Recurring Character Diary Comic

Recurring Character Diary Comic

Turn a concrete observation into one coherent comic page while preserving an authorized recurring identity. The default is page-native generation: the image model solves the complete page, not a collection of independent cards.

Load only the needed references

• Read references/character-profile-schema.md when creating or interpreting a recurring-character profile.
• Read references/story-rhythm.md before selecting a premise, writing dialogue, or planning beats.
• Read references/visual-task-contract.md before locking evidence, comparing page skeletons, scoring risk, or selecting a production route.
• Read references/continuity-and-visual-qa.md before auditing, repairing, or accepting a rendered page.
• Read references/editorial-layout-gate.md before accepting a final page or using it as a public example.
• Read references/compositor-manifest.md and use scripts/compose_panels.py only when lettering a complete unlettered page or when an explicitly accepted fallback reconstructs a page from independent panels.
• Follow the available image-generation skill when generating or editing raster artwork.

Choose the mode

• Create: require an existing authorized recurring identity, pass the premise gate, lock story and visual evidence, compare three page structures, generate one complete page, and inspect the final pixels.
• Audit: inspect an existing page against its approved character and story records; report evidence without silently editing it.
• Repair: audit first, name the failing field, and prefer one bounded local page edit. Reconstruct panels only under the fallback rule below.

Do not expand the request into character design, branding, publishing, or an unrelated illustration task.

Establish rights and identity

1. Use only original characters, public-domain material, or references the user confirms they may use.
2. Refuse requests to imitate a named living artist, use a copyrighted franchise character without authorization, or reproduce a third-party signature mark. Offer medium-level traits instead.
3. Normalize the recurring identity into a profile before page generation. Separate stable identity invariants, episode variables, exact optional marks, and forbidden drift.
4. Treat a standalone reference for a required mark or accessory as more authoritative than an incidental depiction inside a character sheet.
5. If no usable recurring identity exists, stop and return the profile requirements. Do not invent a permanent character while producing the first episode.

Lock the story and page plan

1. Apply the premise gate in references/story-rhythm.md. Prefer a drawable behavior over an abstract slogan, advertisement, or moral.
2. Preserve the user's experience and viewpoint. Extract setup, visible progression, reaction, and the final observation or reveal.
3. Choose 4–8 beats because the story needs them, not to fill a grid. Give supporting characters, objects, screens, and environments narrative jobs.
4. Lock every approved string before generation: exact spelling, punctuation, speaker, bubble ownership, and reading order.
5. Give each character, prop, state, panel, and critical relation a stable semantic ID. Classify requirements as blocking story truth (S0), blocking identity truth (S1), or replaceable composition preference (S2).
6. Express critical relations as visible evidence rather than co-occurrence. Record subject, predicate, object, contact or direction, visible proof, forbidden ambiguity, and required next state.
7. For every screen, paper, receipt, ticket, book, sign, or control, record its reader/operator, content face, reader side, viewer side, hinge or controls, gaze/hands, and the pixels that prove the relation. A nearby character and object do not prove reading or operation.
8. Draw three low-fidelity page-skeleton candidates before art generation. They must differ structurally, not merely by small frame offsets. Show beat IDs, reading path, relative area, visual anchor, gutters, negative space, and any content-derived border interaction.
9. Compare all three at working size and exactly 25%. Select the structure that preserves the story evidence and creates the clearest rhythm. Do not default to an equal card grid, a repeated row stack, or random rotation.
10. Border breaks, foreground overflow, semantic insets, open frames, and shared boundaries are optional vocabulary, never quotas. Use an effect only when its subject and narrative reason are clear and it does not hide faces, hands, text, direction, or state evidence.

Choose the production route

Risk changes prompt and QA attention; it does not automatically decompose the page.

• page-native — default. Generate the entire page in one image, including panel topology, scenery, character scale, props, border interactions, bubbles, exact dialogue, paper texture, palette, and negative space.
• page-native-unlettered — text fallback. Use only when the complete page direction passes but rendered dialogue cannot be made exact. Generate one complete bubble-free, text-free page with intentional dialogue space, then add deterministic bubbles and text without cutting the art into panel sources.
• panel-reconstruction — disclosed fallback. Use only after two page-native attempts fail the same named S0 or S1 field, one local edit cannot isolate the defect, and the user explicitly accepts the loss of whole-page coherence. Generate and freeze independent panel sources, then reconstruct and re-audit the page. Do not switch merely because independent panels are easier to validate.

If reconstruction would destroy the requested page language, stop and report the blocker instead of delivering a compliant collage.