Techno-test: Online Comic Makers in the Classroom #1

I have learnt this week that something helpful in small numbers can reduce you to a frustrating mess of misplaced rage when the market is overpopulated. There are roughly 215,003 different comic making tools and applications that claim to be useful in the classroom. I dreamed a dream of students engaging with texts through witty, satirical comic strips that deepen their understanding and allow for a creative outlet. "How hard could it be?" I thought, actually shrugging my shoulders and looking quizzically at my cat. We all make mistakes.

Online comic makers are flying at teachers like the energetic fish in Life of Pi. I wanted a meal, not a broken rib, you scum of the water-world gill-breathers. (Once rage is misplaced, it's awfully hard to align it again. Stupid fish.)

I don't have a tiger to tear the sub-par tools to shreds, so I was forced to test and reject them on my own. Note to self: get a tiger. In the meantime, here are a few samples I knocked up on different comic strip makers, and the details on how time-consuming, frustrating and rewarding it was to use.










Make Beliefs Comix 

The good: You don't have to sign up to create or save your comic.
The bad: Pretty much everything else, if your students are over the age of 10. You can only work on three panels at a time (and the format is preset), and I hope you like black and white images and strangely formatted dialogue boxes that automatically translate punctuation into gobbledegook.
Frustrating? I wanted to die by the third panel.
Time-consuming? By the time you figure out the counter-intuitive format and find a character that doesn't look like a stranger who'll offer you free spiritual counselling or teach you the birds and the bees, its been half an hour and you just want a lie down.
Rewarding? Not really. After all that effort trying to recreate the opening scene of Macbeth, this comic strip is telling the story of a secret meeting between three ageing misfits at a quiet corner of a Nimbin commune. I guess that's pretty cool, but not really the intended outcome. With a bit of explicit teaching this would be a good tool to use with primary students. Just don't try anything fancy.

Comic Master

The good: The graphics are insane (and come out high-res A4 sized), and the style is decidedly more 'modern'. You don't have to sign up to print/save as PDF, but it's a good idea because it's free, and you can store and edit multiple pages.
The bad: There are only a few character options, and all are 'superhero' types. Backgrounds options are similarly sparse. This would be a hindrance to creating 'serious' narratives or creative responses to texts with, you know, human characters. I just can't see Liesel in The Book Thief with blue hair. Maybe it's me.
Frustrating? This was pretty intuitive for anyone who has ever used photo editing software, or even Paint. I didn't make more than two frustrated sounds in the process of making this, so I'm going to take that as a win. Secondary students should be able to pick this up pretty easily.
Time-consuming? Because it was easy to navigate, it took all of 6 minutes to knock this up.
Rewarding? I might be naive, but this looks like an actual comic book strip to me. The characters look like they're engaging with each other and the style is spot-on. I feel like I want to print this out and stick it on my fridge.

Next up: Pixton and Strip Generator. Plus a final verdict if I don't smash my computer first. I'm looking at you, fish fingers.