Find Out Which Page of the Comic Actually Costs You the Week — Free
A 22-page comic is not 22 equal units of work. Four of those pages are splash or double-spread pages with nine panels of crowd work, and the other eighteen are five-panel conversations. Deadline plans built on a page count collapse in week two, because the page count never knew. This board converts each page into hours at your own drawing pace and pins them by weight, so the expensive pages are visible before the schedule is written.
The proof surface
Free path: the board computes locally in the browser with no key and no account. Where an AI step helps, any free chat assistant works — Google AI Studio's free tier and Groq's free tier were both no-card and rate-limited when this page was reviewed on 2026-09-13 (limits change; check before you rely on them).
Why the flat version breaks
Counting pages treats a nine-panel crowd splash and a five-panel conversation as the same job. Neither can be scheduled, and both feel equally urgent until one of them eats four days. Converting pages into panels and panels into hours at your measured pace gives each page a real size, which is the only thing a deadline plan can be built on.
How to use the comic page plan board in four passes
A script says 'page 3: the market'. Your thumbnails say nine panels with forty background figures. The board is only as honest as the panel count you type in.
Pencils, inks and letters, timed. Then divide panels by hours. Most artists are surprised in one direction or the other, and every hour count on the board inherits that number.
Anything over four hours is two sittings. Deciding that in advance is what stops a splash page being started at 9pm and abandoned at midnight.
A panel added to page 10 is an hour somewhere. Change the count, re-pin the board, and let the daily target tell you whether the deadline still works.
SAMPLE DATA, NOT A VERIFIED CLAIM: 'Nine of Cups' issue 1 · print-ready 20 Nov 2026 · 22 pages, 12 planned here · nine-panel market page · double spread · 1.5 panels an hour · 18 working days. Replace these values with your own source before you rely on anything.
What breaks first
Using a roughs pace for finished art
Thumbnailing runs at ten panels an hour; finished art does not. A pace measured on roughs produces a schedule that is wrong by a factor of six.
Forgetting lettering, flats and the cover
They are pages of work with panels on them. Lettering a crowd scene is slower than lettering a two-shot, and the cover is usually the single most expensive panel in the issue.
Treating the daily target as a promise
The target is what each day has to carry if the deadline is real. If it is above your pace for the days you have, the answer is fewer pages or a later date — not a harder week.
What you pay otherwise
| The usual route | What it leaves out | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| A project-management tool for solo work | Boards and sprints designed for a team of eight | a per-seat monthly fee |
| An assistant for the crowd pages | Faster, if you can brief them and pay them | a per-page rate |
| Missing the printer's deadline | The issue slips a month and the launch event is already booked | a reprint schedule and a refunded stall fee |
| This page + the free comic page plan board | Computed in your tab, result on screen before you type anything | $0 |
Try the free comic page plan board
Twelve pages are already pinned at 1.5 panels an hour, with the nine-panel market page and the eight-panel flashback in the Now column. Drop the pace to 1.2 and the double spread joins them.
Open the free comic page plan board →Keep the work if you will use it again
Every page, the hour counts, the three columns and the daily target, plus copy and share-link, with no account.
The on-screen result is free and repeatable forever. The one-time tier adds a tangible file you keep and the saved history that comes with it; it never removes or degrades the free result.
Boundary: This plans the work you describe; it is not a contract with a publisher, it cannot measure your pace for you, and it does not account for revisions, approvals or print schedules you have not been given. Confirm deadlines and page counts with your editor in writing.