Maria Day 🦉🌈 🇬🇪

👋 I share behind-the-scenes startup building 💫
Founder @ Winter Comics | YC W22 Alum | ex-Google, Deepmind, Microsoft | Ph.D. in Human-centered AI

[Maria Day 🦉🌈 🇬🇪 @buda314]

@theo Wow this is so sad to see, out of all the big AI labs anthropic is pretty much the only one I still have a positive impression of. But their handling of user experience lately has been baffling 🙃

[Framer 🇱🇹 @Framer_X]

Two prompts → AI fantasy cartoon 🎬

Steal this workflow.

Make cartoon in under an hour.

Tutorial below👇

[Maria Day 🦉🌈 🇬🇪 @buda314]

@yachimat_manga @TapNow_AI Love the style, so heartwarming. <3 What was the style inspiration for this?

[Maria Day 🦉🌈 🇬🇪 @buda314]

@FlyaKiet @superset_sh @ycombinator @saddle_paddle @avimakesrobots Good luck! See you at the demo day 🎉

[Maria Day 🦉🌈 🇬🇪 @buda314]

Funny thing, @ChatGPTapp won't let me generate Esla from @DisneyFrozen, and has no problem generating a french comic book character #Asterix.
Even though @OpenAI publicly announced their partnership with @Disney, and Asterix is not a public IP.

[Maria Day 🦉🌈 🇬🇪 @buda314]

🌃 SF Nighttime Study Session | 20 Minutes Focus Timer | Study With Me https://t.co/uylXFmljLw via @YouTube

[Maria Day 🦉🌈 🇬🇪 @buda314]

👉 30 Minute Study With Me | Calm Music + San Francisco Skyline | Deep Focus https://t.co/77nk88k8Jx via @YouTube

[Maria Day 🦉🌈 🇬🇪 @buda314]

@AiNamanari33743 Really awesome work 👏 love the lighting consistency 👌

[Maria Day 🦉🌈 🇬🇪 @buda314]

Unexpected surge of users at Winter Comics tonight.
Wide awake at 4am watching the numbers climb.

If we were mentioned somewhere or shared by someone, I would love to find it and personally say thank you. Grateful for the support 🙏

[てばさき @tebasaki3D]

#ViduQ2 Action Sequence

クレジット余らせておくのも勿体無いので久々のViduアクション🔥

やっぱりViduはタメ・キメ・モーションの緩急がいい感じに出ますね👍

繋ぎの練習で作ってみたんですが、気づいたらちょっと遊びすぎたかも…！😅

[Maria Day 🦉🌈 🇬🇪 @buda314]

@FlyaKiet Nice demo videos 👏 what do you use for the screen recording?

[Maria Day 🦉🌈 🇬🇪 @buda314]

Being a founder is weird.

You’re either “so lucky”
or “one bad week from quitting”
often at the same time.

#buildinpublic

[Maria Day 🦉🌈 🇬🇪 @buda314]

AI still has not solved character consistency. 🤖❌

As of Jan 2026, no foundational model can generate a truly continuous, consistent character across scenes.

Photo-realism is better 📸 due to more data, but even tiny changes in emotion or angle alter the character’s identity.

My test 👇
Generate a continuous scene of a young boy walking down the street, entering a coffee shop, ordering, picking up a cup, and sitting at a table.
No existing AI video model can do this without visible character or background drift. Still a lot of manual work. 🛠️

Happy to be proven wrong.
@andykozik 👀

#AIart #AIvideo

[Maria Day 🦉🌈 🇬🇪 @buda314]

@venturetwins Aw, animagus core ^^

[Dexerto @Dexerto]

AI powered VTuber Neuro-sama's creator has become the most subscribed-to streamer on Twitch

Vedal987 now has an estimated 162,459 sub count

[Maria Day 🦉🌈 🇬🇪 @buda314]

Starting the year with a little animation magic ✨🎬

In 2025, Winter Comics grew from an idea into a real creator platform: 150,000 users and 60M+ content views driven by stories, art, and imagination.

Grateful for our creators and early supporters ❄️
Excited to build even more in 2026 🚀
Happy New Year 🎉
#NYE2026

[Maria Day 🦉🌈 🇬🇪 @buda314]

Merry Christmas 🎅 & here's my year as a picture according to @ChatGPTapp, funny thing is, I actually own a very similar cat mug that was gifted to me by my dear friend @_smileyball at @OpenAI ☺️

[Natalie Sportelli @N_Sportelli]

The hot new job at tech companies is leading "storytelling."

The term doubled on LinkedIn job posts in the U.S since last year. The WSJ writes:

"Compliance technology firm Vanta this month began hiring for a head of storytelling, offering a salary of up to $274,000."

"Productivity app Notion recently merged its communications, social media and influencer functions into one 10-person, so-called storytelling team."

"Financial technology brand Chime last month began hiring for a director of corporate editorial and storytelling—its first storyteller opening."

As a former reporter and career-long content/brand leader, I have some thoughts!

These examples point to a shift in internal marketing orgs that reflect a shrinking earned media landscape and an endless, growing number of distribution channels to share and own your narrative, i.e. "going direct."

It's not entirely editorial, or events, or PR, or marketing. It's how all these pieces work together and how they contribute to the bigger picture - your story!

I joke with my reporter friends that they are infinitely hireable if they ever left journalism. Why? Because we are trained to ask: "So what? Why should readers care? What does it mean for them?" To me, that's a big nuance in this conversation. Because...

*Storytelling is a human act and it's a service.*

Super interested to watch what happens here. Are you long/short on this role?

[Maria Day 🦉🌈 🇬🇪 @buda314]

Happy December ^^
We started getting ready for Christmas❄️ @ComicsWinter