Comics and Cartoons

Make Beliefs Comix is a super simple and easy to use comic building website. This is a great starter website for anyone interested in toying around with making comics. You're allowed one of three panel options, two panels, three panels, or four panels, all horizontal. You can choose from ten different backgrounds, or choose one of seven colors. There are a limited number of characters and items, and the speech bubbles are a set size of three different types. I would recommend this for younger students or in an elementary setting, or for anyone just starting out.

Toondoo is a bit more advanced. There are many more different panel options, and even more different characters, backgrounds, images and more. You can choose a character and change their facial expressions! That little feature sold me on it. You can create your own character as well. Which I've been thinking about doing lately, and you can use it as an avatar. I've always been jealous of people with clever avatars, and now I'll have one! There is literally, so much stuff, so many things to customize, that you could spend all day playing here and still not see everything.  This is definitely one that I'll use with students, but only after they get used to the flow of creating a comic strip by using MakeBeliefsComix first. I can see students having a great time with this website. Maybe have them start by creating an avatar, that will be a reoccurring character in later comic assignments. 

Pixton is a buggy little site. It's good enough, and gets the job done. You can add on panels as you need, create your own character and change their hair, hair color, eyes, height, size, clothes, etc. Then there are preset movements that you can make your character do. When you are finished with your comic, you click save, and the website sends a copy to your email. Supposedly. I checked my email multiple times, double checked the spelling, checked the spam folders, and nothing. Once I get back to the website, I'm unable to start a new comic, or even return to the main page. 


All in all, out of all three websites, Toondoo is where it's at. I can see myself using this to create interesting directions for students or for SEL (social and emotional learning) lessons. I would love to create a set of beginning of the year procedures and classroom rules. As far as students using this, SEL comes to mind first. I would love to have students create a scene based on one of our SEL lessons, standards of behavior, or character traits. I feel like that would be a great beginning of the year lesson. I could also have students recreate their favorite scene from a book that we're reading in class. There are tons of of activities you can do, from science and social studies, to SEL, reading and grammar.