Cartoons and Comics

Cartoons and comics are a fun way to learn, read, and feel entertained.  Cartoon and Comics are becoming more and more popular than before. Students need to be engaged in learning so why not do it with a comic strip?  Below are a few websites for creating comic strips and some recommendations.


ToonDoo


ToonDoo is a free website that allows you to create fun and entertaining comic strips and cartoons. Once you log in, it is very easy to work with. It is very student friendly. When creating a comic strip, it first provides you with a variety of layout options to choose from. Once you choose your layout, it provides you with many tools that allow you to edit your comic as you are creating it. There are many options available, such as choosing different characters, backgrounds, and items that you can click and drag to the layout. It also gives you options such as creating your own characters, enlarging or shrinking items, rotating and flipping the pictures being added, and it gives you a variety of of other tools available to continue creating your comic strip. Once you are done you can publish it, keep it private, share it with others, and allow others to edit it. It also lets you read other users comics. I really enjoyed creating my comic strip through ToonDoo. Students would easily be able to use it without any problems. I would use this with my students.

By ehv002 | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon

Pixton

Pixton is another great cartoon and comic strip maker that is free and fun to work with.  To start creating a comic you select create a comic. Then it gives you a layout option to select which includes a comic strip, storyboard, or graphic novel. You then have a choice of selecting from different backgrouds provided. Then it gives you different characters to choose from. The talking bubbles are already provided in the panels as you create your comic strip. Selecting your items allows you to see buttons that relate to what your doing. At first, it was a little difficut to work with beacause there are certain things you need to be aware of when creating your comic strips.  As you will see below in the comic strip I created, the characters are always in the same position.  I realized after I had posted it that there are options to change the position of the characters. I went back and changed the positions of the characters on my comic strip below. By clicking on the character, it then gave me options to choose the characters position.  If you click on the link below my comic strip, you will see the different positions.  The final step was saving it which was pretty easy to do. At the end it allows you to share it in an email, embedd into your site, or  share the link provided at the bottom of your comic strip. To download and print you have to pay a fee. Overall, I really enjoyed woking with Pixton. I believe it is easy enough to use with older students beacause it is a little more difficult.

Please click on the link below to view the different positions of the characters in the comic strip.

https://Pixton.com/ic:niyvo8y6



Make Beliefs Comix


Make Beliefs Comix is also a free website to create fun comic strips.  It does not require you to create an account which is great because you can get started right away.  It provides you with the panels. All you have to do is select your characters, background, objects and words.  It does allow you to type in your own words and choose your choice of talking bubbles. You click on the character, background, or item, then you click on the desired option to edit it such as, delete, bring to front or back, flip, scale or move.  It also gives you the option of choosing panel prompts.  I did find it fun to use but a little more time consuming because I had to explore the buttons to figure out how to work with it and it had a limited amount of characters and backgrounds to choose from. Overall, this was the hardest to use and create a comic strip.
















Creating comic strips with these three websites was very entertaining. Using comic strips in schools can be an engaging part of learning any subject.  I can definitely see the benefits that students can gain through comic strips while writing to express themselves.  I would suggest teachers to use comic strips because they can use them to teach things like sequence of events, create autobiographies, and  engage ESL students in learning through visuals aids.  Out of all the three, I enjoyed working with ToonDoo the best.  It is very easy to use and provides you with alot more options.