Instead I decided to make things more complicated and come up with a more general automated solution. I could do that by unpacking and repacking the files on a case by case basis but that is repetative and uninteresting. I wanted to convert these CBR files to CBZ. The essential difference is that Zip is free and RAR is proprietary. Very often this archive they are packaged in use RAR compression CBR (Comic Book RAR archive), but other times the container uses Zip compression CBZ (Comic Book Zip archive). The internet has provided us with an even bigger bookshelf to flick through, and there are groups who scan the latest comic books and package them up for easy sampling, usually a series of JPEG image files packaged together as a single convenient archive. In the long run though it is stories and the writers that keep me coming back and if I particularly like the style of the artist that is a bonus.Ĭhatting with the local equivalent of Comic Book Guy is one way to get ideas of what to try but picking a book off a shelf and having a look is usually the best way. The painted comics of Alex Ross (Kingdom Come) are beautiful, the stories of Warren Ellis (Transmetropolitan) are compelling.Ĭan you judge a book by it's cover? If it is a graphic design book, or art book I think you can and with comics I often do choose on that basis (and all too often get caught out when the interior art is entirely different from the cover). I'd gotten out of the habit but I still enjoy picking up a good Batman story now and again, but other than that it is hard to know what to pick.

Cbz convert