Category: kwakk
New Zine Orientations
(November 27, 2025)I’ve been fiddling around with how kwakk.info deals with vertical pages. The vast majority of magazine and zine pages are oriented “correctly”, of course, so this is a minor problem — but sometimes pages are printed vertically, and then you have to turn your laptop sideways to read those pages, which isn’t er ideal. The … Continue reading New Zine Orientations
76% Confidence
(November 26, 2025)I’ve been looking at issues with page rotation with the LLM-based OCR thing, so I’ve been staring at the output a bit more. And I found the puzzling text above, which… er… didn’t seem likely? Anyway, the polygon points to this text: Yes, it’s very low res, and it’s was set at a 90 degree … Continue reading 76% Confidence
I forgot to switch on advanced searches on kwakk.info
(November 11, 2025)The other day, I was wondering whether there was a way to improve the search quality on kwakk.info, the comics fanzine search engine. And it turns out that the search engine I’m using in the background, Xapian, has a lot of operators like NEAR and ADJ that sound interesting, but they don’t work on kwakk.info. … Continue reading I forgot to switch on advanced searches on kwakk.info
Comics Fanzines OCR Reloaded Redone
(November 10, 2025)The GPU-assisted OCR run for kwakk.info has now finished — it took about three weeks to chew through 10,000 fanzine/magazine issues. So what are the results? Well, I found that sections with no text would often end up with hallucinated kanji. (Because LLM.) It doesn’t really matter much — you wouldn’t be searching for these … Continue reading Comics Fanzines OCR Reloaded Redone
PCIe x4 v x16: The OCR GPU fight is on
(November 3, 2025)So, I was randomly looking at the web page for the motherboard I’m using in the machine that I’m doing GPU-based OCR on (for the research site for magazines about comics). And… I started wondering why one of the slots was marked with a metallic border. “Is it better because it’s closer to the CPU?”, … Continue reading PCIe x4 v x16: The OCR GPU fight is on
10,000 Magazines About Comics
(October 24, 2025)*gasp* The number of digits went up! The vast majority of the magazines and fanzines about comics on kwakk.info are sourced from various, er, sources out there, but I was idly wondering a couple weeks ago whether it would be cheap to buy some of these magazines in bulk from ebay and do some scanning … Continue reading 10,000 Magazines About Comics
A web duhsigner’s work is never done
(October 20, 2025)kwakk.info (the web site for comics research) has always supported phrase searches, but it’s been really sloppy in how it marks the matches on the screen. (See above.) Because I’m lazy. But today I finally pulled myself together and spent an hour on this, and tada: So many details… And speaking of details, while I … Continue reading A web duhsigner’s work is never done
I bought a GPU to do OCR
(October 17, 2025)I bought a GPU! A big one! This blog post is about that. So… like, a few years ago (oh, 2018; time flies) I wanted to put together a thing to do research into comics, and since the comics I was most interested in were from the 80s, all articles/interviews/etc were nowhere to be found … Continue reading I bought a GPU to do OCR
Destroy All Comics
(October 16, 2025)I don’t quite remember where, but I was reminded recently that Jeff Levine’s Destroy All Comics was a magazine that existed back in the 90s. And I had almost all the issues! So I got the missing one from ebay, and now I’ve scanned them and put them on kwakk.info. It’s a pretty interesting magazine… … Continue reading Destroy All Comics
Easier Reading on kwakk.info
(September 20, 2025)When I made kwakk.info, the research site for comics, I kinda sorta made it hard to read on purpose. I mean, people who want to sit down and read magazines about comics should buy them. And so, I used this “magnifying glass” thing to allow you to actually read stuff: Which is OK, but it’s … Continue reading Easier Reading on kwakk.info
Max Utility Function
(August 26, 2025)I was wondering how I could make the Easter egg on the comics research site (when you click the big picture) even more festive, and I thought… rotated… and spinning!!! Voila. It’s fun how many useless things you can do trivially with CSS these days.
New, totally useful functionality on the comics research site
(August 22, 2025)“Vibe coding” is all the rage these days, but last night (after beering at the free jazz festival all day), I thought I’d have a go at old fashioned “drunk coding”, and behold! It still works today! (Click the large image to trigger it. Ou pas, as Lily would say.)
Heavy Metal Research
(June 11, 2025)The magazines are still trickling into the search engine for magazines about comics, but I guess it’s mostly done now. I mean, it’s by no means complete — it has about 10% of the Comics Buyer’s Guide issues, for instance — but I guess all of the most important magazines are basically there. The search … Continue reading Heavy Metal Research
Comics Research Update
(March 10, 2025)I’ve been updating kwakk.info, the search engine for magazines about comics a bit, because: Anna’s Archive finally updated their libgen.li mirror. So now we can see vital things like turn into and thousands of people with OCD rejoiced. Now, doing searches for Cartoonist PROfiles #35 on Anna’s is easy enough — you just search for … Continue reading Comics Research Update
Les Français peuvent aussi avoir l’âne numerique !?
(December 19, 2024)A couple days ago, I found myself flabbergasted that not only was eMule still a thing, but that there’s a bunch of magazines about comics that are only available there. That was all magazines for speaking español, though, and I wondered whether there were communities like that for other languages. So I did some thorough … Continue reading Les Français peuvent aussi avoir l’âne numerique !?
eMule!? That’s a thing that still exists!?
(December 17, 2024)So I was looking at some Spanish magazines I had imported for kwakk.info, the research site for magazines about comics. And I noticed that quite a few had “credits” like this: So I wondered what was going on with the scanning community these days, and it turns out that the Comics Release Group apparently still … Continue reading eMule!? That’s a thing that still exists!?
Extremely Miscellaneous Magazines About Comics
(December 10, 2024)A month and a half ago I was getting into adding non-English language magazines about comics to kwakk.info, the research site about comics. After that, I’ve been lethargically poking at various sources of finding out names of mags/fanzines, like this nice list on the French Wikipedia. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any good lists … Continue reading Extremely Miscellaneous Magazines About Comics
Final Mag Sweep Part XXIV
(October 25, 2024)I thought I had a cold, but it turned out to be covid. *sigh* So I thought I might as well use the opportunity to take a feverish last sweep for magazines about comics for kwakk.info… One of the weirdest things this time around was the Figurines Marvel thing. Were these things included with Marvel … Continue reading Final Mag Sweep Part XXIV
The Dutch Exist, Too
(October 23, 2024)I’ve got a cold, so I was feverishly wondering whether I’d forgotten some European languages when expanding the search engine for magazines about comics to other languages. And then it hit me: Holland exists! And also that bit of Belgium where they speak kinda Dutch-ey! So I asked ChatGPT to cough up the names of … Continue reading The Dutch Exist, Too
*closes tabs*
(October 12, 2024)I think I’ve now done the major comics about magazines in French, Spanish, Italian and German for kwakk.info, but I may well have missed some; feel free to leave comments about interesting magazines and fanzines (of any language, really). In this latest batch we have a handful of mags, but a lot of issues: Dolmen, … Continue reading *closes tabs*
Magazines about bandes dessinées, tebeos, fumetti and Comic-Bücher
(October 9, 2024)I was asked whether kwakk.info was only for English-language magazines and fanzines about comics… and yes, it was. But there’s no reason why it should be, really. So now it’s not. Multi language search has its issues, though. Stemming (which is that thing where if you search for “house cats”, you also get pages matching … Continue reading Magazines about bandes dessinées, tebeos, fumetti and Comic-Bücher
This is the last one
(September 25, 2024)This is literally part forty nine in a series of blog posts where I say that I’m now done adding things to kwakk.info, the comics research site. Literally. But this time I’m done for real, because: That surely has to be enough. My main problem is that I keep coming up with new avenues to … Continue reading This is the last one
Comics Magazine Carousel
(September 20, 2024)When I visit web sites, I often look for a date somewhere. That is, I want to know whether I’m looking at something that’s been dead for years, or that’s being actively maintained. So I was reminded me that I hadn’t added that at all to kwakk.info, the site for comics research. So I was … Continue reading Comics Magazine Carousel
Miscellaneous Fanzines
(September 18, 2024)To keep the number of separate titles down in the kwakk.info search engine, I’ve avoided adding (most) fanzines about comics that only had a couple of issues, or where I could only find a very small number of the issues. But… why not stick them in a “misc” category? Why not indeed. And: Yes, there’s … Continue reading Miscellaneous Fanzines
kwakk.info tweaks
(September 16, 2024)I thought it might be interesting to provide a simple list of what the kwakk.info site has, so I whipped up this page. Hey, if you have any missing issues, I’m right here… Feel free to mail scanned issues to lars@ingebrigtsen.no or whatever. I also found some stuff to add, likeMarvel Previews. I mean, I … Continue reading kwakk.info tweaks
Yes, now there’s even more
(September 15, 2024)I’m still prattling on about Anna’s Archive and how to download magazines about comics from that thing, even though I said the last time I was going to stop. The main difficulty is to just know what the magazines are called, because there’s absolutely no useful organisation of the information there, and apparently no comics … Continue reading Yes, now there’s even more
Comics Fanzine Explosion
(September 13, 2024)Anna’s Archive has so many magazines/fanzines about comics available — who knew there were this many people enthusiastically scanning their magazines! — but it’s impossible to find anything there unless you know the names of the books you’re looking for. So I’ve been searching for “lists of comics fanzines” and the like, and there is, … Continue reading Comics Fanzine Explosion
Charlton Extravaganza On The Comics Re/Search Engine
(September 10, 2024)As I nattered on about yesterday, I was going to have a look around for more magazines/fanzines about comics, and I stumbled upon not one, but two Charlton fanzines: One from the 70s (Charlton Bullseye) and one more recent (Charlton Spotlight). So I’ve indexed them, and put them both on kwakk.info, available for searching. And … Continue reading Charlton Extravaganza On The Comics Re/Search Engine
RBCC (Rocket’s Blast & Comicollector) Now Searchable
(September 9, 2024)The kwakk.info comics re/search web site has, I think, most of the major magazines about comics now. One of the remaining “bigger” classic comics fanzines I had been totally unable to find any scans of was RBCC, Rocket’s Blast & Comicollector. It ran from 1964 to 1983, and had more than 150 issues. But then … Continue reading RBCC (Rocket’s Blast & Comicollector) Now Searchable
Further Comics Buyer’s Guide issues added to the search engine
(September 1, 2024)I thought I’d take a look at archive.org again, and sure enough, a dozen and a half issues of CBG had been added since I did the initial import. Which isn’t a lot, but what the hey. You can now search them at kwakk.info, too. So if you’ve ever wondered whether Pacific licensed titles for … Continue reading Further Comics Buyer’s Guide issues added to the search engine
Indy Magazine: Now On Kwakk
(January 30, 2024)Oops! OK, I bought all the issues of what’s usually called Indy Magazine, scanned them, and put them on kwakk.info. So you can now do research into Elflord and stuff. There’s already 20 other magazines on kwakk.info where you can do research into whether Jack Kirkeby or Stan Lees created the Fantastical Four, but there’s … Continue reading Indy Magazine: Now On Kwakk
Even More Comics Magazines Courtesy of Mrs. Kwakk Wakk
(December 16, 2023)I was poking around on the torrentses when I happened upon something called simply “Fanzine Torrent” (with no further information), and it had a single seeder, but I set it to download anyway. One week later: It’s a 120GB ball of various fanzines — but virtually all of them are sci-fi/horror/movie fanzines, which isn’t very … Continue reading Even More Comics Magazines Courtesy of Mrs. Kwakk Wakk
More Search: Comics Buyer’s Guide and stuff
(December 1, 2023)The kwakk.info (re)search engine for magazines about comics went extremely mildly viral a few days ago, and reading the comments I went “Oops! I totally forgot about Ipads…” And indeed, the thing looked absolutely horrible there, so I gave it a spruce up (see above). I think it should be fine now — and it … Continue reading More Search: Comics Buyer’s Guide and stuff
And finally: The Comic Reader, Hero Illustrated and… FOOM!?
(November 26, 2023)OK, I said the previous post about the kwakk.info search engine for magazines about comics was going to be the last one, but then… I’ve added The Comic Reader, Hero Illustrated and FOOM. Yes, FOOM — Friends Of Ol’ Marvel. 🤷 And this is the final blog post on this matter, and I mean it … Continue reading And finally: The Comic Reader, Hero Illustrated and… FOOM!?
Comics Magazine Search Engine Tweaks
(November 25, 2023)Sorry about all these posts about kwakk.info in a row — but as usual, after releasing a project, I find myself poking at it way more than before I released it, and I keep finding things to tweak. It’s classic — I always think something is feature complete, every day, and then the next day … Continue reading Comics Magazine Search Engine Tweaks
Comics Interview, Comics Feature and… Marvel Age!?
(November 23, 2023)Like I said the other week, I was wondering whether there were other collections of scans of magazines about comics, like, “out there”. And… it turns out that there are — so I’ve spent the day downloading from pirate sites, massaging/organising the scans to fit into the required layout for the search engine, and… presto. … Continue reading Comics Interview, Comics Feature and… Marvel Age!?
The Wizard Magazine Search Engine
(November 8, 2023)So I’ve been making various magazines about comics available for research, and… tada: Yeah, yeah… I’ve “found” Wizard Magazine scans on the internet, and I’ve spent the last day or so adjusting the files and running them through OCR. And you can now see the results here. I’ve never read Wizard Magazine myself, so I … Continue reading The Wizard Magazine Search Engine
The Comics Journal Search Engine
(November 7, 2023)Last week, I made the Amazing Heroes search engine public, so why not make the rest of the stuff public, too? So you can now search The Comics Journal and Comics Scene, too. Or you can search all three magazines at the same time, if you’re in Super Research Mode. As I noted in the … Continue reading The Comics Journal Search Engine
The Amazing Heroes Search Engine
(November 3, 2023)tl;dr: Click here for an Amazing Heroes search engine. Long-winded bloviating: I’ve been blogging about 80s comics lately, and a frustrating thing is how little information from that era that’s readily available when trying to do research. Fortunately, The Comics Journal people have scanned all the issues of that excellent magazine… but its focus is … Continue reading The Amazing Heroes Search Engine