What is Wapopo

In one line

Wapopo is a tool for making comics. You do not need to know how to draw, and you do not need to know storyboarding. Tell it a story you want to see, and it works with you to finish the rest.

What you make is a comic with episodes. Each episode has several pages. Each page is split into panels. Panels have art, dialogue, captions, and SFX. When it is done, you can export it as images or a PDF and share it.

You handle the story. It handles the comic-making

The story is yours. You decide who it is about, what happens, and how it ends.

Wapopo has an AI assistant. It handles the parts of comics that need specialized skills:

• Turn your one-line idea into a complete story synopsis;
• Decide which characters, locations, and props appear, then write their story elements and draw their element images;
• Decide how many episodes the comic has, and where each episode should feel tight or relaxed;
• Break an episode into pages and panels, and write what each panel shows and who says what.

Everything it makes is shown to you. If you do not like something, you can edit it directly, or tell the assistant what to change.

Two steps: planning, then production

Making a comic has two steps.

Planning: Figure out what the whole comic is about. In the left sidebar of the workspace, the top group has the four parts of planning: thinking, synopsis, pacing, and story elements.

Production: Draw the comic one episode at a time. Each episode has three steps: synopsis, pacing, and storyboard. After the storyboard is ready, click “Draw this episode” to start drawing the images.

Planning is shared by the whole comic. Before the assistant makes each episode, it reads the synopsis, pacing, and the element cards for appearances. It also looks at the nearby episodes, so characters and beats connect from one episode to the next.

Why words come before pictures

In Wapopo, writing and editing text do not cost anything. Only generating images uses credits.

That is why the whole workflow sets the text first and draws at the end. The story, episode breakdown, and storyboard are all text. You can edit them ten times without using credits. When you are happy, you draw. The images you get are the version you wanted, without redrawing them one by one.

There are a few images the assistant draws on its own during planning: element images, one tone-setting image, and the cover. They use credits just like other images. Each image costs 100 credits. Each panel in the storyboard is only drawn after you click it.

Why does the assistant not ask one question at a time? Planning is all text, so changing it has almost no cost. Instead of stopping halfway to ask you ten questions, it is better to make a full version first. Then you can read it and say what is wrong.

Why characters stay consistent

One of the biggest problems in comics is the same person looking different from one panel to the next.

Wapopo handles this by giving every character, location, and prop an element card. Each card has an element image. When drawing a panel, it uses the cards for the appearances in that panel.

Why the art style cannot be changed after you choose it

When you start a new comic, you first choose an art style. After you choose it, that comic cannot switch to another style.

The reason is simple: if the art style changes, the element images, cover, and panels you already drew will no longer match. If you want a different art style, start a new comic.

Original or fan comic

In the lower-left corner of the home page input box, you can choose “Original” or “Fan comic”. Original is your own story. Fan comic brings characters from a source work into your story: upload a few screenshots from the source work, and it recognizes who is in the images, then turns those characters into characters in your story.

Fan comics are for personal, non-commercial use only. Without permission from the rights holder of the source work, you cannot sell them or publish them behind a paywall. For the exact steps, see “Start from a source work”.

Next

• Want to try it now? See “From one sentence to the first episode”.
• Want to learn the interface first? See “How to get around the workspace”.