Making Comic Strips

Making comic strips can be fun and there are tools out there to help you achieve what you want. They seem to all be pretty easy to navigate, it just depends on the amount of graphics you need and want to help you choose the right one. 

MakeBeliefsComix was very easy to utilize even a small child would have fun creating their own comic strip. I wish it had more graphics, it is limited in the amount available to use. It can be printed and/or e-mailed to yourself and only one friend. That's okay because once you receive the e-mail you can post it on Facebook or resend to all your friends. The hardest part would be teaching students how to save the comic strip since you have to take a screenshot, paste it to paint, crop it and then save it as an image for any other use. I loved that I didn't have to log in or create an account.

                           

The following comic strip was made using ToonDoo which was really easy. You do have to sign up for access but it's free. Now this tool was awesome because it had more graphics and the were in color. I also had the ability to manipulate the sizes and layering objects easily. As for saving the comic strip, it gives you a choice to publish it to everyone, yourself or friends by e-mail. It does let you print and save to your computer but I had to exit the toon maker and click "My toondoc". Then it was just a matter of hitting save on my computer. Overall its a great tool even for kids to make their own.

Pixton was super easy because it had templates already set up to choose from. All I had to do was create my character and type in the speech boxes I was finished very quickly. There are other templates and a freestyle section. The only thing I didn't like was that you have to earn credits in order to download to your computer. You do get more options with an upgrade for $4.95 a month, it might be worth it for the amazing graphics and limitless possibilities.

I had fun creating my own comic strips with these tools. As I said in the beginning its all up to how much graphics are needed and if you want to spend some money. For me ToonDoo was easy, had plenty of graphics and was free. It will be easy to create story starters, language lessons, vocabulary, sight words, sequence, literary terms, comprehension and many other skills. It will bring fun back to teaching.