Enhancing the Accessibility for All of Digital Comic Books

Comic books are very popular all over the world, among the readers of all ages. They are even sometimes referred to as the ninth art. In our increasingly digital world, comics still remain creature of print and paper and ink. Despite its convenience in many aspects, this media does not completely fulfil the needs of a large segment of public such as mobile users, motor-impaired people, and low-sighted people. In this paper, we explore how a digital version of comic books can be optimally accessed using a computer based interface. Among the supported reading modes, an automated mode provides a segmentation-based detection of panels and their display in the relevant reading order. This enables accessibility with minimal user interaction and maximal image size. An open-source prototype was implemented and validated in different operational contexts such as PC desktop, PC laptop, a PC controlled through voice, remote-controlled TV and mobile devices.