Halftone

A reading site for one webcomic

Your comic, read the way you drew it.

Halftone is a home for one webcomic. Readers page through chapters or scroll them, and come back to the exact page they left. You arrange everything in your browser and publish a single file.

Open Halftone See how it reads

Free and open. No accounts, no server, no tracking.

Read it here first.

This section is a comic page. Turn it with the buttons or the arrow keys, switch to long scroll, then leave and come back. It will remember your panel, just like Halftone does for your readers.

  1. Draw your pages.

    Work in whatever you already use. Halftone takes PNG, JPEG, WebP, GIF and SVG, up to 15 MB a page.

  2. Arrange them in the Studio.

    Drop a stack of files on a chapter. Move pages earlier or later, write alt text, pick a cover. Every change saves in your browser as you go.

  3. Publish one file.

    Export the comic as comic.json, drop it in your site's public folder, and every reader sees it. Any static host will do.

  4. Readers pick up where they stopped.

    Single page or long scroll, chapter into chapter, and a Continue reading button waiting when they come back. No account needed.

Everything a reader reaches for. Nothing they have to sign up for.

  • Two ways to read.

    Single page for slow, deliberate reading with big Previous and Next buttons and the arrow keys. Long scroll for phones, with each page holding its size while it loads so nothing jumps.

  • Chapter into chapter.

    Next on a last page opens the next chapter. After the final page, a "You're all caught up" card points back to the archive.

  • An archive that knows you.

    Every chapter card shows its cover, blurb and page count, and says New, Page 4 of 12, or Read.

  • Links that land.

    Every page has its own address, like #/read/2/4, so readers can send a friend to the exact panel. Old links clamp to the nearest real page.

  • Your files stay yours.

    Pages live in your browser until you export. Import a bundle to restore a backup or move to another computer; a broken file is rejected and changes nothing.

  • Drafts stay hidden.

    A chapter with no pages yet is a draft. Readers never see it until it has a page.

  • Made to be read by everyone.

    Alt text on every page, full keyboard reading, 44 px touch targets, and light or dark to match the reader's system. Your pages carry the colour; the chrome stays quiet.

This is the real thing.

The sample comic, The Lantern Keeper, running in the actual app. Read a few pages, check the archive, open the Studio. Nothing you do here leaves your browser.

Loading the sample comic…

Open it full screen →

On a phone? Try Long scroll in the reader toolbar.

Publishing is one file.

When your chapters are ready, export from the Studio. You get one file holding the comic and every page.

  1. Export.

    The Studio saves the-lantern-keeper.comic.json named after your comic.

  2. Rename.

    Call it comic.json.

  3. Upload.

    Put it in public/ and deploy the site anywhere that serves static files. 

public/
└── comic.json   { format: "comic-reader-bundle", version: 1, … }

The Studio has no login, by design: anyone can open it, but their edits stay in their own browser and never reach your readers.

The end

You're all caught up.

The rest is your comic. Open Halftone, read the sample, then make it yours.

Open Halftone

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