Comic Life makes it easy to make simple comics. Just drag and drop the panel layout, photos, and speech bubbles, fill in the text, add effects and you're done!

You can even add filters to the photos, to render them in black-and-white, negative, or look drawn-in.

The software is incredibly simple and fun to use, with virtually no learning curve.

Comic Life is slated to be included software on all new Intel iMacs and MacBook Pros.

Sample Comic: Promotional Contests (New Window)

Comic Life Software Review

Price: $29.95 US retail, Price for Education: $19.95 (single), $499.95 (unlimited district license), value: Incredible

Publisher: Plasq Software (plasq.com)

Comic Life is an amazingly intuitive comic publishing program. It is low threshold (meaning easy for teachers and students and others to get started on), low friction (meaning easy to use in with respect to preparation, process and production) tool that supports the transformation of ideas and images (photographs or otherwise) into marvelously satisfying comic creations. Even the sound effects are meaningful and helpful.

A short five or ten minute demonstration is sufficient to get a classroom full of students (5 minutes) or teachers (10 minutes) up to speed and working on their own projects.

Comic Life has the flexibility and feature set to support the efficient creation of any type of comic – whether it be a single pane editorial cartoon for the web, a three pane comic for a newsletter, a full page Sunday funny, or even a graphic novel. But the most liberating feature of this program is that it uses photographs (and other captured or created images) as the primary visual source material - eliminating drawing ability as an impediment to the creation of pleasing comics.

The layout of a new comic is entirely flexible, starting with a blank page, users may either generate their own layout a pane at a time, or begin with one of the hundreds of included templates. The program provides access to images through a Libraries tab - with direct access to the iPhoto library, rowsing access to other resource files through the Finder, or even an ad-hoc image capture process that supports an attached iSight camera. Once an image is generated or located, it is simply dragged to the intended frame and rotated or resized and clipped as necessary to achieve the desired visual effect.

Switching to the Details tab provides tools to manipulate the look of the images with photoshop-like filters that support the transformation of images into several different default comic-like styles (from sepia with an exaggerated old-fashioned dot print pattern to acrylic paint) or into one of thousands of possible other filter combinations. The artist can also customize the panes (size, edges, shapes, shadows, weights, etc.) until the desired visual presentation is achieved.

The text components are equally easy to generate: simply drag a caption, a talk bubble, a thought bubble, a narration box (e.g., meanwhile) or a sound effect text component (e.g. POW!) onto the document, type (or paste) the text that is needed, and then switch to the Details tab to modify the font and style until the appearance is satisfactory.

The potential for this application to support education through student engagement and success is incredible. As teachers allow students to support their creative and expository writing endeavors with visual contexts, they are lightning the word-smithing load associated with the composing and communicating task and increasing the likelihood that students will be able to satisfactorily communicate their ideas.

Teachers can have students create comic adventures, generate effective representations of mathematical or scientific concepts, or summarize their understanding of historical or cultural events. Beginning with a blank sheet of paper, students can work through the planning process - creating a storyboard to guide the production, adding in notes and diagrams describing the scenes and text bubbles containing the dialog or commentary.

Once the design is finalized and the images and ideas are captured, the final product comes together very quickly and can easily be printed or shared on the web. The resulting well-refined learning artifacts are both agreeable and affirming to the producers and often interesting and engaging to those who are given the opportunity to read them. With Comic Life comes a real potential for children, teenagers and adults to be so satisfied with their efforts that they are eager to share with both their peers and their families.

Tim Pelton (tpelton@uvic.ca)

Dr. Pelton is an assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Victoria, where he teaches courses in mathematics education and technology in education. His research interests include numeracy, assessing problem gambling, measurement theory, and the application of technology to enhance learning.

Leslee Francis Pelton (lfrancis@uvic.ca)

Dr. Francis Pelton is an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Victoria where she teaches courses in mathematics and mathematics education. Her areas of interest include numeracy, problem solving, and using technology to enhance learning.