Comic Chameleon

Disclaimer- I do not read comic books- I say comic books because thanks to Sheldon Cooper I am given to understand comics are located in the "Funnies" section of the newspaper and back when newspapers were delivered and not downloaded I did read comics.  The exception is Captain America (obsessed over here). 

That being said I have never tried to create my own.  Stan Lee achieved the perfect one the first go around. Who knew that you could use them to educate?  Not to mention the awesome circulation power of graphic novels.  But thanks once more to our pal the internet a new method of creating is upon us!  Behold- the comic creating websites (and they're free too!).

I gave three different sites a test drive to figure out how and when I might be able to use my new found technology ace in the hole- I mean can you imagine how cool your principal would think you are if you presented her with student created, educational comic strips?  Hello good PDAS.  Below you will find my reviews of each site.

Pixton-  This site is so fun.  It is by far the most sophisticated of the sites I previewed.  You can design your own character, select layouts, backgrounds, everything.  Plus you can change your character's pose and facial expressions as you go.  No other site offered that.  Unlike the other sites you could add as many frames as you needed to tell your story.  I had a lot of fun with this site.  My ELAR kids would eat this up- and I think they will come Halloween when we will be illustrating our own stories rather than just writing them this year!  They can design the comic in class before hand and then using either a computer lab or COW (computers on wheels) make and print out their very own comic!  Down side- the free version doesn't let you download your comic.  But it does offer a deal for educators- I just didn't have time to check it all out.  I did snip my from the screen so you could enjoy.  P.S. I do kind of look like my character- similar build, hair (yes it's purple for the summer), glasses, etc but I would never wear those clothes.

Comic Book!- This is a totally free site which is great for schools.  Its really easy to use.  You select your layout, your background, all that jazz.  The up side, this site lets you chose whether to make a strip or an entire book- can you cay group project??? You can also upload images to use and this site has tons of clip art.  The tools are simple and could be demonstrated in maybe 10 minutes. Drawback- once you select which layout you want there's no adding to it.  You can't stick an additional frame in at the end if you need to.  It does let you share your comic as well as let others edit it so you have a nice way for people to share a project.  You can also down load your final results.  However, this site is much more juvenile than Pixton. Old kids might get bored quickly.

See what I mean? I really needed an extra frame to show the librarian getting the book but I couldn't add one- bummer.

Make Beliefs Comic- If you teach elementary level students this is probably the best site for an intro into making comics.  There is no registration required so you don't have to stress about 6 year olds not having email addresses.  You just go there and get busy.  That being said this site is BASIC.  What you see is what you get.  No fancy uploads, facial expressions or changing poses here.  Point and Click.  But again for younger kids this works great.  For older kids you could always throw this is for a quick warm up if you have the equipment to do so.  You can save your comic before leaving the site.

I really wanted to increase the font size without increasing the balloon but didn't figure out how to before I moved on.