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Comicgen

We love comics. We badly wanted to create comic strips. But there was one problem. Some of us can't draw a straight line for nuts.

But why should that stop us from creating comics? So here's a gift to ourselves and the world — a Comic Creator.

We created Comicgen to help people write better stories using comic.

Interested in data storytelling? Come join the #ComicgenFriday community.

Alternatives: faces.js.

Usage

A simple way to use Comicgen is from gramener.com/comicgen/.

  • Choose your character
  • Save the image as SVG
  • Insert it into your favorite editor - Illustrator, PowerPoint, Photoshop, etc.

Here's a 3-minute video explaining how to create your own comic strip.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/E_2hdZuugI8" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Using npm

To run your own server, run:

npm install -g comicgen   # Install Comicgen globally
comicserver               # Run server at http://localhost:3000/

To include Comicgen in your own Node.js app, run:

npm install comicgen

Then you can insert it in your app:

const comicgen = require("comicgen");
// Returns the SVG string for the character
const svg = comicgen({ name: "ava", emotion: "cry", pose: "angry" });

Using Docker

To run your own server, run:

docker run -p3000:3000 -it gramener/comicgen
# This runs the server at http://localhost:3000/

Fonts

For lettering, you can use comic fonts from Google fonts or Fonts.com.

Some fonts we like are:

Font Example text
Architects Daughter Specimen
Cavolini (Windows) Specimen
Segoe Script (Windows) Specimen
Segoe Print (Windows) Specimen
News Cycle Specimen
Indie Flower Specimen
Amatic SC Specimen
Schoolbell Specimen
Just Another Hand Specimen
Patrick Hand Specimen
Neucha Specimen
Handlee Specimen

Plugins

You can also use Comicgen using the plugins below. (We're planning more plugins. Your help is welcome!)

Power BI plugin

The Comicgen Power BI plugin lets you control the characters, emotions, poses, etc from data. Happy people can accompany good news on charts.

Power BI Plugin example

REST API

Comics are rendered via the endpoint https://gramener.com/comicgen/v1/comic (or wherever you installed it). We'll refer to this as /comic from now on.

Options for each character can be specified as URL query parameters. For example, to render Ethan's angling sideways, winking, we need:

  • name: ethan
  • angle: side
  • emotion: wink
  • pose: normal

This is exposed at /comic?name=ethan&angle=side&emotion=wink&pose=normal:

Ethan side wink

The full list of options is at dist/characterlist.json.

You can create comics by directly linking to these files. You can embed these files directly in your plugin.

HTML API

To include comic as HTML components, add this to your page:

<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/uifactory@1.18.0/dist/uifactory.min.js" import="@comic-gen"></script>

Then you can add a <comic-gen> tag with the options for each character as attributes, like this:

<comic-gen name="ethan" angle="side" emotion="wink" pose="normal" ext="svg"></comic-gen>

To render as a PNG, change ext="svg" to ext="png".

If you change attributes using JavaScript, the comic is re-rendered.

NOTE: Currently, <comic-gen> cannot be used inside an SVG element.

Comicgen is for storytellers

Storytellers want to share a message and change their audience. But they worry that their content is not engaging or "catchy" enough to drive the change.

  • Comics are "catchy". That makes them a powerful way of engaging the audience.
  • Comics are simple. Comics signal that the content is simple, interesting, and funny. Authors often write simpler content for comics -- making it come true.
  • Comics drive emotion. The pictures convey emotions better than just words alone. They're funny. That helps learning and makes the stories more memorable.

Anyone who writes an email, a presentation, or a document, is a storyteller.

Comicgen is for developers

Developers want to build engaging apps. But design skills are not their forte. Stock images can't match the variety of their scenarios.

  • Comicgen has variety. Keeping angles, emotions, and poses independent generates thousands of combinations.
  • Comicgen has an API. Developers can easily add it to their applications.
  • Comicgen is public. No need to license characters.

Organizations use it when presenting or marketing

Organizations typically use Comicgen for:

  • Presenting insights
    • Executives' analysis. An analyst created a poster explaining their work using comic characters. It was simple and engaging -- the entire organization understood this deep learning technique.
    • Managers' reports. An admin manager sent his status report as a pair of comic characters conversing. Their CEO read this report fully for the first time.
    • Consultants' workshops. A consultant runs a culture workshop using comics in the presentation because "... it's a lot less threatening than an official PowerPoint presentation."
  • Marketing stories. This could be:
    • Product teams launching features. Google Chrome was launched using a comic book.
    • Marketer emails
    • Event manager invites

Comicgen makes storytelling easy

Our vision is to make storytelling with comics easy for everyone. (This includes non-designers, non-programmers, and non-storytellers.)

We do this by:

  • Adding characters. Characters can be split into layers (like face & body). By combining these cleverly, we can create more characters with fewer drawings. If you have a character idea, please add a comment.
  • Adding layers. We need objects like speech bubbles, panels, headings, objects, scenery, backgrounds etc.
  • Integrate into your workflow. Comicgen should be easy to use in people's current workflow, with their existing tools.
    • Designers use Illustrator / Sketch
    • Developers use HTML / JS
    • Analysts use Tableau / Power BI
    • Managers use e-mail / MS Office
    • We want to make storytelling easy for everyone
  • API for developers. Comicgen automates away the drudgery in creating comics. Developers should be able to create any comic without designing, purely using an API
  • UI for non-developers. We want users to be able to do this without any programming. This means exposing every feature of the API should be exposed on the UI
  • Teaching. The ultimate aim is for people to build better stories. Let's teach them

We measure success by adoption

We succeed when more people create more and better stories with Comicgen. We measure this by

  • How many people have used comicgen
  • How many stories have been created using comicgen
  • How many characters are present in comicgen. (Variety drives adoption)
  • TODO: We need more intermediate success metrics -- things that will drive adoption

Run Comicgen server

Install the dependencies to run Comicgen:

git clone https://github.com/gramener/comicgen
cd comicgen       # Go to the Comicgen folder
npm install       # Install dependencies
npm run build     # Compile Comicgen
npm start         # Run Comicgen server on port 3000

Add new characters

To add a new character, or add images for an existing character:

  1. Add the SVG images under svg/<character>/<attr>/.../<file>.svg
  2. File or folder names must use only lowercase letters. Avoid numbers or special characters
  3. Add an svg/<character>/index.json and svg/<character>/index.svg. See svg/dee/ for reference
  4. Update the character credits
  5. Run npm run build to recompile files under dist/
  6. Run src/ on the comicgen folder and test the character

Release

New versions of comicgen are released on Github and npm. Here is the release process:

# Update package.json version.
npm install
npm upgrade
npm run build
npm run lint

export VERSION=1.x.x
git commit . -m"DOC: Release version $VERSION"
git push origin v1
git push gitlab v1
# Then: Test build at https://code.gramener.com/s.anand/deedey/-/pipelines
# Then: Test output at https://gramener.com/comicgen/v1/

# Merge into release branch
git checkout release
git merge v1
git tag -a v$VERSION -m"Release version $VERSION"
git push gitlab release --follow-tags
git push origin release --follow-tags
git checkout v1

Then release on npm and Docker:

# npm repo owned by @sanand0
npm publish
docker build --tag gramener/comicgen:latest --tag gramener/comicgen:$VERSION pkg/docker/
docker push gramener/comicgen:latest
docker push gramener/comicgen:$VERSION

Help wanted (developers)

If you're a developer, we'd love your help in improving comicgen.

  1. Report bugs. If something doesn't work the way you expect, please add an issue
  2. Ask for features. Go through the issues. Add a Like reaction to what you like. Or add an issue asking for what you want.
  3. Offer help. Go through these issues. Pick something interesting. Add a comment saying "I'd like to help." We'll revert in 2-4 days with ideas.

There are 3 areas we're focusing on. Help in these areas would be ideal.

1. Integrate comicgen into platforms

People like to use their own platforms, not switch to a new one. So let's integrate comicgen into popular platforms like Excel, PowerPoint, Power BI, Tableau, R, etc as plugins.

See integration issues related »

2. Create a comic builder UI

People find it easier to create comics using a UI than programming. So let's create an interface that let people create an entire graphic novel!

See builder issues »

3. Improving comicgen API

Developers access comicgen through a JS library. What can we do to make it easier, and feature rich?

See API issues »

Credits

Library developed by

Conceived & designed by

Character credits

Help wanted (designers)

Designers, we'd love your help in improving comicgen.

If you're a designer, you could help by:

  1. Designing new characters. Comicgen characters are open for everyone to use. We credit the authors. You can work freelance with us, and get paid per character. You can pick your own character, or choose from the characters people are looking for.
  2. Adding new layers. Apart from characters, we need other "layers" -- things we can add to panel, like speech bubbles, background objects, etc. You can design new kinds of objects if you think people will use it. Here are some layers people have asked for.

Here's a guide to help understand how to design and submit new characters or layers.

Design new characters

Characters are made of 1 or more SVG images.

The easiest way to create a character is to draw a dozen SVGs and save them as individual files of the same dimensions. For example:

Series of SVG images for a character

A better way would be to break up the character into different parts. For example, you could draw faces with different emotions and save them under an faces/ folder:

Faces for a character

Then you could draw the bodies under a bodies/ folder:

Bodies for a character

If you do this, you must make sure that:

  • All faces have the same dimensions, and are at the same position within the SVG
  • All bodies have the same dimensions, and are at the same position within the SVG
  • When you super-impose any face on any body, the images should align.

You can choose to break up the images in any number of ways. For example:

  • faces/, bodies/
  • face/, trunk/, leg/, shoes/
  • hair/, face/, eyes/, mouth/, trunk/, legs/

The more combinations you have, the more complex your image becomes. You could start small and then add variety.

While designing a character in Comicgen, keep these inmind:

  • Start with an artboard of 500 px x 600px.
  • Minimal anchor points on your path. It's easy to edit and reduces file size.
  • Keep a consistent stroke weight across all the body parts.
  • Keep each SVG under 10kb.
  • Re-use the same colors. Keep it to just 5 colors per character.
    • Use opacity for shadows/blush/tears/lighting. When the color changes, they will blend in.
  • Name each SVG file in lowercase without spaces. Avoid uppercase and special characters.
    • E.g., lookingdown.svg is OK. LookingDown.svg, looking-down.svg or looking down.svg are not

Use the below template as the base for creating your character

Base template

  • Body must start from the horizontal line, with neck centre aligned to the vertical line. Face must be positioned right on the horizontal line and must fit inside the box. Hair and ears can fall out of the box.

Base template with body and face

  • All side poses should be slightly angled as shown below

Side pose

Saving file in Adobe Illustrator

Go to File > Export as > Format: SVGs - Use artboards > Save (follow below settings while saving)

Adobe Illustrator save options{.img-fluid}

List of character emotions

  • afraid
  • angry
  • annoyed
  • blush
  • confused
  • cry
  • cryingloudly
  • cunning
  • curious
  • disappointed
  • dozing
  • drunk
  • excited
  • facepalm
  • happy
  • hearteyes
  • irritated
  • lookingdown
  • lookingleft
  • lookingright
  • lookingup
  • mask
  • neutral
  • nevermind
  • ooh
  • rofl
  • rollingeyes
  • sad
  • scared
  • shocked
  • shout
  • smile
  • smirk
  • starstruck
  • surprised
  • thinking
  • tired
  • tongueout
  • whistle
  • wink
  • worried

List of character poses

pose standing side sitting standing back sitting back
explaining Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
handsonhip Yes Yes Yes
normal Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
pointingdown Yes Yes Yes
pointingleft Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
pointingright Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
pointingup Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
shrug Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
thumbsup Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
explaining45degreesdown Yes Yes Yes
explaining45degreesup Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
explainingwithbothhands Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
handsclasped Yes Yes Yes
handsfolded Yes Yes
handsheldback Yes Yes Yes
handsinpocket Yes Yes Yes
handstouchingchin Yes Yes Yes
hi Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
holdingboard Yes Yes Yes
holdingbook Yes Yes Yes
holdingcoffee Yes Yes Yes
holdinglaptopfrontangle Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
holdinglaptopsideangle Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
holdingmobile Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
holdingpaper Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
holdingstick Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
leaningagainst Yes Yes
lookingdownatlaptop Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
pushing Yes Yes
scratchinghead Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
super Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
takingnotes Yes Yes Yes
talkingoverphone Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
thinking Yes Yes Yes
workinganddrinkingcoffee Yes Yes Yes
writingonboard Yes Yes Yes
yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
yuhoo Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Submit new characters

Give your character a name (e.g. "Ant Man"). Save the SVG files under a folder with the character name (e.g. "ant-man" - lower-case, use hyphens as separator). Add this folder under the svg/ folder.

Then send a pull request or email S Anand s.anand@gramener.com.

When doing this, please mention one of the following:

  • "I release these images under the CC0 license", OR
  • "I release these images under the CC-BY license"

Freelancing

Comicgen is free, but their designers' time is not. We pay the designers in our team, and freelancers, for the characters they design.

Please e-mail Anand s.anand@gramener.com and Richie richie.lionell@gramener.com if you can design characters as a freelancer. We'd love your help.

Privacy Policy

Gramener visuals do not externally collect any information, personal or otherwise. If you have any questions, please contact us at comicgen.powerbi@gramener.com

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Add comics to your website or app with an API

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