Comic Viewer - Garfield & Calvin

From Toy Apps to Real Products

By 2012, I’d been playing with Android through small projects—a cocktail shaker, a joke teller, a Spanish sayings app. But I wanted to build something real that people would actually use daily. Comic Viewer was that project.

The Concept

A simple app for reading daily Garfield and Calvin and Hobbes comics. Open the app, see today’s comic. Swipe to navigate dates. That’s it. No complexity, just comics cleanly presented.

I combined my love for these comics with my interest in data scraping and API integration. The app pulled from official comic APIs, cached images locally for offline reading, and used AdMob for monetization.

The Success

100,000 downloads in 4 months exceeded every expectation. 40,000 monthly active users at peak. Strong retention—people returned daily. The simplicity worked. Users just wanted to read their favorite comics without friction.

The AdMob integration generated meaningful revenue. For a side project, it proved the concept was viable and the execution was solid.

The Copyright Issue

After 4 months, Google warned about copyright concerns. I tried contacting the copyright holders to work out licensing, but got no response. Without proper permission and facing potential legal issues, I had to remove the app from the Play Store.

It was disappointing, but the right decision.

The Most Important Lesson

Always secure proper licensing before building on others’ IP. Even with good intentions, official APIs, and a useful product, content rights are crucial. This lesson has influenced every project since—I now think about legal implications from day one, not as an afterthought.

The technical execution was solid. The market validation was clear. But without proper licensing, none of that mattered.

What It Taught Me

Simplicity wins. The app succeeded by doing one thing well, not trying to be everything.

Quick validation is valuable. 100K downloads in 4 months proved the concept worked and the execution was solid.

Legal considerations are as important as technical ones. Code quality doesn’t matter if you can’t legally operate.

Failure teaches crucial lessons. This brief project taught me more about building sustainable products than many longer ones.

This project is deprecated and no longer available.