-step generating multi-shot video with minimal manual intervention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.15138/) (2025)
- [VISTA: A Test-Time Self-Improving Video Generation Agent](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.15831/) (2025)
- [Accelerating Scientific Research with Gemini: Case Studies and Common Techniques](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.03837/) (2026)
- [FilMaster: Bridging Cinematic Principles and Generative AI for Automated Film Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.18899/) (2025)
- [MusicInfuser: Making Video Diffusion Listen and Dance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.14505/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [A2RD: Agentic Autoregressive Diffusion for Long Video Consistency](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.06924/) (2026)
- [Agentic Visual Generation: From Generative Models to Agentic Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.06758/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We propose a fully automated AI system that produces short comedic videos similar to sketch shows such as Saturday Night Live. Starting from character references, the system employs a population of agents loosely modeled on roles in real production studios and structured to optimize the quality and diversity of ideas and outputs through iterative competition, evaluation, and refinement. A key contribution is the introduction of LLM-based critics aligned with real viewer preferences through the analysis of a corpus of comedy videos on YouTube, enabling automatic evaluation of humor. We further propose multi-island relativistic evolution for script improvement, along with script-conditioned rendering critics that perform shot- and video-level tournaments. In both human and automated evaluations, COMIC receives higher scores than agentic and video generation baselines.