README.md

---
license: cc-by-4.0
task_categories:
  - text-to-image
  - image-to-image
tags:
  - comic-generation
  - sdxl
  - qwen
  - local-ai
  - pillow
  - comfyui
  - pipeline
  - ai-comic
  - public-domain
pretty_name: "GritAI Comic Pipeline - AI-Generated Classic Literature Comics"
size_categories:
  - n<1K
---

# GritAI Comic Pipeline

**One person. Local hardware. 13 complete AI-generated comics in a single day.**

A fully local, reproducible pipeline that transforms story descriptions into complete multi-page comic books with panel layouts, character consistency, and dialogue overlays. Zero cloud APIs. Zero subscriptions. Just SDXL + Qwen + Pillow + PowerShell.

## Pipeline Architecture

```
Story JSON → Stage 1 (SDXL Base) → Stage 2 (Qwen Edit) → Stage 3 (Pillow Assembly) → Bubble Renderer → PDF
```

### Stage 1: SDXL Single Base Generation
- Checkpoint: `realcartoonXL_v7` (RealCartoonXL)
- Single base image per page using character-consistent prompt
- Same `base_seed` across all pages for character consistency
- 20 steps, CFG 7, 1024x1536 portrait

### Stage 2: Qwen Parallel Panel Editing
- Model: Qwen 2.5 VL (image editing mode)
- Takes single base image → branches into N unique panels simultaneously
- Each panel gets a unique `edit_prompt` describing the scene
- 4 steps, CFG 1 (fast inference)
- All panels generated in parallel via ComfyUI API

### Stage 3: Pillow Panel Assembly
- Custom Python/Pillow assembler (replaced ComfyUI CR Comic Panel Templates)
- 12 layout templates: H2, H3, V2, V3, G22, G33, H12, H21, H13, H31, V12, V21
- Auto-scale and center-crop panels to fill slots exactly
- 8px black borders between panels
- Assembly time: ~1 second per page (down from 6s with CR node)

### Stage 4: Bubble Renderer
- Overlays narration boxes, speech bubbles, and thought bubbles
- Reads `text` arrays from story JSON
- Position-aware: places bubbles within correct panel boundaries
- Three types: narration (rectangular, cream), speech (rounded, white, tail), thought (cloud, dots)
- Comic font rendering with word wrap

### Orchestration
- `run_story.ps1` — One-command story generation from JSON
- `run_comic_pipeline.ps1` — Per-page pipeline execution via ComfyUI API
- `pillow_assembler.py` — Panel assembly with layout templates
- `bubble_renderer.py` — Dialogue overlay system
- Auto-titling with arched gold text
- Auto-PDF generation

## Hardware

| Node | Specs | Role |
|------|-------|------|
| Rig1 | RTX 5070 Ti + RTX 3060, Windows | SDXL generation, ComfyUI, dataset staging |
| Spark-2693 | NVIDIA DGX Spark, Blackwell, 128GB unified, Linux | Robotics, local LLM inference (future) |

## Output Stats

**Produced in a single session:**

| Metric | Value |
|--------|-------|
| Total stories | 13 |
| Total pages | 80+ |
| Total panels | 230+ |
| Layout templates used | 6 (H2, H3, V2, G22, H12, H21) |
| Avg time per page | ~1.5 min |
| Avg time per 8-page story | ~14 min |
| Stories with dialogue | 3 (WotW, Frankenstein, Dracula) |

## Stories

All source material is public domain classic literature.

| # | Title | Pages | Panels | Template Mix |
|---|-------|-------|--------|-------------|
| 1 | War of the Worlds - Vol. 1 | 4 | 16 | G22 |
| 2 | War of the Worlds - Complete | 8 | 23 | H2, H21, G22, H3, V2, H12 |
| 3 | Frankenstein | 8 | 23 | H2, H21, G22, H3, V2, H12 |
| 4 | Dracula | 8 | 23 | H2, H21, G22, V2, H3, H12 |
| 5 | The Time Machine | 8 | 23 | H2, H21, G22, H3, V2, H12 |
| 6 | Jekyll and Hyde | 7 | 19 | H2, H21, G22, H3, V2, H12 |
| 7 | 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea | 8 | 23 | H2, H21, G22, H3, V2, H12 |
| 8 | Treasure Island | 5 | 15 | H2, H21, G22, H3 |
| 9 | The Invisible Man | 5 | 15 | H2, H21, G22, H3 |
| 10 | A Christmas Carol | 6 | 17 | H2, H21, G22, H3, V2 |
| 11 | Hound of the Baskervilles | 4 | 12 | H2, H21, G22 |
| 12 | The Picture of Dorian Gray | 4 | 12 | H2, G22, H3 |
| 13 | Journey to the Center of the Earth | 5 | 15 | H2, H21, G22, V2 |
| 14 | The Island of Doctor Moreau | 5 | 15 | H2, H21, G22, H3 |

## Story JSON Format

Each story is defined as a single JSON file:

```json
{
    "story_id": "frankenstein",
    "story_title": "FRANKENSTEIN",
    "base_prompt": "character description for consistency across pages",
    "base_seed": 8001,
    "global_settings": {
        "width": 1024, "height": 1536,
        "stage1_steps": 20, "stage1_cfg": 7,
        "stage2_steps": 4, "stage2_cfg": 1,
        "sdxl_checkpoint": "SDXL\\realcartoonXL_v7.safetensors"
    },
    "pages": [
        {
            "page_title": "THE CREATION",
            "page_template": "H21",
            "panels": [
                {
                    "panel_id": 1,
                    "seed": 8201,
                    "edit_prompt": "scene description for this panel",
                    "text": [
                        {"type": "narration", "position": "top", "content": "The storm answered my ambition."},
                        {"type": "speech", "position": "bottom-left", "content": "LIVE! In the name of God -- LIVE!"}
                    ]
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}
```

## Layout Templates

```
H2:  [████████]    H3:  [████████]    V2: [████|████]    G22: [████|████]
     [████████]         [████████]        [████|████]         [████|████]
                        [████████]

H12: [████████]    H21: [████|████]    H13: [████████████]
     [████|████]        [████████████]       [████|████|████]
```

## Samples

### War of the Worlds - Complete Edition (with dialogue)
![WotW Page 1](samples/wotw_01.png)
![WotW Page 3](samples/wotw_03.png)

### Frankenstein (with dialogue)
![Frank Page 2](samples/frank_02.png)
![Frank Page 5](samples/frank_05.png)

### Dracula (with dialogue)
![Drac Page 2](samples/drac_02.png)
![Drac Page 6](samples/drac_06.png)

## Covers
![Covers](covers/)

## Key Technical Decisions

1. **Single base → parallel edit** — Generating one base per page and editing it into multiple panels preserves character consistency far better than generating each panel independently.

2. **Pillow over ComfyUI for assembly** — CR Comic Panel Templates couldn't scale panels to fill non-G22 layouts. Custom Pillow assembler handles all 12 templates with center-crop fill. Reduced assembly from 6s to 1s.

3. **PowerShell orchestration** — ComfyUI API called via PowerShell, not Python. Enables Windows-native workflow with direct filesystem access.

4. **Bubble renderer as post-process** — Text overlays happen AFTER page assembly, reading from the same JSON. No re-rendering needed to add/edit dialogue.

## License

Pipeline outputs are CC-BY-4.0. Source stories are public domain.

## Built by

**GritAI** — A one-person AI lab focused on reproducible AI generation, local deployment, and proving that meaningful creative output doesn't require cloud subscriptions or enterprise budgets.

- X: [@BonusLockSmith](https://x.com/BonusLockSmith)
- Gumroad: [gritai.gumroad.com](https://gritai.gumroad.com)
- Reppo: [reppo.ai](https://reppo.ai)