FOR RELEASE ON 6 OCTOBER 2026

PANELWAVE LAUNCHES OPEN JSON FORMAT FOR INTERACTIVE GRAPHIC NOVELS

Graph-based, multilingual, accessible specification published under CC BY 4.0 with validation tools, TypeScript types and a reference player; version 1.7 supports branching stories with labelled choices, video panels, the infinite canvas and portable work archives.

Munich, 6 October 2026. PanelWave today launched the PanelWave format, an open
JSON specification for interactive graphic novels, as a public standard. The
format is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence, which
allows anyone to implement readers, authoring tools and converters for it,
with attribution. It is the foundation of the PanelWave ecosystem and is
designed to do for interactive graphic novels what EPUB did for the e-book:
give creators, publishers and tool makers one portable, documented description
of a work that no single platform owns.

A PanelWave work is a single JSON manifest. Its chapters are directed graphs:
panels are nodes, and edges say which panel may follow which, under what
condition and with what visual transition. A conventional comic is a chain of
edges; a choice is two edges with different conditions. Panels are composed of
layered images, video, text and sound, carry comic-style speech balloons and
clickable hotspots, and every reader-facing string is stored per language with
a defined fallback chain.

WHAT VERSION 1.7 COVERS

The format launches at version 1.7 after seven backward-compatible minor
releases during 2026. Every valid 1.0 manifest remains valid today.

  - Story structure: chapters, pages with placements and reading order, panels
    with layers, speech balloons, hotspots, audio and video tracks, and per-
    format views for mobile, desktop, print and video output.

  - Branching and state: graph edges with JSON Logic conditions and
    priorities, typed variables in five scopes, hotspot actions and mutations,
    and panel variants that swap content by reader state.

  - Video panels (1.1) with play and start modes, loops and poster frames;
    style presets (1.3) for reusable lettering and balloon styles; the
    infinite canvas (1.4), which places a chapter's panels on one continuous
    plane with authored camera moves; asset folders and translation state
    (1.5) so a complete work can travel between authoring systems; product
    catalogues, layer animations and alternative covers (1.6); and labelled
    choices, hotspots shown as buttons and chapters that simply follow their
    panel order (1.7).

  - Localization, accessibility and monetization: BCP-47 locales with fallback
    chains, per-locale asset variants, alt text, captions and transcripts,
    content warnings, and declarative paywall rules that leave payment
    processing to the publisher.

  - Extensibility: namespaced custom fields and a sandboxed plugin model, so
    third parties can extend manifests without breaking any reader.

TOOLING AND DOCUMENTATION

The specification ships as a JSON Schema (draft 2020-12) with a command-line
tool, @panelwave/cli, that validates, bundles, diffs and upgrades manifests,
and a TypeScript package, @panelwave/types, generated from the schema. The
MIT-licensed reference player renders any valid manifest and is published on
npm tomorrow, 7 October. The full format reference, concept guides and example
manifests are at docs.panelwave.org
(https://docs.panelwave.org/schema/overview).

"Digital comics never got their EPUB moment," said Jens Hoppe, founder of
PanelWave. "Every platform invented its own container, and every creator who
signed up got locked in. We are publishing the format first, before the
business around it, because the order matters: the standard has to be
something you can adopt without adopting us."

GOVERNANCE AND NEXT STEPS

The format follows semantic versioning. Minor versions are additive,
deprecated fields remain for at least one major version, and changes are
proposed through a public request-for-comments process. PanelWave presents the
format, the player and its authoring platform at the Frankfurter Buchmesse
from 7 to 11 October at the XPLR: MEDIA in Bavaria booth in Hall 5.0,
including a talk on the format on Friday, 9 October at 13:00.

The schema, licence and tooling are linked from panelwave.org/format
(https://panelwave.org/format).

ABOUT PANELWAVE

PanelWave is an open ecosystem for creating, distributing and experiencing
interactive graphic novels. It consists of three layers: an open JSON format
specification published under CC BY 4.0, an open-source web player under the
MIT licence, and a commercial no-code CMS for professional authoring,
localization, publishing and monetization. Stories are modelled as a graph of
panels with layered artwork, speech balloons, hotspots, audio and video,
branching narratives and multilingual content, and readers keep control of
pace, path, language and accessibility settings. Creators keep 100% of their
content revenue, and the open format ensures there is no vendor lock-in.
PanelWave is developed in Munich, Germany. More at panelwave.org
(https://panelwave.org).

MEDIA CONTACT

Jens Hoppe, Founder - press@panelwave.org - https://panelwave.org/press
