DaShan Thomas

DaShan Thomas is an American author and illustrator. His latest book Captain Robert Smalls: The Greatest Civil War Hero is the first volume in a graphic novel trilogy following the life of real-life Black Hero Captain Robert Smalls. Robert Smalls, born and raised as an enslaved person, commandeered the steamer ship "Planter" with his crew and all of their families. They sailed to freedom, and then won several pivotal battles in the Civil War.

Other recent books by DaShan Thomas include Captain Robert Smalls: The Titan; Book One - an abridged version of Captain Robert Smalls: The Greatest Civil War Hero and My Brother Santa: Great Granddaddy's Christmas Storytelling Magic.

DaShan Thomas has also published two coloring books: My Life is Awesome to Color and I Love My Whole Black Biracial Family: the Coloring Book. DaShan Thomas is known for his unique art style which features the type of elaborate detail which is largely a thing of the past in modern illustration, as budgets and deadlines have placed background characters in shadows and represented locations as large gray oblongs. By contrast, scenes in DaShan Thomas's books are ensemble pieces of beautiful and realistic faces as varied and different as a downtown crowd at rush hour.

DaShan Thomas's writing style is unabashed, unapologetic and exciting, powered by imaginative allusions to all sort of genres. Science Fiction, Historical Drama, Fantasy, even Disaster and Adventure inform his writing choices. DaShan Thomas's dramatic, compelling style is easy to spot in this piece from Captain Robert Smalls: The Greatest Civil War Hero:

Somewhere in the Milky Way Galaxy there's a Blue Planet called Earth. It's a terrible and horrible time. The planet is run by primitives. It is Earth, year 1851. On the edge of a rocky land mass, there's a city called Beaufort, in what they call a state, named South Carolina. Enslaved by savages, a mother named Lydia is doing her slave work with her son Robert Smalls. She gazes at him through the cotton, knowing a couple of days before, she took him to see the realities of slavery. There Robert saw the abuse of a Black Man who did nothing wrong. In a time when everything a slave did was illegal, a man could be beaten or worse if a white felt the slave stepped out of place or the white was just jealous of the slave. It was dangerous to be different. Lydia knew she could only keep Robert protected for so long. But soon, the illusion of his safety would be something he would have to navigate on his own as a slave. This is where our story begins.

DaShan Thomas founded Crimson Studios in the mid 90’s with the original focus of publishing comic books and graphic novels such as the critically acclaimed Equis Mortis which DaShan Thomas published and illustrated. The business grew and expanded over the years, eventually offering services ranging from web development and graphic design to custom software services while producing products such as MassUpdater web editing software and business social media platforms such as Network Honcho. Having conquered the world of Tech, DaShan has reopened the publishing department at Crimson Studios LLC to release his groundbreaking Black History Graphic Novel Captain Robert Smalls: The Greatest Civil War Hero, his Classic Children’s Book My Brother Santa: Great Granddaddy’s Christmas Storytelling Magic and his Coloring Book My Life is Awesome: The Coloring Book.

Author and Illustrator DaShan Thomas has built businesses, software, and social media platforms. As an IT tech and programmer fluent in coding languages from AS3 to PHP, he has changed the online landscape with his own programming innovations. He has contributed his art to the world as Lead Artist and Publisher of Equis Mortis, a popular and cutting-edge comic book series, and Illustrator for children’s books centering Black Family like A Kiss From My Sister. A graduate of the Academy of Art in Chicago, he has been a business owner and Entrepreneur his entire adult life.

He has mentored and assisted countless other Black Owned Businesses to success. You will find him in the acknowledgments and photo credits of many publications of the past two decades, such as the Shades of Memnon series.

His latest book is Captain Robert Smalls: The Greatest Civil War Hero; Book One.

In his spare time, DaShan Thomas enjoys gardening, building solar electric grids, 3D Printing, DTF Printing, Sci Fi movies, Star Trek, Star Wars and Star Talk. He also enjoys playing air soft and video games with his close circle of life long friends, learning new things, and smoking meat on the smoker grill he built himself. Cats admire him, dogs respect him and Black squirrels follow him everywhere.