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The comic compiler, retro style.

Okay, these image libraries suck:

Imagemagick (because it doesn't optimize PNG's right)
GD (because it has no "downgrade to 16 greys" functionality)

So I rewrite the comic compiler again... and find that Slackware's NetPBM utilities date back to 1998.  Okay, update that, and recheck the docs...

...and gut the recompiler.  90% of the pixel-pushing, including worrying about placement, NetPBM handles already.  I could rewrite it in bash.

ImageMagic origonal version:  142 lines of code.
GD version (PNG output): 116 lines of code.
ImageMagic PNG output: 87 lines of code

NetPBM version:  69 lines of code
"does nothing" base (for comparison): 49 lines.

I wonder what the bash version would be like.