Creating Classroom Comics

Regular readers of this website will no that I have a real passion for the use of comics and graphic novels in the classroom. My favorite free on-line comic creation tools at the moment are Comic Brush and Pixton.

Comic Brush (www.comicbrush.com) is a bit like a free version of Comic Life and it allows you to make on-line comics for the iPhone / iPod, comic strips and full length comics. It is easy to use and you can either insert your own pictures into the comic strip or download an art pack (small charge) or do a bit of both. The art packs are great as they allow you to introduce licensed characters / artwork such Judge Dread or manga into your comics.

Here is an example of a comic brush comic that I made quickly about the recent Handheld Learning 2009 Conference. All the pictures I have used in the comic were taken by James Clay.

(click on the image to make it bigger)

Pixton (www.pixton.com) is equally as good but serves a different purpose. With Pixton you can really develop the fine detail of a character right down to facial expression and gestures. Pixton is free to use but you can also pay for an education license that gives the teacher more control over student accounts.

Here is a quick example of a pixton comic that I used recently to set some tasks at a recent Learning and Teaching Scotland whole staff event.

The problem is despite these tools being free they may be blocked by some local education authorities and they rely on a reasonable bandwidth in order for them to work properly.

As a result I like to remind teachers that you can actually produce fairly good comics in PowerPoint. I recently produced an Innovative Teacher InnoVid on the subject which some people may find interesting (version embeded below).

You can find out more information about InnoVids here.

And if thats not enough comic stuff for you you could also have a look at these 100 tips, tools and resources for teachers.

Comments

[Erin Conway]

Comics is a graphic medium in which images are utilized in order to convey a sequential narrative; the term, derived from massive early use to convey comic themes, came to be applied to all uses of this medium including those which are far from comic.

Creating classrooms comics was funny and creative. Its like making journal to your past study with words in there head wanting to say something funny or serious.

[Bill Boyd]

Ollie,
A terrific post and a very valuable resource for teachers. It's an ideal way for kids to create narrative using a format which we have all engaged with from an early age. I for one was totally unaware that PowerPoint had that facility.

Bill

[Juliet Robertson]

Thanks for this info Ollie. I'm a bit of a silent fan of comic life and welcome any freebie apps per se. It's great for reporting on school grounds improvements and all sorts of others aspects of outdoor learning. Aah and aha!

[Suzie S]

Ollie
I have just tried this out with my fourth year class - I got them to evaluate each site compared to SerifDraw which we use up here. This is one pupil's comments, which he emailed me, which seems to sum up well the evaluation of the packages for them. "Pixton- Easy to use and you do need to sign up.

Comic Brush- sign up required, easy to use.

Read, Write and Think- The worst out of the five, couldn’t find the comic creator.

Serif Draw- Rather complex to use, but impressive results when used correctly.

Marvel Superhero Comic Generator- Very slow loading time, after 5 min wait still could not access site."

It worked out well so I might try another classes views. I am looking into ideas for the S1/S2 course next year. This would also be good for other years. Hope this is useful!!!

[Suzie S]

Those that did get onto the Marvel site loved it! "Awesome! Very good!". Couldn't get them off the computer at the end of the lesson - which is not normally the case.

[Ollie Bray]

Thats great Suzie - thanks for the feedback! OB