Show HN: Comically – TUI manga and comic optimizer for e-readers

3 nicoburniske 3 7/6/2025, 3:14:00 PM github.com ↗

Comments (3)

nicoburniske · 6h ago
hey hn! I built comically after getting frustrated waiting forever for manga conversions. reading manga on e-readers has always been painful - washed out contrast, huge file sizes, and tiny double-page spreads.

comically is a terminal-based optimizer that fixes these issues:

- 5-6x faster than existing tools (processes 100+ pages/second)

- live preview in your terminal while tweaking settings

- smart contrast adjustment for e-ink displays

- automatically crops margins and handles double-page spreads

- shrinks file sizes by ~80% without quality loss

written in rust with a focus on speed. I regularly convert entire series (like 72 volumes of naruto in under 5 minutes).

happy to answer any questions!

t-3 · 8h ago
Is there something specific to kindles that makes manga look bad? On kobo w/koreader I've never had a problem. Even streaming over OPDS from kavita is high quality.
nicoburniske · 6h ago
KOReader is great! The main things comically helps with:

* Cropping excess margin (KOReader has this, but Kindles don't)

* E-ink screens have way less contrast than regular screens (like 15:1 vs 1000:1), so raw scans often look washed out. Comically increases the contrast to look better on e-ink.

* File sizes are huge - why have a 500MB volume when your Kindle only needs ~100MB? Smaller files = faster page turns and way more manga on your device.

* Double-page spreads are tiny on portrait screens. Comically can split them up or rotate them so you can actually read them.

* If you're processing a bunch of manga at once (I did 72 volumes of Naruto), it's way faster than KCC - like 5 minutes instead of 30+.