ComicsML - XML for digital comics

ComicsML is an XML-based markup language for digital comics. It attempts to give online comics a way to describe their own content, and in so doing expand their visibility, flexibility, and accessibility in a number of ways.

Project status and license

I have no plans on updating this documentation -- most of which dates from 2001 -- or working any further with ComicsML.

If any of the materials colletced here inspire you, I encourage you to run with it. Apply, expand, or otherwise modify the ComicsML idea any way you see fit, per the terms of the Create Commons Attribution 2.0 Unported License.

Please don't ask me for pemission -- you're just delaying yourself. It's already yours. Go for it.

Documentation

• My essay about ComicsML, how it's used, and why it's cool. Includes a chatty example document.

• The ComicsML DTD, as well as a hyperlinked version, prepared by LiveDTD.

• My formal ComicsML documentation.

Software

• Dave Horlick has created the very impressive Renoberator for Mac OS X. It's a comics composition tool that uses ComicsML!

• I have written XML::ComicsML, a Perl module for creating, writing, and parsing ComicsML files. I've yet to actually do anything very interesting with it, heh. But this will come. I've its documentation online (they are also, of course, attached to the module itself as well), and any Perl hackers may try it out if they wish; you'll need XML::Parser and XML::Writer, both of which may be obtained from CPAN. I consider the package to lie in a pre-beta state at this time. Warning: may be variously insane.

Tangents

Things elsewhere on the Web that collide comics with XML in other ways...

• Byron F. Martin has a Dilbert Strip Finder with an XML backend that uses its own variety of markup.

• Toonbots, by Michael Roberts, also has a way of fully describing (and generating) comics in XML, albeit just one comic. One very strange comic. See especially his intriguing use of SVG.

Suggestions for more links are welcome.