Cartoons & Comics

Growing up, I remember my dad always wanted the funnies section of the newspaper. The funnies were the comics. His favorites were Peanuts and Doonesbury. Other than the newspaper, I never really got into comics. I’ve definitely attempted branching out into graphic novels now their popularity is on the rise. I have so many artistic students, that I like to try to add having students draw their own comics when responding to text, summarizing, or for a writing assignment. Students either love it or hate it. Platform such a Pixton, Storyboard That! and Make Beliefs can help those non-artistic students (like myself) create their own comic without having to worry about their artistic ability.

Pixton

I had a love/hate relationship with Pixton. It seems like it’s only worth it if you put some money into it. The limited features on the free access doesn't allow for much. But it does get the user to want to try for more! The fact that you can customize the avatars clothing, hair, their position and more makes it so much fun! But less than 10 backgrounds are included in the free version as well as the limited, yet diverse, characters.

I created my account for education use, so it had me create an avatar. And I love mine so much. I enjoy using my Bitmoji for a lot of things, but I can’t help but use this avatar right now. Another nice thing about Pixton is if you choose to use this for your class, you can send a code out to your students and require them to log in with their school Google accounts. Students will then have to create their own avatars and eventually you will end up with a class photo (how fun!) You can pay a $10 a month subscription fee, getting a new “content pack” to use and build a collection or $24 a month to have access to all content packs. This will allow you and your students to go deeper with their comics. If you’re a teacher that can afford this, it might be worth it because then all of your students can access the content packs you purchase. Students should be able to use it alright, but may become frustrated at the lack of options.

This comic ended up being a commentary on the current situation the world is in. 

Make Beliefs

What I liked about this platform: different languages are provided which is awesome for campuses like ours that are a home base for newcomers. Prompts are provided for students and educators to use to get started. An account is not needed, but if you wanted to keep all of your comics in a space, you could create one. When you click on a character, it will provide different options as far as how the character is orientated.

What I did not care so much for with this platform: I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to add a background to my comic. The character buttons at the bottom confused me a little. They seemed to be advertising something, and I would get out of it only to realize that some characters were offered. The font size doesn’t change when you adjust the dialogue button.

Overall, this is a good platform to use for beginners. There aren’t a lot of options to sift through, but if your idea is simple enough, you can create something fun. Students should be able to use it rather easily.

This comic ended up being one that could be used in a library as a reminder that librarians are there for you and tend to know about upcoming titles that might interest readers. 

Storyboard That!

I’ve used this platform multiple times in the past. It provides a lot more options for backgrounds, characters, and dialogue or narration boxes. With a free account, your comic can only be 6 frames and you can only create two a month. One of the draw-backs to this platform is that you cannot adjust the characters positions. It’s good for summarizing chapters, recreating important scenes, or for a book talk. Students will be able to use it with ease.


For this comic, I decided to turn back to trusty Restart by Gordon Korman. This could be used as a book talk to get students interested.

Conclusion

One way I could use comics is to share funny memes with teachers and admin. Being in education is stressful and sometimes we could all use a laugh. Using comic strips to create memes or as simple reminders can be a fun way to break up those lengthy emails. I could also use it to advertise new and popular books in the library or new programs. If I have student aides, I could ask them to help create comics for the library to bring other students in.