CARTOONS and COMICS

PIXTON


Pixton was not very easy to use in my opinion. It did not feel intuitive and there was very little customization that could be done to the comics. Moving the speech bubbles and characters was not easily accomplished because trying to select what you needed to move didn't always work. I ended up moving components of the background instead and that was very frustrating.
Saving was not difficult, and I did like that Pixton provides the ability to embed your comic on a website; you could even email it. Saving an image however was not possible unless you upgraded to the paid version for $8.99 per month.
Students could use this if they were in middle school or high school, but I don't believe that it would be the most fun experience they could have with making comics.

MAKE BELIEFS COMIX

I liked working with this better than Pixton but was still not impressed much. The images that are provided are nice and detailed but very limited. The range of emotions that you can assign a character make it difficult to take too many creative liberties with the comic. I have worked with it before (more than five years ago) and it has not changed much. It has good potential if more variety was incorporated.
Saving was not an option on the site since Make Beliefs Comix does not store them, but on the plus side, you can save the image and email it just like on Pixton.
Students would likely enjoy the greater ease of use of this comic maker versus Pixton, but I can predict that they would complain about the lack of customization. They would also ask "How can I do it then?"

TOONDOO

Of the three comic making tools I worked with, I liked ToonDoo the best. It had the greatest variety of images to select from. Inserting them was as easy as dragging into the panel, and there were many options for props, including flags of the world. Adjusting the images was also simple, with a tool bar below the strip. You are also able to add your own saved pictures.
The site saves your comics, and you can set them to private or share exclusively with other people through e-mail. There was not an option to save an image but that was easily accomplished by right right-clicking over it and saving it.
The students would likely appreciate the variety of options on ToonDoo and I am confident enough to say that older elementary school students could work with this tool due to greater ease of use.

CONCLUSION
As a librarian I would inform and help the teachers learn how to use a variety of comic making tools. Their students could illustrate their short stories, ESL and foreign language students practice the target language by creating short dialogues, students in theater classes could bring to life lines from a play, or they could create short "about me" biographies for the beginning of the school year. They are creative ways engage students in their content area without the push-back from students who sometimes feel self conscious about their artistic skills.