Today's task: Creating my own comic!

Making a comic might sound quite overwhelming, I know... Fortunately, it's not my first time - I designed a previous one regarding culture with a German colleague (an international project from my college). However, we need to understand the whole picture beforehand.

First thing first, we need to contextualize the comic. A comic consists of a book/magazine containing a story expressed in strips within a small level of written text. 

Its origin is located in 1964 by Richard Kyle in a graphic novel. In addition, in the late 19th century strips became popular within The Yellow Kid book in the states. When it comes to Europe, The Adventures of Tin Tin (1928) make this genre popular as well. 

Tin Tin Image by Vinson Tan ( 楊 祖 武 ) from Pixabay.

Nowadays, comics are commonly known and a lot of students prefer reading them rather than traditional books (such as novels or picturebooks). Consequently, multiple apps enable us to create an online comic in a dynamic and engaging way. There exist several websites such as Pixton, Creaza, StoryboardThat, Comic and Meme Creador and so on. However, let focus on one of them.

What is Pixton about? 

Pixton enables its users to create graphic novels or regular comics you can print, download os share on the web. 

Firstly, you can create your main character by choosing the gender, editing the tone, hair colour, hairstyle, eye shape, eyebrows, eye colour, nose shape, lips; adding earrings, glasses, headwear, pose, and so on. 

👈 This is my Pixton avatar. She looks so nice, doesn't she? 

Beyond creating the main character, this first step allows you to start familiarising with its functioning in a practical way. Since our avatar has been created, we can make our comic!

How did you create "My first day at school 👩‍🏫" comic?

Once you create your first comic, you see a bar with different sections:

Firstly, you can choose among different backgrounds (22 background to be precise). That background can be differently displayed in the "focus" section.    👉

Consequently, you can emphasise the story based on the way the strip is shown. 

As you can observe, there is a purple section named "characters". You can add 6 characters at maximum in every strip. That character can be modified as it has been made with the main avatar. 

The "words" section, as it can be easily guessed, enables us to make the characters speak - in a speech, thought, shout or whisper bubble. Additionally, you can add the caption in the upper or lower part of the strip.

 
 

The "Faces" section allows you to choose among different facial expressions. You can look for it - just typing the emotion you want. Can you see the eye symbol next to the strip? Through this part, you can change where the avatars' eyes are looking at. 

It is very useful because the avatar can look to whenever you want to and helps you a bit to enhance its emotion within the situation.

Besides, below the strip there are different pictures regarding daylight or nightlight - this effect can tone down the strip if you want to. 

Last but not least, through the "Actions" section you can add different poses. As in the faces section, you can look for a specific pose by typing it in the search bar. In addition, next to the strip there are three round symbols. 

The "hand" ones can be used to add certain objects to the avatar (such as phones, balls, light, etc.). The lightning symbol enables you to join halos in the avatar. 

I know what you are thinking... "These tools are great, but could you apply them in your comic?" Good question dear reader! In order to answer it, let's take a look at my comic:

My first day at school  👩‍🏫 - Pixton comic

Did you like it? I've created this comic to read with 4th, 5th or 6th graders. I consider it a great tool to make students reflect on their feelings at school. I create one student for each basic emotion, so the faces and actions are crucial to making a real feeling. 

In addition, I add a mobile phone at the beginning to recreate a call, a light and a bag to make the avatar very well-prepared, and so on. Furthermore, I modify some strips when it comes to the lighting, so scare and angry emotions are displayed according to their aura. 

Tell us the prons!

✔️ I really like the way the resource is shown - it is very easy to start making your comic, very intuitive.

✔️ It is completely safe for students. Pixton enables the teacher to create a class, choosing the grade, the content you want to show even the characters you allow to appear.

✔️ There exist multiple characters, so your story can be diverse from the very beginning. 

✔️ There exist several features which you can edit (the sections previously mentioned), so the comic becomes much more real.

✔️ This source has been hugely developed, so it enables teachers to create very engaging activities. In addition, you can join this source from multiple platforms such as Chromebooks, PCs, Macs, iPads, Android tablets. 

What can be improved?

❌ The most negative characteristic I've found consist of not being able to share, print or downland until you pay for it. That is the reason why the comic is not perfectly seen - just allows us to take screenshots.

❌ A lot of tools are not available because -once again- you need to pay for them. There are characters enough, but when it comes to backgrounds, outfits or faces are pretty brief. 

I am conscious of everything has its price. However, Pixton could allow sharing just one comic with 5 strips at maximum or something like that. Furthermore, I would suggest offering the users to try for free this app with some content packs that are not regularly available. This is very useful to make you consider its value and be 100% sure to pay for it. 

I've already tried Pixton as a student and I considered it very engaging! I am not very skilled when it comes to drawing, so these resources allow me to focus on the story in a very dynamic way - rather than trying to draw the same character in very different poses and emotions. In addition, children would love it since it implies ICT in class. Furthermore, children can edit the same story with different resources and the teacher can constantly review their comics. 

In light of the above, I consider it an excellent tool to create comics. However, you need to be ready to pay for it to develop it in class... 

Please, let me know if you've tried out Pixton or other sources before. I hope you find this post useful. Take care! 😊