Storytellers into Comic Artists
In a groundbreaking move, Dashtoon has set out to democratize the world of comics. Founded in December 2022 by Sanidhya Narain, Lalith Gudipati, and Soumyadeep Mukherjee, Dashtoon is the brainchild of visionary minds with diverse backgrounds. The platform’s mission is simple yet profound: to make comic creation accessible to everyone, even if they can’t draw.
Dashtoon’s genesis can be traced back to the founders’ earlier venture at Pocket FM, where they explored the untapped potential of using comic strips to promote serialized audio content. The surprising success of these experiments ignited a spark. The team recognized the latent demand among U.S. consumers for digital comics. However, traditional comic creation was labor-intensive and required high-level artistic skills, making it a time-consuming and costly endeavor.
The turning point came with the advent of advanced text-to-image AI models like DALL-E 2, Midjourney, and Stability.AI, which opened new possibilities in the realm of AI-generated art. Inspired by these developments, Dashtoon’s founders embarked on a mission to create a platform that could produce high-quality comics using AI. Soumyadeep Mukherjee joined as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to develop Dashtoon’s AI Creation Suite, a powerful tool that empowers anyone to bring their story ideas to life as digital comics.
Dashtoon primarily targets existing writer communities that have compelling stories to tell but lack artistic skills such as sketching or lettering. With Dashtoon Studio, creators can upload their storyboards and choose characters from a vast library or even upload their own photos and drawings for AI-based image generation. The result? A significant reduction in the time it takes to create a comic episode, from 40–50 hours down to just 5–6 hours. This accelerated production pace allows Dashtoon to release daily episodes, increasing the likelihood of striking comic gold. In the future, Dashtoon aims to enhance its platform further, enabling creators to generate storyboards and dialogues with AI, potentially reducing episode creation time to under an hour.
But don’t be fooled into thinking that AI does all the work. Dashtoon’s generative AI acts as a helpful assistant, taking care of labor-intensive tasks while the real creative magic comes from the creators themselves. Writers still conceptualize characters, develop stories, and train them on Dashtoon Studio to bring them to life in various poses and expressions.
AI-generated content, especially in the creative realm, has faced skepticism from artists and consumers alike. However, Dashtoon has successfully addressed these concerns by giving creators complete control over their final products. Readers are embracing the concept of daily releases of AI-generated content, aligning with the shift in consumer behavior reminiscent of binge-watching Netflix.
Furthermore, Dashtoon is committed to preventing copyright infringement by building a character library with its own intellectual property, including digital art, hand-drawn characters, and photos. Additionally, stories published on the platform must be either the creator’s intellectual property or that of Dashtoon itself, ensuring a clear stance against copyright violations.
While other digital comic distribution platforms like Marvel Unlimited and Webtoon exist, Dashtoon sets itself apart with its rich content library and rapid episode release schedule. It also strives to foster a thriving creator community, making it more than just a platform—it’s a creative hub.
As content creation evolves, Dashtoon is at the forefront of a new era in the content industry, disrupting traditional methods of comics creation and distribution. It offers an innovative alternative to labor-intensive processes, bridging the gap between writers and readers in the dynamic world of comics.
Dashtoon is set to focus on long-form content in genres like romance, drama, and fantasy initially. As more creators join the platform, it will expand into other genres within fiction, non-fiction, and short-form illustrated content. The platform’s creator-first approach aims to convert published writers’ stories into digital comics and graphic novels for publication on Dashtoon Comic Reader.
In a statement about the investment, Stellaris Venture Partners principal Naman Lohoty expressed confidence in Dashtoon’s potential to lead the webcomics revolution. As content consumption on mobile phones continues to rise, webcomics are poised to be the next wave of growth. Dashtoon, with its unique blend of content and technology, is well-positioned to spearhead this exciting journey.”