How to make a comic recap video with AI (voices, music and subtitles)
Also in: Português
To make a comic recap video with AI, upload the comic's pages (a PDF, a CBZ or the page pictures) or paste a chapter link, choose a narrator and a voice for each character, and download the finished video. On rfab.ai, Comic to Video reads every page, writes the recap, gives each speech bubble to the character who says it, and narrates it in English, Spanish, Portuguese or French, whatever language the comic is in. Twenty pages take about 12 minutes and cost about $3.70 on the default quality.
What you get
- An MP4: one panel at a time, on top of a blurred copy of itself, with a slow camera move.
- A narrator, a cast of voices (one for each character), or both.
- A subtitle file (SRT) to upload next to the video on YouTube.
- A title card, and an end card that says where to read and support the original comic.
- A YouTube kit: a title, a description with chapter timestamps and credits, and tags.
Step by step
- Open rfab.ai/comic-to-video.
- Put the comic in. Paste a link takes a chapter page, or a whole series from MangaDex, Webtoons or Tapas (a series opens its chapter list). Add files takes a PDF, a CBZ, CBR or ZIP, an EPUB, a folder of pages, or loose page pictures, up to 200 MB a file.
- Check the Reading order list. The video reads it from top to bottom. Drag a row to move it, or press Sort by name (it puts page 2 before page 10).
- Under How it is narrated, pick Recap narrator (one voice tells the story), Read-aloud cast (each character performs their own bubbles) or Both.
- Pick a Quality (see the prices below). Balanced is the default.
- Pick the Shape (wide for YouTube, tall for Shorts and TikTok, or square) and the Narration language.
- Keep A separate voice per character ticked. Choose the free voices, or Directed voices, which are told how each character speaks and act more.
- Optional: tick Background music (calm, tense or action music, chosen page by page).
- Write Notes for the writer (see the tips below). This is the most useful box on the page.
- Check the time and the price next to the button, then press Make the video. It runs on our servers: you can close the tab, and we email you when it is ready.
What it costs
The price shows before you start. You pay for the work as it is done, never up front. 50,000 tokens = $1.
| 20 pages | Free voices | Directed voices + music |
|---|---|---|
| Economy | 50,525 tokens (about $1.01) | 113,440 (about $2.27) |
| Balanced (the default) | 185,125 (about $3.70) | 248,040 (about $4.96) |
| Best | 363,125 (about $7.26) | 426,040 (about $8.52) |
- Balanced was as good as Best in our test, for about half the price. Best is for dense, tricky pages. Economy is much cheaper, but it misses more lines and mixes up more speakers.
- The Careful speaker check adds about 4,600 tokens a page.
- The making takes about 2 minutes, plus half a minute a page.
- New accounts get 150,000 free tokens, and more free tokens every day.
Tips for beginners: the common problems
A line went to the wrong character. Write who is who in Notes for the writer ("Lara has the long dark hair; the old man with the white beard is the farmer") and make the video again. If it still happens, tick Careful speaker check, or use Best.
A character's thoughts are read as narration. Write in the notes whose voice the captions are: "The captions are Kal-El's own voice."
One character got two names or two voices, for example as a child and as an adult, or in two costumes. Write in the notes that they are the same person.
The reading order is wrong. For a Japanese manga, set Reading order to Right to left. If whole files are out of order, use Sort by name or drag them. The pages inside one PDF or CBZ keep their own order.
The comic is longer than 60 pages. Paste the series link and tick the chapters: they become one long film, made in parts and joined at the end. Or press Add as Video A to make several videos (made one after another, every character keeps the same voice in every video). A single upload keeps the first 60 pages, and the page warns you before you start.
A link does not work. The page says why as soon as you press Add. Some sites take your own login for paid chapters. If a site cannot be read, download the pages and add them as files.
The video stopped with a low balance. It is paused, not lost. Top up, then press Resume on its card.
Is my video public? No. What you make is private to your account until you post it yourself.
Advanced tips: the API and Claude Code
Everything on the page is also an API, documented for AI agents in section 19 of rfab.ai/llms-full.txt.
- Read the script line by line.
GET /api/comic-video/<id>returns every panel of a finished video, each line in it, and who says it. Put the comic's pages next to it and check each line against its speech bubble. - Fix one line, not the whole video.
POST /api/comic-video/<id>/fixtakes the panel, the line and the right speaker or the right words (or a line to take out or add). You get a new video. Only the changed lines are voiced again, and the page read and the story are not paid for twice. In our test, a fix of 16 lines on a 5-page video cost 11,519 tokens, against 46,178 for the video itself. - Give a character another voice. The same fix takes
"voices": { "the farmer": "gem-algenib" }. - Let Claude Code do it. Install Claude Code, make an API key at rfab.ai/api, and paste the instruction from the Comic to Video page. It looks at the pages first and writes the notes, makes the video, checks every line against the pages, and sends one fix for every wrong line.
FAQ
Does it work for manga? Yes. It finds the right-to-left reading order by itself, or you can set it.
Does it work for webtoons? Yes. Paste the Webtoons or Tapas link. It joins the episode, so no speech bubble is cut in half.
Can the video be in another language than the comic? Yes. A Portuguese comic can be narrated in English, and the other way round. The sample in the video above is a Brazilian edition, narrated in Portuguese and then in English.
Can I make it for YouTube Shorts or TikTok? Yes. Pick Tall 9:16 as the shape.
Can I continue a series? Yes. Continue on a finished video makes the next chapters with the same cast, the same voices and the story so far.
Sample in the video: Superman Absoluto #1 (Brazilian edition), by Jason Aaron and Rafa Sandoval, DC Comics. Short excerpts for a tutorial. Support the creators: buy the comic.