Comic Generator

AI-powered comic creation app. Enter a story and generate manga-style comic panels using Hugging Face.

Prerequisites

• Node.js >= 18.0.0
• npm >= 9.0.0
• MongoDB (local or cloud)
• Hugging Face account (for AI generation)

Quick Start

1. Clone and Install

npm install
npm run install:all

2. Environment Setup

Backend (backend/.env):

cd backend
cp .env.example .env

Required: DATABASE_URL, HUGGINGFACE_TOKEN. See backend/README.md for Hugging Face setup.

Frontend (frontend/.env):

VITE_API_URL=http://localhost:3000

3. Run the Application

npm run dev

• Frontend: http://localhost:5173
• Backend: http://localhost:3000

4. Verify

Visit http://localhost:3000/health to check the backend.

Features

• Create comics – Story → AI-generated panel descriptions → AI-generated panel images
• Manga styles – shounen, shoujo, seinen, chibi, isekai
• Manga AI page – /manga-ai (UI demo)

Tech Stack

Layer	Tech
Frontend	React 18, Vite, React Router, Axios, TailwindCSS
Backend	Node.js, Express, Mongoose
Database	MongoDB
AI	Hugging Face Inference (chat + FLUX.1-schnell)

Project Structure

comic-generator/
├── frontend/     # React app
├── backend/      # Express API + AI service
└── package.json

Troubleshooting

Port Already in Use

If ports 3000 or 5173 are already in use, update the port numbers in:

• Backend: backend/.env (PORT)
• Frontend: frontend/vite.config.js (server.port)

Module Not Found

rm -rf node_modules frontend/node_modules backend/node_modules
npm run install:all

License

MIT