ComicCacher

Serving up daily laughs since 2013

A personal project to read my favorite daily comic strips without ads, pop-ups, or paywalls. Just comics.

Originally written in C# and .NET 3.0 back in 2013, this has been rebuilt from the ground up with modern tech:

• Backend: Spring Boot 4 + Java 21 API that downloads and caches comics daily
• Frontend: Angular 19 + Material Design web app with glassmorphism UI
• Hosting: Runs in my home K8s cluster

There's no public deployment - I built this for my own use and for fun. But if you'd like to run it yourself, go ahead!

What does it do?

• 📰 Downloads daily comic strips from GoComics and ComicsKingdom
• 💾 Caches images locally with automatic 7-day cleanup
• 🎨 Displays them in a clean, ad-free interface
• 📱 Works great on mobile, tablet, and desktop
• ⚡ Virtual scrolling for smooth browsing
• 📊 Tracks metrics on cache performance and storage

Quick Start

Backend (comic-api)

# Build and run
./gradlew :comic-api:build
./gradlew :comic-api:bootRun

# Run tests
./gradlew :comic-api:test
./gradlew :comic-api:integrationTest

# View API docs at http://localhost:8080/swagger-ui/index.html

Frontend (comic-web)

cd comic-web
npm install
npm start

# Visit http://localhost:4200

Deployment

I deploy this to my home K8s cluster using Docker and Helm:

# Build backend
./gradlew :comic-api:build
./comic-api/build-docker.sh 2.1.35

# Build frontend
cd comic-web
./build-docker.sh

# Deploy with Helm
helm upgrade comics comics

API & Docs

When running locally:

• Web App: http://localhost:4200
• Swagger UI: http://localhost:8080/swagger-ui/index.html
• REST API: http://localhost:8080/api/v1/comics
• Metrics: http://localhost:8080/api/v1/metrics

Full endpoint documentation in the docs/ directory.

Development

For detailed architecture, build instructions, module structure, testing guidelines, and coding standards, see CLAUDE.md.