←

→

Converting comics for the DS

January 14th, 2008 | Portable comics, comics, ds games

After reading a couple of series of comics on my DS, I’ve been determined to find more . . . either free or commercial comics.

The problem is that few, if any, will be offered in the .cbds format. So, you’ll have to convert them yourself, which actually isn’t too bad.

  1. Download pictods [Windows version] and unzip the contents to your PC.
  2. Change the permissions on the default output directory so that the program can write files to it. [<install_Drive>\<install_directory>\PictoDS_win32_2.1.0\cbds]
  3. Start the PictoDS program.
  4. Add a file [.zip, .cbr, .cbz] or the folder with the .jpg files.
    NOTE: You can convert a PDF, but you’ll need a PDF-to-jpg program, which you’ll need to specific in Options > Configure path in PictoDS. [I happen to own Adobe Acrobat, which can do this. A cheap but time consuming option is to open the file in Reader and taking screen shots of each page. Another option is to use GhostView and Ghostscript.]
  5. Click Proceed to convert the files to a .cbds file.

Here are some places to download comics [PDF and CBR/CBZ] legally, other than illegally from a torrent or from rapidshare:

  • Pullbox online–Purchase comics and download PDF or .cbr files.
  • Eyemelt–Purchase comics and download PDF or .cbr files.
  • DriveThruComics–Purchase comics and download PDF files. [There may be .cbr files, but I didn't see any.]
  • Direct2Drive–Purchase and download comics as PDF files, including Top Cow comics.
  • Flashback comics–Download free comics in .cbr format.
  • Golden Age comics–Download public domain comics from the 30s-50s.
  • Modern Tales–Download free comics in the .cbz format.
  • Girlamatic–Download free comics in the .cbr format.
  • Graphic Smash–Download a free comic. Just one comic, at least for now.
  • North Wind–Download #1 for free in a .cbz file.
  • Fell #1–Download the first issue of a Warren Ellis comic . . . free.
  • Free comics–Download a variety of free, mainstream comics. DC/Vertigo/Wildstorm/ comics are PDF files. The Marvel, Image, comics are JPGs that you can save to your PC.
  • brian robinson studios–Download free comics in CBR and PDF formats.
  • wowio–Download free comics in PDF format. Requires a login, and the download process isn’t immediate. But the number of titles is very large.

I for one wouldn’t mind buying and reading electronic copies of comics rather than printed ones. Companies are now looking at it. [I didn't include online-only comics, like Marvel's dot comics.]

11 comments ↓

#1 Kallisti on 01.21.08 at 3:37 am

Do you know how to convert cbds to cbr/cbz format?

#2 guttertalk on 01.21.08 at 8:41 am

No, I do not. However, I’m not sure you need to because .cbds is just a compressed file with graphics as .cbr is. Plus, when converted to cbds, the images are reduced, and re-magnifying them would probably result in poorer image quality.

So, one option is to change the .cbds extention to .cbr, which I believe should work.

But I don’t know of any comic specifically released in .cbds format, which means they are all conversions. You should be able to get the original .cbr/cbz or .pdf file easily enough.

#3 mgk on 03.09.08 at 9:01 am

Change the extension to .ZIP and unzip it, then take the contents of the images folder (they will just be numbered JPG files) and ZIP them. Change the extension to .CBZ.

#4 Michael on 03.26.08 at 1:38 am

I have Acrobat 8 does anyone know where the PDF-JPEG .exe is so i can configure PictoDS to use it???

Would be much appreciated

#5 guttertalk on 03.27.08 at 7:51 am

Michael, I’m not sure what exactly you are referring to, but Acrobat has a Save to JPEG option in the File > Save As window. Since I don’t have acrobat at home, I searched for some PDF converter and used that, which wasn’t really very good and took way too long to convert. Unfortunately, I can’t remember which one I used.

#6 Hey on 05.05.08 at 5:09 pm

When I try to run the program an error message pops up that says “Could not find the main class. Program will exit.”
What does that mean?
And how can I fix it?

#7 guttertalk on 05.05.08 at 6:24 pm

Hey: I’m not sure what app you are referring to. But two things: first, make sure you have installed all the required software. [Generally, you see that error when an app requires Java or .NET which are not installed.]

Second, go to the developer’s site and download the latest version.

I’ve not seen that error with any of the apps I’ve mentioned in this article.

#8 Llevate tus comics contigo « El rincón de Tolgalen on 09.11.08 at 11:33 pm

[...] Tenemos más información sobre este formato de ficheros aquí. [...]

#9 wally on 10.13.08 at 5:55 am

why don’t you post some links to decent comic torrents sitez etc?

#10 guttertalk on 10.13.08 at 1:49 pm

Because torrents = pirated material for the most part. If I knew of torrents for legally free comics, I’d post them.

#11 Jonty on 09.08.09 at 8:48 am

You can do a lot of you comic conversion tasks using Comic Converter from http://www.jontylovell.net. CHeck it out a leave a comment if you like it.

Leave a Comment