nowfound

AI · June 4, 2024

SA

Shortbread App – AI-powered, romantic comics for women

Hi HN! Fengjiao and Evan here. We are building Shortbread App, Netflix for webcomics. We publish guilty-pleasure romance series (think 50 Shades of Gray) as comics. Like the mature version of Webtoon. You can see two comics episodes at https://create.shortbread.ai/viewer/3d25370c-a4eb-4df4-af8e-... https://create.shortbread.ai/viewer/866c2873-9962-4ebe-8f0c-..., and read more in the app via https://www.shortbreadapp.com/. All comics in the app are made by artists using the Shortbread AI Comics Studio (https://shortbread.ai). It…

In plain words

Shortbread App is a platform for publishing AI-generated romantic comics targeted at women, offering mature content similar to webcomics. It features both a reader app with serialized romance series and an AI-powered Comics Studio tool that artists use to create comics with AI assistance while maintaining artistic control. The platform aims to streamline comic production while delivering romantic storylines in visual format.

written from the facts on this page · September 2026

From the sources

In the maker’s words, at launch

Hi HN! Fengjiao and Evan here. We are building Shortbread App, Netflix for webcomics. We publish guilty-pleasure romance series (think 50 Shades of Gray) as comics. Like the mature version of Webtoon. You can see two comics episodes at https://create.shortbread.ai/viewer/3d25370c-a4eb-4df4-af8e-... https://create.shortbread.ai/viewer/866c2873-9962-4ebe-8f0c-..., and read more in the app via https://www.shortbreadapp.com/. All comics in the app are made by artists using the Shortbread AI Comics Studio (https://shortbread.ai). It is a powerful Photoshop-like editor that speeds up comic creation 10x with AI. The editor provides consistency and granular artistic control. More below. We first posted on HN 6 months ago when we built a prompt-to-comics AI (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37792444). We sunsetted this soon after - it was a fun experiment but it didn’t meet the real need of comic artists. Shortbread Studio now changes this by enhancing how creators naturally work instead of replacing them. The tech: One-shot Character LoRA: Artists upload a single photo of their character. Our backend uses prompt engineering and ControlNet pipelines to generate a synthetic dataset from this photo. This dataset shows the character in all kinds of angles, poses and facial expressions that the artist can pick the best from. It’s then sent to our LoRA training service to create a LoRA model. This takes about 7 minutes. Control -> Redraw -> Refine Workflow: In real life drawing, you draw, erase, and draw again. The human creative process is iterative. In Shortbread Studio, artists can start from a text prompt, a sketch, a web image or a pose reference as a basis, create an initial panel and quickly modify and regenerate until they get what they want. If you spend 5 seconds, you get a decent panel. If you spend 10 minutes, you can push the limits and get pro results. Built-in Post-Processing: The editor’s features include liquify, upscale, remove background, and outpainting to extend an image. This allows artists to remove, add, or modify parts of an image on a pixel level without drawing by hand. We combine this with segmentation models like Segment Anything (https://github.com/facebookresearch/segment-anything) to support intelligently selecting and editing a part of an image. Google-docs like collaboration: The Studio runs in the browser and supports comments and collaboration. LLM Powered Copy Editor: Comics need text. An AI agent proofreads speech bubbles, fixes lettering and identifies grammar mistakes. Read our comics: https://shortbreadapp.com/ (free to download + read, iOS + Android) All of the above are built by a team of 3 engineers including myself. I will be around to answer any questions in this thread!

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