Bypassing GoComics’ paywall
Some two weeks ago, I noticed that GoComics.com introduced a paywall, something like this: you display like 14 comics, then you’re asked to pay. For fuck’s sake, that’s preposterous!
So I looked for and found two workarounds, but each one needed adjustments.
The 1st fix for GoComics’ paywall
First of all, I’m using Firefox and uBlock Origin. I don’t fucking care about Chrome, Chromium, and other Chromium-based browser, although I do use Chromium for the websites (webapps, rather) that don’t like Firefox.
This Reddit post suggests adding a custom filter to uBlock Origin, but in my case the string after “RollUpUpsell_upsell__” was different. Also, I needed to add a few more rules.
Another Reddit post listed another set of rules. But I’m pretty sure that the ending of those classes would change periodically and randomly, so I came up with a more generic solution.
So, click on the uBlock Origin and then click the cog icon. Go to “My Filters” and add these lines to the end of the file:
www.gocomics.com##[class*="RollUpUpsell_upsell__"]
www.gocomics.com##[class*="Paywall_upsell__"]
www.gocomics.com##[class*="HeaderAd_headerAd__"]
www.gocomics.com##[class*="AdvertisingUnit_advertisingUnit__container___"]
www.gocomics.com##[class*="AdDisplay_adDisplay__"]
www.gocomics.com##html:style(overflow: auto !important;)This should be more future-proof.
The 2nd fix for GoComics’ paywall
Tampermonkey is another way to fix it, even for Firefox (why are some people recommending Violentmonkey?). So there is this guy who came with Gocomics-Depaywall. The actual script is gocomics.user.js.
But my Tampermonkey in Firefox complained about the syntax! So here’s my fixed version:
// ==UserScript==
// @name Gocomics Depaywall
// @description Bypasses the Gocomics Paywall and Removes Ads
// @icon https://github.com/Idiot-01/Gocomics-Depaywall/raw/master/Extension/icons/icon48.png
// @match *://*.gocomics.com/*
// @grant none
// @version 1.2-modified_by_ludditus
// @author Idiot01
// @downloadURL https://github.com/Idiot-01/Gocomics-Depaywall/raw/master/Userscript/gocomics.user.js
// @updateURL https://github.com/Idiot-01/Gocomics-Depaywall/raw/master/Userscript/gocomics.user.js
// @run-at document-end
// ==/UserScript==
// Set overflow to auto to allow scroll
(function() {
'use strict';
const style = document.createElement('style');
style.innerHTML = `
html, body {
overflow: auto !important;
}
`;
document.head.appendChild(style);
})();
// gets ad and softpaywall <div> elements and hides them
const observer = new MutationObserver(() => {
(function() {
'use strict';
document.querySelectorAll('div[class*="AdDisplay"], div[class*="HeaderAd"], div[class*="Upsell"]').forEach(el => el.remove());
})();
});
observer.observe(document.body, {childList: true, subtree: true});
// chat ads hidden within closed shadow root, can't removeAny of these two workarounds work for now on my computer(s). No need to use both!
What I usually read on GoComics
Life is too short, so I don’t visit more than these strips:
- Calvin and Hobbes — of course they are reruns, but this is the best comic strip in the known universe!
- Peanuts and Peanuts Begins — another classic, and the second-best comic strip, although it seems to be the most famous American classic strip, from Japan to Italy.
- Garfield — unavoidable.
- Wizard of Id and Wizard of Id Classics — can you see a pattern here? The classics are the “true” ones.
- Pearls before Swine — too bad the crocs are not present more often!
- Shoe — because I always loved it.
- B.C. and Back to B.C. — from the maker of the Wizard of Id. Again, “Back to” is the original. Mastroianni is not that good.
- Pickles — I’m not that old, but I can feel the pain!
- WuMo — a bit too modern sometimes.
A couple of tips now.
● The pictures on GoComics are grainier in recent times than they used to be. Right-click, Open Image in New Tab, and you’ll see why: the URL is something like this:
Well, just remove the crap at the end:
https://featureassets.gocomics.com/assets/d94d7b20f07e013d992c005056a9545d
💡Maybe a Tampermonkey script could fix this shit on the fly?
● There are some sites with search engines for comic strips:
- Search in Calvin and Hobbes — not perfect, though. Some unexpected errors can be frustrating. Also, reruns won’t be mentioned.
- Search in Peanuts — almost perfect, but, obviously, it only shows one of the occurrences of a specific strip, not all of its reruns; also, not the alternances monochrome/color or horizontal/vertical.
- Search in Pearls Before Swine — not without errors, unfortunately.
- For Garfield: this one can be used for searching, and this one for displaying in bulk.
How about Comics Kingdom?
Not everything American is on GoComics. There is much more on Comics Kingdom, such as:
- A strip a day style: Beetle Bailey, Bizarro, Blondie, The Brilliant Mind Of Edison Lee, Dennis The Menace, The Family Circus, Pluggers; and Shoe can also be read here.
- Long stories serialized in daily pieces: Dick Tracy, Judge Parker, Mandrake the Magician, Mary Worth, Rex Morgan M.D.
💡 Joshua Fruhlinger is a fan of such comics, and you’ll find selections with sometimes sarcastic comments on The Comics Curmudgeon.
I remember that I stopped visiting Comics Kingdom because it used to restrict how much you could scroll back in time for each comic. After all, they advertise for their subscription. But right now, it looks like I can click on “Load more comics” indefinitely! I’m not sure why this happens or, if this is normal, why would anyone subscribe?
Either way, I do have a small tip here, too. There’s a way someone could write a script to programmatically navigate and download strips from this site.
Say you go to https://comicskingdom.com/brilliant-mind-of-edison-lee/2016-02-28 with Firefox. Ctrl+U to view the source. Ctrl+F and search for either of og:image or twitter:image. You’ll then find as content the URL of the image; in this case, https://wp.comicskingdom.com/comicskingdom-redesign-uploads-production/2016/02/The-Brilliant-Mind-Of-Edison-Lee.ENG_.2016-02-28.jpeg
The rule used to form such URLs is obvious, so a script to mass download the archives of one’s preferred strip should be easy to design.
Unfortunately, this only works for older strips. Newer strips have random image names. Say you go to https://comicskingdom.com/brilliant-mind-of-edison-lee/2025-04-18 — you’ll find that the actual comic strip is https://wp.comicskingdom.com/comicskingdom-redesign-uploads-production/2025/04/Y2tUaGUgQnJpbGxpYW50IE1pbmQgT2YgRWRpc29uIExlZS1FTkctNDk3NTQ1Mg.jpg, so a visit to a page’s source is required. But this could be scripted too!
😟 The problem, right now, is that everyone hates America because of the Orange Retard and his gang, so even I don’t feel like reading American strips for the time being.
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