Anniversary Comic
An anniversary comic made from photographs of the two of you. Upload a picture of each, describe the day you are marking, and get back a drawn page telling it as a story. Anniversaries are unusual among gifting occasions in that the material is already there — you both know what happened, and the whole difficulty is finding an object that refers to it. This is that object. The finished page is shown before you pay, watermarked until you do.
How it works
- 1
A photo of each of you
Two clear pictures. They do not need to be from the same photograph or the same decade — the two characters are built separately and then drawn into one scene, which is useful if the best picture of each of you is fifteen years apart.
- 2
Tell it the actual day
How you met, where the proposal happened, the thing that went wrong at the wedding, the first flat with the broken boiler. Specific and slightly unflattering works better than romantic and general — "we met because I was on the wrong train" is a page, "we love each other" is not.
- 3
Read it before paying
The whole page is shown to you, watermarked. If it got the tone wrong, change the line and run it again for nothing.
How you met is the best page in the book
Of everything a couple could have drawn, the meeting story is reliably the strongest, and the reason is that it is the one part of a shared history with a proper narrative shape — there is a before, an accident, and an after. It also tends to be the story you have both told at dinner parties enough times that the details are fixed, which is exactly what a comic needs. Weddings make handsome pages and slightly stiff ones; the wrong train, the mutual friend’s terrible party, the dog that ran off, these make better ones.
The paper anniversary, taken literally
The first anniversary is traditionally paper, and the tradition is usually discharged with a card. A printed comic is a more complete reading of it: it is paper, it was made rather than bought, and it is about the year being marked. If you want to be exact about it, print the page on decent stock and frame it — at roughly 1,200 pixels tall it is sharp at A5 and holds up at A4. The same logic makes it a reasonable answer for the tenth, which is traditionally tin and therefore not obviously anything.
Two people, drawn as themselves across the whole page
The technical difficulty in a two-person comic is that most tools lose one of them by the second panel — faces drift, and a couple becomes two other people who look vaguely similar. Here a written description of each person is taken off their photograph first, covering face, hair, build and clothing, and that same description is passed into every panel. It is the reason the pair in the last panel are the pair in the first. It matters more for couples than for anything else, because the recipient knows both faces better than they know their own.
Anniversaries spent apart
For a couple in different countries the usual problem is logistics: anything physical has to be ordered early enough and then actually arrive, and the postal service is not sentimental about dates. There is nothing to ship here, so the gift exists as soon as it is made and can be sent at midnight in whichever timezone is correct. A page about a specific shared memory does a particular kind of work at a distance that a delivered object does not.
For an anniversary of something other than a marriage
People make these for the anniversary of the day they adopted a dog, moved to a country, opened a business or got sober. The pipeline does not know or care which kind of anniversary it is being given; it needs a subject, a date and something that happened. Pets can be characters alongside people, which covers the first of those directly.
An anniversary is the one occasion where the story already exists
Every other gifting occasion requires you to invent a reason. An anniversary comes with one attached — there is a specific day being marked, and something specific happened on it. That changes which gifts work.
| What differs | The usual options | Cartoon It |
|---|---|---|
| What it is about | Dinner, jewellery or a weekend away are about the present. Pleasant, and unrelated to the date. | The day itself. How you met, the wedding, the year you both remember for one reason. |
| First anniversary | Traditionally paper, which usually ends up meaning a card. | Also paper, and a printed comic of how you met is a more literal reading of the tradition than a card is. |
| Long-distance | Something posted, which has to arrive. | A file, which arrives the moment you send it. |
| Photographs | A framed photo of the two of you. You both already have it on your phones. | The same photo, drawn as a scene with what you said to each other in it. |
| Cost | Anniversaries have inflationary pressure. Each one is meant to beat the last. | $3.99 to $11.99, and the thing that makes it good is the story, not the spend. |
Questions
What should an anniversary comic be about?
The specific day you are marking, most often how you met. A story with an accident or a mishap in it works better than a romantic summary, because a comic needs something to happen.
How much does an anniversary comic cost?
$3.99 for a single page, $5.99 for two, $7.99 for a three-page story, or $11.99 for three pages with a custom cover. A how-you-met story usually needs the three-page version to fit. One payment each, no subscription, and you see the finished page — watermarked — before paying.
Do we need a photo of the two of us together?
No. Each person can come from a separate photograph, taken at any time, and both are drawn into the same scene. This is often easier than finding one good picture of both of you.
Is a comic a good first anniversary gift?
It suits it unusually well. The first anniversary is traditionally paper, and a printed comic about the year being marked is a more literal answer to that than a card.
Will both of us actually look like ourselves?
A written description of each person is taken from their photo — face, hair, build, clothing — and reused in every panel, which is what stops either of you drifting into someone else partway down the page.
Can we send it digitally if we are apart?
Yes. Nothing ships. The full-resolution PNG and A4 PDF are available the moment you pay, so it can be sent on the day regardless of where either of you is.
Last updated . Prices and limits on this page are checked when it changes.
Pages it has made
Finished output, not mock-ups.
See yours before you pay
Generating and previewing costs nothing and needs no account. Downloads start at $3.99, one time.
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