Caution
This project is a failed experiment.
Comicode aimed to be a markup language that could generate at least simple stickman-based comics through the Ralph loop — an iterative AI-driven development cycle. The vision was straightforward: if we constrain the drawing to stick figures and simple shapes, AI should be able to handle SVG generation reliably.
It couldn't.
After hundreds of iteration loops over just a few days, it became clear that AI fundamentally struggles to understand human curves and organic motion when composing SVGs programmatically. What looks trivial to a human — the arc of a waving arm, the bend of a knee while running, the subtle tilt of a head — turns out to be an almost infinite combinatorial space. Even "simple" stickmen have countless pose variations, expression nuances, and spatial relationships that defy hardcoded enumeration.
The core realization: the number of cases for even the simplest character drawings approaches infinity. You can't enumerate your way to natural-looking comics. This project remains here as an honest record of that lesson.
You can browse the numerous failed output samples here.
A code-based comic creation framework inspired by Manim. Create comics, manga, and webtoons using Python with a fluent, chainable API.
- 9 Character Types: Stickman, SimpleFace, ChubbyStickman, Robot, Chibi, Anime, Superhero, Cartoon, AnimalStyle
- 11 Expressions: neutral, happy, sad, angry, surprised, confused, sleepy, excited, scared, smirk, crying
- 12 Poses: standing, sitting, waving, pointing, walking, running, jumping, dancing, lying, kneeling, cheering, thinking
- 5 Bubble Types: Speech, Thought, Shout, Whisper, Narrator
- 9 Page Templates: FourKoma, TwoByTwo, SplashPage, WebComic, ThreeRowLayout, MangaPage, ActionPage, NewspaperStrip, Widescreen
- 6 Visual Effects: AppearEffect, ShakeEffect, ZoomEffect, MotionLines, FocusLines, ImpactEffect
- Multiple Output Formats: SVG (always available), PNG/PDF (with optional Cairo)
Prerequisites: Python 3.13+
# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/anthropics/comicode.git
cd comicode
# Install with uv (recommended)
uv sync
# Optional: Install Cairo for PNG/PDF rendering
uv sync --extra cairofrom comix import Page, Panel, Stickman
# Create a page and panel
page = Page(width=400, height=300)
panel = Panel(width=360, height=260)
panel.move_to((200, 150))
# Create a character and add dialogue
char = Stickman(name="Bob", height=80)
char.move_to((200, 180))
bubble = char.say("Hello World!")
# Build and render
panel.add_content(char, bubble)
page.add(panel)
page.render("hello.png")from comix import Page, Panel, Stickman
page = Page(width=800, height=400)
page.set_layout(rows=1, cols=2)
# Panel 1: Alice asks
panel1 = Panel()
alice = Stickman(name="Alice", height=100, color="#E91E63")
alice.move_to((200, 220))
bubble1 = alice.say("How are you?")
panel1.add_content(alice, bubble1)
# Panel 2: Bob responds
panel2 = Panel()
bob = Stickman(name="Bob", height=100, color="#2196F3")
bob.move_to((600, 220))
bubble2 = bob.say("I'm great!")
panel2.add_content(bob, bubble2)
page.add(panel1, panel2)
page.auto_layout()
page.render("dialogue.png")from comix import Stickman
from comix.page.templates import FourKoma
# Create a 4-panel comic (manga style)
comic = FourKoma()
char = Stickman(name="Hero", height=80)
# Add content to each panel using semantic properties
char.move_to((150, 150))
char.set_expression("neutral")
comic.setup.add_content(char, char.say("Monday morning..."))
char.move_to((150, 150))
char.set_expression("surprised")
comic.development.add_content(char, char.say("Wait, is that...?"))
char.move_to((150, 150))
char.set_expression("excited")
comic.climax.add_content(char, char.say("FREE DONUTS!"))
char.move_to((150, 150))
char.set_expression("happy")
comic.conclusion.add_content(char, char.say("Best day ever!"))
comic.render("4koma.png")from comix import Stickman, SimpleFace, ChubbyStickman, Robot, Chibi, Anime, Superhero, Cartoon, AnimalStyle
# Basic stick figure
stickman = Stickman(name="Bob", height=100)
# Simple emoticon face
face = SimpleFace(name="Smiley", height=50)
# Rounded friendly figure
chubby = ChubbyStickman(name="Buddy", height=100)
# Mechanical robot
robot = Robot(name="R2", height=100, led_color="#00FF00")
# Cute chibi style
chibi = Chibi(name="Mochi", height=80, hair_style="twintails")
# Anime/manga style
anime = Anime(name="Sakura", height=120, hair_style="ponytail", eye_color="#8B4513")
# Superhero with costume
hero = Superhero(name="Captain", height=120, cape=True, emblem="star")
# Classic cartoon style
toon = Cartoon(name="Toony", height=100, body_shape="pear", gloves=True)
# Anthropomorphic animal character
animal = AnimalStyle(name="Felix", height=100, species="cat", fur_color="#FF9800")# Set expression
char.set_expression("happy") # or: neutral, sad, angry, surprised, confused, sleepy, excited, scared, smirk, crying
# Set pose
char.set_pose("waving") # or: standing, sitting, pointing, walking, running, jumping, dancing, lying, kneeling, cheering, thinking
# Face direction
char.face("left") # or "right"# Convenience methods
bubble = char.say("Hello!") # Speech bubble
bubble = char.think("Hmm...") # Thought bubble
bubble = char.shout("STOP!") # Shout bubble
bubble = char.whisper("Psst...") # Whisper bubble
# Or create directly
from comix import SpeechBubble, ThoughtBubble, NarratorBubble
bubble = SpeechBubble("Hello!")
bubble.attach_to(char)
narrator = NarratorBubble("Meanwhile...") # No tail# PNG (requires pycairo)
page.render("output.png")
page.render("output.png", quality="high") # 300 DPI
page.render("output.png", dpi=150)
# PDF (requires pycairo)
page.render("output.pdf", format="pdf")
# SVG (always available)
page.render("output.svg", format="svg")
# Multi-page PDF
from comix import Book
book = Book()
book.add_page(page1)
book.add_page(page2)
book.render("comic.pdf")# Show library info
comix info
# Render a Python script
comix render script.py -o output.png
# Compile multiple pages to PDF
comix compile page1.py page2.py -o book.pdfSee the examples/ directory for 26 working examples:
# Run an example
uv run python examples/01_simple_dialogue.py
# View the output
open examples/output/01_simple_dialogue.png# Run tests
uv run pytest
# Type check
uv run mypy comix/
# Lint
uv run ruff check .See specs/future-features/ for HTML export, animations, video, AI images, and preview server.
MIT