parse-qwantz 2023.9.2

Transcript generator for Dinosaur Comics

Dinosaur Comic Parser

A transcript generator for Ryan North's Dinosaur Comics

Installation

Install parse-qwantz with pip

  pip install parse-qwantz

Usage

You need to download the image file for the comic you want transcribed, for example https://qwantz.com/comics/comic2-02.png. Then run parse-qwantz:

$ parse-qwantz comic2-02.png
Panel 1:
T-Rex: Today is a beautiful day to be stomping on things! As a dinosaur, stomping is the best part of my day indeed!

Panel 2:
T-Rex: *gasp*

Panel 3:
T-Rex: What's that, little house? You wish you were back in your own time? THAT IS TOO BAD FOR YOU

Panel 4:
T-Rex: Perhaps you too will get a stomping, little girl!
Utahraptor: WAIT!

Panel 5:
Utahraptor: Is stomping really the answer to your problem(s)?
T-Rex: Problem(s)?

Panel 6:
T-Rex: My only problem(s) have to do with you interrupting my stomping!
T-Rex: (small) crazy utahraptor!

You can also call it with

python -m parse_qwantz

The argument can also be a directory path instead of a file path. In such case the program will run on all files in the specified directory.

Options

--output-dir

By default, the program outputs to stdout and logs to stderr. With this option, when processing file image_name.png it will output to OUTPUT_DIR/image_name.txt and log to OUTPUT_DIR/image_name.log.

Notes

This program will not work on all DC strips. Some are fairly non-standard (including the mirror universe, Morris the bug, guest comics etc.), while others might just not work correctly for more or less apparent reasons: there might be warning or error messages, or it might just generate an inaccurate transcript silently. It should however work correctly for most comics.

This project is in a rather early stage, and while there are no plans to support the mirror universe or arbitrary images, there still might be some new features and some optimization.

Running Tests

To run tests, run the following command:

  pytest test/

Acknowledgments

This program would not be possible without the wonderful comics by Ryan North! Thanks, Ryan, and congratulations on the 20th anniversary of your comics! Btw the anniversary comic will totally not work with this script, haha!