---
name: make-a-comic
description: Turn a story, idea, or piece of text into an illustrated multi-panel comic strip using the ComicStyles public API, and give the user a link to the finished comic. Use when the user says "make a comic", "make this into a comic", "turn this into a comic strip", "illustrate this story", "draw this as panels", "comic strip of ...", or asks for an illustrated version of something they wrote. Not for single illustrations, memes, or editing an existing image.
---

# Make a comic

This skill sends the user's idea to ComicStyles, which writes the panel
breakdown, picks the art style and the image model, and renders every panel.
Your job is to collect the idea, run one script, and report the result.

**You do not write the comic.** Do not expand, rewrite, "improve", translate,
or add art direction to the user's idea before sending it. The service does all
of that server-side and is tuned for it; a pre-chewed prompt makes the output
worse. Pass the user's words through unchanged.

## Run it

```bash
python3 make_comic.py --idea "<the user's idea, verbatim>" --panels 4 --out ./comic
```

Python 3.8+ with no third-party packages. Flags:

| Flag | Default | Notes |
|------|---------|-------|
| `--idea` | required | The user's text, unchanged. Quote it. |
| `--panels` | `4` | 4–12. More panels = proportionally longer. |
| `--language` | `en` | `en`, `de`, `es`, `fr` — the language of the captions. |
| `--title` | server-invented | Only pass one if the user named their comic. |
| `--out` | `./comic` | Directory for the panel PNGs and `comic.json`. |
| `--owner` | random | Display name shown as the comic's author. |

Environment:

- `COMICSTYLES_BASE_URL` — defaults to `https://comicstyles.com`.
- `COMICSTYLES_SESSION_TOKEN` — a `sess_…` token to create the comic under an
  existing account. Without it the server issues an anonymous trial account,
  which is good for **one** comic per visitor.

## How long it takes

**2–4 minutes**, and that is normal, not a hang. Tell the user up front, then
let the script run to completion — do not kill it and retry.

1. Expanding the idea into a story — about 30 seconds.
2. Breaking the story into panels — about 2 minutes. This is the slow one.
3. Saving the comic — a few seconds.
4. Rendering the panels — roughly 3 seconds each.

The script streams progress to stderr, so you can show the user where it is.

## Retries and the 502/524 problem

Production sits behind Cloudflare, which cuts connections at roughly 100–125
seconds. The panel-breakdown call routinely runs past that, so a `502`, `524`,
or a dropped connection is an **expected mid-flight cut**, not a failure. The
script already retries those with exponential backoff (and every other 5xx,
plus `408`/`429`). A retry line on stderr is not an error — only a final
`ERROR:` line is.

If the script does exit non-zero, read the last stderr line: it says what to do
(wrong base URL, trial already used, rate limited). Do not re-run blindly; an
exhausted trial will fail identically every time.

## The API, if you must call it yourself

Same-origin JSON over HTTPS. Keep one cookie jar for the whole flow, and send
the CSRF token on every POST.

1. `GET /api/csrf-token` → `{csrfToken}`. Send it back as `X-CSRF-Token`.
2. `GET /api/create-eligibility` → `{canCreate, reason}`. Stop if `canCreate`
   is false.
3. `POST /api/generate-story` `{roughStory, language}` → `{expandedStory}`.
   `roughStory` is the user's idea, verbatim.
4. `POST /api/generate-panels` `{expandedStory, panelCount, language}` →
   `{panels, captions, sfx, characterBible}`. Slow; tolerate 502/524 and retry.
5. `POST /api/stories` `{id, title, roughStory, expandedStory, panels,
   captions, panelCaptions, sfx, style, owner}` → `{success, story}` plus, for
   an anonymous caller, `sessionToken` and `recoveryPassword`. Send this
   **before** rendering images so the images attach to the comic.
6. For each panel: `POST /api/pollinations/generate` `{prompt, provider:
   "pollinations", panelId, saveAs}` → `{success, imageData, filename}`, where
   `imageData` is base64. Send the session token from step 5 as
   `X-Session-Token`.

Optional helpers, both server-side: `POST /api/generate-title` and
`POST /api/generate-style` with `{storyText}`. Use them instead of writing a
title or an art-style description yourself.

Leave the image `model` out of the request. The server chooses it, and its
choice is better informed than a guess from here.

## Reporting the result

The script prints exactly one line to stdout: the public comic URL, of the form
`https://comicstyles.com/gallery.html?story=<id>`. Anyone with that link can
view the comic.

Give the user:

1. The URL, as a clickable link, first.
2. The panel images from `--out` (`panel_1.png`, `panel_2.png`, …) if your
   runtime can display images. `comic.json` in the same directory has the
   title, panel order, and captions.
3. If a trial account was created, the username, recovery password, and session
   token printed on stderr — **once**, so the user can keep the comic. Tell
   them to save the recovery password; it is not shown again. Do not write
   these to a file the user did not ask for.

If some panels failed (`failedPanels` in `comic.json`), say so plainly and
point at the URL anyway — the comic is still viewable.

## Limits

- One free comic per anonymous visitor. After that the caller needs a session
  token or an invite; the eligibility check reports this before any work runs.
- Comics created this way are **public** and appear in the gallery.
- Panel count is capped at 12.
- The images are AI-generated and carry an embedded "AI-generated" marker.