There is no shortage online of tools for creating cartoons and comic strips. Every week it seems that I find at least one new comic creation tool. I’ve tried many of them and written about a few of them in the past. Today, I compiled a list of seven good cartoon and comic strip creation tools that students can access.
1. Pixton is a comic creation tool that has been passed around the education blog-o-sphere quite a bit lately. Pixton has a drag and drop interface which allows anyone regardless of artistic ability to create comics. Recently Pixton introduced Pixton for Schools which allows teachers to create private rooms in which only their students can create and share comics. To learn more about Pixton, watch this short video.
2. Artisan Cam is more than just a comic creator, it is a comprehensive collection of online art activities. On Artisan Cam students can use the Super Action Comic Maker to build a six frame comic. The Super Action Comic Maker has a drag and drop interface which students use to select a background and character for their comics.
On Artisan Cam students can also try their hand at virtual sculpting, jewelry design, and card making.
The next five comic creation tools have previously been written about on Free Technology for Teachers.
3. PikiKids provides a variety of layouts to which students can upload images then edit the images or add text bubbles and titles. The comics that students create can be embedded into a blog or website as well as be shared via email. You can read more of my original post about PikiKids here.
4. Comiqs provides users with the choice of using pre-made images from the drag and drop menu or creating original doodles to use in their comic strips. Comiqs presents your finished product in a slideshow format rather than a traditional comic strip format. Read more about Comiqs including a note about the Comiqs terms of service here.
5. Be Funky is a fun, easy-to-use tool for turning digital photos into digital comics. Be Funky can be used for simple one frame images or be used to create an entire strip of cartoonized images with inserted text. You can learn more about Be Funky and watch a video introduction to Be Funky here.
6. Make Beliefs provides students with a pre-drawn characters and dialogue boxes which they can insert into each box of their comic strip. One of the most impressive features of Make Beliefs is that it allows students to create dialogues in seven different languages. Click here for more information about Make Beliefs.
7. Art Pad and Sketch Pad aren’t designed specifically for cartooning, but they certainly can be used to create comics. I used Sketch Pad to create my cartoon Every Teacher Should Have a Blog. Art Pad and Sketch Pad are designed for free hand doodling and drawing. Art Pad offers a few more options than Sketch Pad, specifically Art Pad allows you to selectively erase parts of a drawing while Sketch Pad’s only erase option erases the entire drawing. You can read more about Art Pad and Sketch Pad here.
