Oh it’s ON, baby!!
Nah, it’s mainly just a silly goof-con, in which case almost every sci-fi series one might possibly imagine has plainly borrowed from earlier ones in one way or another. At least, I THINK so.
That said, I seem to recall Mézières being pretty upset about this at some point. In any case, he passed on a couple years ago, so hmm…
EDIT: Whoops, pardon. This specifically appeared in the annex of the Cinebook edition of v2, The Empire of a Thousand Planets. There was a text accompaniment that I could post, if necessary. It was pretty rubbish, frankly.
You’re cool with me, brother.
On the one hand, we’ve come so spectacularly far in terms of digital tools, while OTOH, AI is getting so good that it’s even scary. For example, if you scroll down to “Girl by X” in this sub…