kevingrondin / compendia

Full-stack comic book collecting Nextjs/React web application

Compendia

About

Compendia is a full-stack open-source comic book collecting web application where you can explore the world of new comic book releases, track your pull list, and organize your collection. If you're a comic reader, check it out here!

Technologies Used

• NextJS
• React
• Node.js
• Tailwind CSS
• React-Query
• Magic Link Auth
• PostgreSQL, Pg, Pg-Bouncer
• Cover images hosted on AWS S3
• Database hosted on DigitalOcean
• App hosted on Vercel

Problem

Film fans have IMDb, book fans have Goodreads, but what do comic fans have? As a comic book reader and collector myself, I wanted an app that I could use as a digital companion to my collection as well as a tool to find new comics to read. There are a few websites / apps out there that try to address this gap, but they all have a not-so-great user experience, do not place value on creator-owned / independent comic stories and are not friendly to new comic book readers or people looking to get into comics for the first time.

Action

First, I began doing an in-depth research of the comic industry and then began drafting requirements, feature sets, and designs. After consolidating the list of features and requirements down to a reasonable MVP, I started work building a web scraper that would retrieve and parse all of the new comic releases as they come out each week. Once I had a working method of retrieving data via the web scraper I wrote (which you can find here), I began development of a Compendia Android app until finally pivoting to a web app using NextJS instead.

Result

Now, Compendia is a fully-functioning MVP of the vision I had of a Comic Collector's companion. While it does have a great initial set of features, I plan on maintaining and improving it with even more functionality as time goes on. My ultimate vision for Compendia is for it to be a tool to make the comic industry and the wealth of incredible stories easily navigable, and a place comic creators can go to promote their works and connect with their fans.

Future Developments (so far)

• Dark mode
• Publishers filter on releases page
• Improve search
• Make it a PWA
• Review and rating functionality
• Comic terms glossary
• Add new lists and edit existing lists
• Reccommendation system