Why My Portfolio Has Superpowers and Villain Galleries
This is a submission for the New Year, New You Portfolio Challenge Presented by Google AI
About Me
When I started thinking about my portfolio, I realized most developer portfolios look the same. Clean, minimal, professional. Nothing wrong with that, but it wasn’t really me. I wanted something that showed I can do the technical work but also that I don’t take myself too seriously. That’s where the comic book theme came from. It’s a bit ridiculous, but it works.
Portfolio
How I Built It
Built this with React 19 and TypeScript because I wanted type safety and didn’t want to deal with prop-type headaches. Used Vite for the build setup since it’s fast and doesn’t require much configuration. Tailwind handled the styling with a custom theme I put together using comic book colors and those classic comic effects like rotated text and bold borders.
For the data visualization stuff showing skill levels, I used Recharts. It’s straightforward and does what I needed without overcomplicating things. The whole thing runs in a Docker container and deploys to Google Cloud Run, which made sense since that’s what the challenge required anyway.
I used Google AI Studio and Gemini to help with the content. Writing about yourself is weird, so I had it help brainstorm section names and refine some of the project descriptions. It was useful for keeping the comic book voice consistent without going overboard. I’d feed it my rough notes about projects and it’d help make them more readable while keeping them honest.
The comic book theme isn’t just decoration. Instead of calling things “Skills” and “Projects,” I went with “Superpowers” and “Missions.” There’s a “Villain Gallery” section where I talk about actual problems I’ve dealt with, like systems going down for hours or AWS bills getting out of control. Each one shows what the problem was, how I fixed it, and what changed. It’s more interesting than just listing technologies.
Added some interactive stuff too. There’s a Konami Code easter egg if you’re into that sort of thing, and a click combo system that triggers effects if you click fast enough. Floating particles in the background give it some movement without being distracting. These weren’t necessary but they made it more fun to build.
The deployment was straightforward. Multi-stage Docker build where Node compiles everything, then Nginx serves the static files. Keeps the final image small, around 50MB. Cloud Run handles the scaling and HTTPS automatically, and I added the required label for the challenge. The whole setup deploys in a few minutes.
What I’m Most Proud Of
The theme actually works. Every section fits the comic book idea without feeling forced. Hover effects show “KAPOW!” and “ZAP!” text, section headers are rotated like comic panels, and the color scheme stays consistent. It’s cohesive but not overwhelming.
Behind all the comic book stuff, the content is real. I’ve got 9 cloud certifications, projects that range from serverless games to chaos engineering experiments, and actual results from work I’ve done. One project cut downtime by 95%, another reduced cloud costs by 35%. The fun presentation doesn’t hide that there’s substance underneath.
The interactive elements turned out better than I expected. The Konami Code works, the click combos feel responsive, and the floating particles add just enough movement. I also made sure it’s accessible with proper semantic HTML and ARIA labels, and it’s fully responsive. Tested it on mobile and it holds up.
Performance is solid too. Lighthouse scores are in the mid-90s across the board. The Docker image is optimized, and Cloud Run’s auto-scaling means it handles traffic spikes without me thinking about it. It’s set up properly for production even though it’s a portfolio site.
Honestly, I’m just glad I built something that shows what I can do technically while also showing I’m not a robot. If someone looks at this and thinks “this person knows their stuff but seems like they’d be decent to work with,” then it did its job.
Live Site: https://comic-portfolio-610288702971.us-central1.run.app
GitHub: https://github.com/lewisawe
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/lewisawe
