Dashtoon Studio Has Shut Down: The Best Alternatives for Turning a Story Into Comic Pages

Dashtoon Studio, one of the best-known AI tools for turning a written story into comic pages, shut down on 15 August 2026, according to Dashtoon's own notice. Creation now continues on Frameo, Dashtoon's AI video and short-drama platform, and the Dashtoon reading app remains online. If you used Studio to turn stories into comics, here's what it did and which tools cover the same ground today.

What Dashtoon Studio did

Studio's Story Mode took a pasted story, identified its characters, turned it into a panel-by-panel screenplay and generated the images, with every panel editable afterwards. It added speech-bubble tools, a character library with custom character training, and styles from manga and manhwa to superhero, and finished comics could be published to Dashtoon's vertical-scroll reading app. It was one of the earliest fairly complete story-to-comic tools.

The alternatives, by what you need

Novvel — to have your whole story adapted into a graphic novel

Novvel is the closest match to Story Mode's promise: you upload a finished story (.txt, .md, .pdf or pasted text, any length) and it adapts the whole thing. It reads the manuscript, has you approve the cast, locations and style before anything is drawn, then scripts and draws every page — panels, narration, dialogue and lettering.

• Characters: you approve each character before any page is drawn, and that reference carries through every page.

• Styles: 50+ (25 on Starter), including Manga, Noir, Watercolour, B&W Ink, Ligne Claire and Risograph.

• Export: PDF at up to 300 DPI (Print Ready), plus a web reader link that works on any phone.

• Price: free preview; Starter is $99 (up to 2,000 words) or $199 (2,001–5,000 words) flat per book, Founder's pricing; Studio is a custom quote. No subscription.

• Rights: full commercial rights on Studio; Starter books are for personal use.

ComicsMaker.ai — to build comics yourself in a studio

ComicsMaker.ai is an AI comic studio: you design characters, generate scenes and lay out pages and speech bubbles yourself, starting from a premise, prompt or script. It offers reusable characters and custom character training, comic, manga and webtoon styles, and commercial rights on every plan, with plans at Free, $10 or $20 a month in credits. Read our full Novvel vs. ComicsMaker.ai comparison.

AI Comic Factory — for a quick comic page from one idea

The free, open-source AI Comic Factory turns a short idea into one page of four panels in seconds, with about 25 style presets. A separate commercial site, aicomicfactory.ai, builds comics one page at a time from a story idea or template. Neither takes a full manuscript. Read our full Novvel vs. AI Comic Factory comparison.

Which one to choose

• You have a finished story and want a complete book: Novvel. The free preview shows your cover, characters and opening pages in about 30 minutes, before you pay anything.

• You want to make comics yourself, panel by panel: ComicsMaker.ai.

• You want to try an idea as a single page, free: AI Comic Factory.

Frequently asked questions

Has Dashtoon shut down?

Dashtoon Studio, its comic-creation tool, shut down on 15 August 2026, according to Dashtoon's website. Creation has moved to Frameo, Dashtoon's AI video and short-drama platform. The Dashtoon reading app is still online.

What happened to my Dashtoon Studio projects?

Dashtoon's shutdown notice points account questions to its own support team, so contact Dashtoon directly about existing projects.

What's the closest alternative to Dashtoon's Story Mode?

Novvel. Like Story Mode, it starts from your written story, but it adapts the whole thing: it reads the manuscript, has you approve the cast, locations and style, then scripts and draws every page.

Can I still make vertical webtoons?

Novvel exports PDF at up to 300 DPI and a web reader link that works on any phone, not vertical webtoon files. ComicsMaker.ai lists webtoon among its styles.

Facts about Dashtoon come from its shutdown notice and its August 2024 Studio release post; facts about other tools come from their own websites. All were checked on 8 October 2026.