Click through to view the full comic.

comic introducing Comagick


Comagick, or Comagick if you’re feeling fancy, is a free and open source ImageMagick-based language for writing sprite comics. You can check out the repo from Bitbucket.

The main documentation at the moment is in the readme on Bitbucket at the link above. If you want to see what a Comagick (.cmg) file looks like, I’ve included below the source file for the comic that started this post.


Part of my goal with this is to lower the effort barrier to writing comics. Anyone with a text editor can write prose fiction, but comics have a much higher barrier to entry.

I believe that to get quality, one should seek quantity. Comagick is an attempt to empower quantity in webcomics.

Happy hacking.


@stand: Fumiko/front-walk-2 3
@rstand: Fumiko/right-walk-1 3
@rstand2: Fumiko/right-walk-2 3
@rrun: Fumiko/right-run-3 3
@lstand: Fumiko/left-walk-3 3
@tada: Fumiko/front-armswide 3

font: "StarPerv.ttf"
font_size: 16
text_antialias: false
text_adjust: [3,-2]
panelsize: 300

#

l!stand Sprite comics have\nsimple, formulaic\nvisuals.
l: The advantage of this\nis that they're\neasier to make.

l!rstand2 But could it be made\neven easier?
l: If it's easy ENOUGH...
l: could it be automated?

l!rstand I believe that it's\nalways a good thing to\nmake it easier for\npeople to create.
l: You shouldn't have to\nbe a great artist or\nhave lots of free time\nto write comics.

#

.
l!rrun That's why I made...

.
.
.
c!tada
c> COMagICk

c!lstand You write your script\nas a text file, in\na simple, easily\nlearned format.
.
c: I drew inspiration from\nRen'Py and Markdown.

#

c!rstand You don't have to fiddle with exact\npixel coordinates. Just pick a\nsprite and say whether it's on the\npanel's left, center, or right.
c: COMagICk will draw the sprites,\ntext, balloons, panel borders,\neverything. Plain text to finished\nimage in one command.

c!tada If you don't feel up to the\nchallenge of making sprites,\ncheck out opengameart.org\nfor great libre art.
c: This comic uses the character\nFumiko, by sylvius fischer.

#

c!stand I've just started making COMagICk,\nso it may still be a little rough\naround the edges.
c: If you have any questions,\nfeel free to drop me a line\nat sonatagreen@yahoo.com.

c!lstand COMagICk itself is free and\nopen source software, of course.\nAGPL version 3 or later.
.
c: Enjoy.