using online comic creators: November 2009

Monday, November 30, 2009

Introduction

With comics gaining popularity, library and education professionals are aiming to provide comics and graphic novels to their users and students. In the wake of this popularity, books about comics/graphic novels are starting to become commonplace on the shelves of these institutions. Books analyzing comic artists, books analyzing comics and books of how to draw comics are just a few examples showing the influence of comics. It is not only a matter of providing books to users and students but it is also becoming a trend to assemble these resources to use in classroom and library activities.

Comics in the Classroom

Online, there is a plethora of material for using comics and creating comics in the classroom. Comics in the Classroom is one site that provides lesson plans, news/reviews on comics, and webcomic links. Teaching Comics, the online presence of the National Association of Comics Art Educator, provides study guides, handouts of how to draw different styles of comics, and articles about comics in the classroom. Lastly, Comics in the Classroom: 100 Tips, Tools, and Resources for Teachers, provides links to articles, listing of resources, suggested comics and comic creators to name a few. Teachers, in schools and online, are coming together to share classroom learning experiences. For additional information, look to Comics in the Classroom on the side menu.

Comics in the Library

Compared to classrooms, libraries just becoming a part of the comic activity scene. The focus of creating comics organically (paper and pen/pencil) is the norm. One such example is the Cape May County Library in New Jersey. Two accomplished comic artists, Raina Telgemeier, illustrator of ‘The Babysitters Club” graphic novels, and David Roman illustrator of “Jax Epoch” and writer of “Agnes Quill," put on a comic creating workshop for the teens. While comic workshops are starting to become a part of library activities, librarians are not taking advantage of reviewing and/or creating online comics and there is little academic or online evidence to suggest otherwise.

Purpose of this Blog

The purpose of this blog will be to present and review 8 online comic creators. This review will analyze the flexibility, creativity, and degree of access each comic creator provides. Most of the criteria will be taken from the "Reading the Pictures" section of LIS 404/518 Lecture notes. Based on these notes, the criteria will serve to establish whether a comic creator provides all the necessary elements of a comic. There are aspects of webcomics that do not relate to organic comic creation thus additional criteria will be presented to cover these areas. The criteria:

Background: This is to show the reader when and where characters are. Backgrounds set the moods, can be stereotypical in order to convey atmosphere and sets the stage for characters or is a stage in its own right. In context to comic creators, is there variety in their selection, are there stereotypes, do they set a mood?

Body Language: Posture, gestures with face, hands and arms illustrate personality, convey inner thoughts, or potential action. With comic creators, is there variety in the selection of arm gestures, facial expressions (found in mouth, lips, eyes, eyebrows), available postures (slumping, rigid, sitting, standing, poising, etc)?

Clothing: The shape of the clothing suggests implied movement. The continual use of one clothing style shortens time to draw and focuses on message rather than appearance. Comic creators must be gaged for diversity or simplicity of clothing (tops and bottoms, shoes, masks, hats, accessories, etc, props) in representing the personality of their character.

Devices: Speed lines, the visual equivalent of sounds and any other devices are to be immediately recognizable and add to the mood or message of the comic. With comic creators, are there devices, and if so, are there a variety to choose from?

Focus: Depth of picture created by an object or character sets a tone and shows relevance of object/character to the story. It must be considered whether comic creators offer this feature or not.

Gutters: "The primary aim of the sequential artist is to get the reader so involved in the following action that they "fill in" the gaps between the panels and move at the author's intended pace."Do comic creators provide a variety in gap styles or are there even any gaps?

Lettering: Variations in size and proportion sets to display or emphasize; captions that are not in speech bubbles but found in boxes at the top or bottom of the frame; sound effect lettering can be found inside and outside of captions. What do comic creators provide in context to lettering?

Panels: Panels define the parameters; set the rhythm of the story; is a link between the reader and the story; comes in different shapes and sizes. Do comic creators use one standard of panneling or is there variety?

Speech Balloons: Speech balloons are usually ovals, rectangles with rounded corners, or irregular shapes billowing horizontally around the words. Direct speech gives more control to the characters. With comic creators is there only one style of speech balloons or a variety? Can the speech balloons reverse, be made larger or smaller?

Stereotypes: Stereotypical backgrounds, characters and objects help the reader to easily identify the message or situation whether there is a connection to reality or not. Comic creators have stereotypes, but to what extent and is their selection entirely stereotypes?

Registration: With comic creators, can a user immediately create a comic before registering? What is the process?

Accessibility: Once the comic is created how accessible is it? How is the creator able to make it accessible or allow accessibility of the comic to others?

Intended users: Who is the comic creator presenting their style of comics to?

Defining Online Comic Creators

Creating webcomics falls under two categories: creating original work through drawings or photographs or creating original work through the provision of templates. Online comic creators provide templates of bodies and backgrounds. Several comic creators also allow the ability to upload photographs and to add or change the structure of the content. Some common features of function for comic creators is creating a user account, emailing webcomics to friends, posting finished comics to the comic creator website to be viewed by other members, and rating or leaving comments on other user's webcomics. This blog will only review comic creators that provide templates, the ability to use photographs to make webcomics and require no fee to register.

Bitstrips

Registration: Registration is not required to play around with Bitstrip. Exploring is limited to pre-selected scenarios with the body of the character already positioned for the situation. However, by registering, the user can select the number of panels, create depth of perspective with the character, manipulate the characters, etc. The creator can also take part of the social networking that is provided on the site such as create an avatar, and post his/her strip to the various genres to be reviewed or commented on. By creating a user account, the user can get full access.

Background: The background feature is quite extensive. It is packed with landscape, city, indoor and stereotypical scenes. However, creating a background from scratch is not one of the offered features.

Body Language: In the creation of a character, several body shapes can be selected. The style of hair, eyes, mouth, nose, etc, can be chosen and made large or small by clicking on each body part. Once created, the body can be positioned at different angles such as face forward or a side to side angle. However, when creating the comic strip, there are several options to put the body in motion and change the facial features. Hands, arms, legs, body and head can be placed in various positions. The user can choose ready-made facial expressions or can go through several buttons to change the expressions to his/her preference.

Clothing: The selection of clothing is limited for both sexes. Tops/bottoms, shoes, sock, glasses, hats are limited to 3 or 4 items. There is no detail on any of the items. However, there are multiple of colors that can be used on most of the articles of clothing. There are some pieces that are considered to be part of the clothing ensemble but are in themselves not clothes. These would be called props and there is a decent selection found in this comic creator.

Devices: Bitstrip calls their devices "effects," and there are enough effects to choose from to make an interesting comic. There are such effects as speed lines, surprise or annoyance lines, question mark, and jump lines to name a few effects.

Lettering: Bitstrips lettering is quite basic. There is only one font style, with underline, bold and italic provided. Coloring is also one option, and the size of the text ranges from 4 to 98. For beginning creators, having simple options can make the creation experience easier.

Speech Balloons: Bitstrip refers to speech balloons as text bubbles. There are six text bubbles available, and interesting enough, each bubble's purpose is described in the bubble itself. This is a helpful when teaching the creation of comics to novices.

Gutters: The gutters for Bitstrip are always of the same width even when stretching and shortening the panels. However, the color of the gutters can change.

Panels: Panels can be stretched to overlap other panels. The selection of panels ranges from 1 to 8. The panels can be in solid color or have a background added to them.

Focus: Each panel has several features that allows the reader to focus on the landscape, the character or situation. There is a zoom feature that places the character up close or far away and this same feature also works with the landscape.

Stereotypes: The stereotypes that are provided in Bitstrips are mostly found with the backgrounds and the props. There is a section where famous and recognizable real life people can be used in the creation of a comic strip.

Accessibility: Once created, Bitstrips can be emailed to friends, linked to Facebook, placed on blogs and a list of other social networking sites.

Intended User: The age group Bitstrip aims to attract are adults or teens. With the level of detail in the creation of characters and overall structure and content of the panel, this comic's complexity is best put to use in the teen to adult sphere. The need for username and password suggests privacy and the immediate connection to the social networking that is built into the site is also access to possible questionable content. Teachers could use Bitstrip to creat comics for lessons plans. Librarians could hold comic creating contest that not only weighs creativity but also content.

Summary: Getting around this comic creator is quite easy. The overall structure allows easy transition from the making-comic section to reading other-user-comics section. There is enough variety to create comics for the various genres (sci-fi, pop culture, politics/news, drama, humour, etc). There are a few advertisements, but these are located on the main page and no where else. Access to the comics is available to all through email, blogs or other social networking sites.

Make Beliefs Comix

Registration: Not only is no registration required there is NO place to register. This feature is not a part of MakeBeliefsComix.

Background: Background is limited to 5 pastel colors. No other background is provided.

Body Language: All characters come in 4 different body postures that relate in context to the 4 facial emotions. The emotions are not only shown on the face but seen throughout the entire body. For example, if the character is sad, it is slumping. The four emotions are happy, sad, angry and surprised. None of the body parts can be manipulated. Some of the characters only have half a body whereas other characters have their entire body. There are 15 characters to choose from.

Clothing: Clothing is part of the character template. Nothing can be added or subtracted. Detail to clothing style, patterns, and accessories is simple. Clothing colors are black and white.

Lettering: Lettering comes in one size and one font. The size of the font can be manipulated when the speech balloon is scaled (from near to far).

Speech Balloons: Speech balloons come in pre-determined sizes. Three sizes are given but there are six in total with the tail part of the speech balloon changing from right to left to match the placing of the character. There is one regular speech balloon and thought balloon.

Gutters: The gutters presented in this comic creator's strips is limited to a thin black strip to separate the panels.

Panels: Panels are pre-determined in shape and come in a strip of 2, 3, or 4.

Focus: This part of the comic creation is limited. The only means of creating depth is through scaling the characters and their speech and placing them left or right in each panel.

Stereotypes: Stereotypical characters are the main staple of this comic creator. Hip young people, animals dressed as people, the odd ball character, the nappy haired black boy, are a few examples.

Accessibility: The newly created comic strip can be accessed by emailing the finished product to oneself. However, an image is not provided but a link to the image on the website is provided. The user can print off a copy of the comic strip but that is the extent of flexibility. There is no place to get the embedded coding (since it is a children's comic creator) and no connecting links to social networks. There is no ability to drag the image to the desktop. Accessibility to the comic is limited.

Intended User: This comic can be used by anyone, but the entire makeup of this comic is aimed to meet the user needs of children. There is no connecting social networking and no ads. A teacher would be comfortable using this comic creator in the classroom. Librarians could use this comic creator as an activity when interacting with children on the internet at the library.

Summary: As Susan Sedro writes in her own evaluation of this comic creator, "no comments from views allowed, so no need to monitor them." She also writes that since the comic is short, the students can quickly and easily put together a comic. Since there is no gallery of comics from other users, teachers do not have to worry about questionable content. This site is easy to navigate and flexible in meeting the needs of its intended user group, although it is not entirely accessible.

Myths and Legends Story Creator

Registration: Registering for Myths and Legend Story Creator is a little tricky. There is no place to register, however once a user begins creating and goes to save the comic, it is then that the site requests a user name and password. This site is not quite public. It was originally created for a contest for several schools to participate in. When registering, there is a list of schools presented, and if the user is not from any of these schools, he/she can click on "other."

Background: There is a multiple of backgrounds ranging from inside and outside of buildings, earth and water landscape. Most of the backgrounds have some sort of motion in them (fireplace has flickering flames, volcanic action represented in erupting smoke, or falling rain).

Body Language: Body language, posture or gestures are very limited. There is a diversity of character templates (children to adults). The detail of the templates are very simplistic. The one differentiating factor

is that there is motion with some of the characters (the mouth of a baby moving back and forth to show it crying).

Clothing: Clothing is pre-determined on template characters and cannot be changed.

Devises: It is with this area that Myths and Legends comic creator is rather unique. Rather than providing speed lines, or an action lines, this comic creator provides characters that already have animated motion as a part of their make-up. Sound devices are not present but actual sound effects are provided or can be uploaded as a part of the story.

Lettering: Lettering is all uppercase, one font, one size and even stays the same size when the speech balloons are made large or small.

Speech Balloons: There is some variety in this area. There are speech balloons that represent narration (box at the top or bottom of page), effects, talking and thinking balloons. Speech balloons can be made large or smaller but the lettering within stays the same size.

Gutters: Gutters are non-existent in this comic creator. This particular comic creator is a mix of motion picture and comic.

Panels: Panels are singular. When looking at the storyboard, panels are present but for the duration of the strip, there is only one panel.

Focus: Focus is limited to adjustable speech balloons sizes and characters. There are no angle shots or zoom features. The background cannot be manipulated. Actual sounds, no representation sounds, can be added the story.

Stereotypes: Since this is a myths and legends story creator, the characters and backgrounds are stereotypical. Young heroes are identifiable by their clothing, warriors by their posture and gear, infants and children by their postures and plenty of mythical creatures.

Accessibility: Access is limited to printing the story onto paper or download to one's personal computer. The only access to the story is through the website.

Intended User: This comic creator is aimed at children, specifically school children. Several of the features suggest teacher assistance, and the fact that this website was created as a part of storytelling contest is a dead give away to who the intended participants are. There is a setup feature that allows teachers and students to send and receive messages from one another. Librarians can recommend this online resource as an activity for children constantly online during library hours.

Summary: Part comic and part animation, this comic creator is unique. Although the style is different and the selection broad, the presentation is not quite professional. Teachers may want to use this comic creator since there is no advertisements, no place to comment from other users, cannot be accessed through email, social networking sites, or embedded coding. This site is easy to get about, flexible and creative with its backgrounds and character choices, however access is definitely restricted.

Read Write Think

Registration: No registration is required for Read Write Think. One simply needs to create a title, subtitle and provide the name of creator to start creating.

Background: There are 8 backgrounds provided on this comic creator. All ranging from city scene to various landscape captions. All backgrounds are black and white and are simple in presentation.

Body Language: There are 17 character templates with varying pre-set emotions and gestures. Changing the skin tone or hair of the characters is accomplished by clicking on the "+" below the template. This can only be done when the character is placed in the panel.

Clothing: Clothing is simplistic. There is no selection and the characters come in whatever clothing they are wearing.

Devices: There are no action lines provided however, there are quite a few sound words included in the speech balloon section of the comic creator.

Lettering: Lettering is one font and one size.

Speech Balloons: There are several types of speech balloons. There are several styles of thought balloons such as left side, right side and even one thought balloon that has two tails. The balloons have limited space for lettering

Gutters: Gutters are non-existent on the screen and can only be seen when the comic is printed.

Panels: Panels are uneven to convey the feeling of an actual drawn page. Although a user can pick a number of panels, there is never a moment when all number of panels are presented. There is no page that allows the user to see the finished product of all panels connected. The only way to view all panels is to print the comic.

Focus: There is no focus opportunity presented in this comic creator. Characters can only be moved from side to side, no aspects of the backgrounds can be spotlighted and the speech balloons cannot be scaled.

Stereotypes: Background, people, and animals are all stereotypical.

Accessibility: Access is incredibly limited, and the created comic can only be developed with the use of "grabbing" the image (MAC), uploading it into iPrint, changing the TIFF format into JPG and downloading it to whatever desired Internet net source.

Intended User: This comic creator is intended for children. This comics is very basic, so teachers or librarians could use or recommend this comic creator to pre-school children.

Summary: The creativity, flexibility and accessibility is somewhat lacking. Sponsored by the International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English, this comic creator does them discredit and its presence could be mis-interpreted several ways. Unintentionally, they are placing little importance in the use of comics as reading material for children. Considering how extensive and well endowed their home site is, their comic creator is inappropriate and unprofessional. One might consider whether the comic creator should be a part of their site.

Pixton

Registration: Creating a user account is necessary to use Pixton. However, reading the comics that are created by other users does not require registration.

Background: Pixton offers a decent selection of backgrounds. The bonus that comes along with the back grounds is the movability of the various objects in the environments. For example, mountains, trees, buildings and shading can be placed about and scaled. The user could also change the color of any object that is provided in the chosen background.

Body Language: Body language is explored in depth in this comic creator. The user can create their own character from scratch or randomly select from characters already created by other users. In both cases, the body can be shaped in anyway to convey the story or message of the comic strip. An extensive list of pre-made action postures are provided or the creator can create the character's posture by moving the body, legs, arms, feet, hands or head. However, the expressions provided for the face are not as diverse as Bitstrip's selection and facial detailed is simplistic.

Clothing: There is a decent selection of clothing but are limited to tops, bottoms and shoes. There is very limited patterns within the clothing. The clothing moves in whatever direction the body goes or is doing. Accessories such as jewelry, hats and facial wear are reasonable. The color palette for the clothing is quite extensive and helps with creating differences between characters.

Devices: Pixton has some devices. It has the regular speed lines and than a few addition effects such as speed lines that come in the shape of flames and a dizzy effect that can be used to give different meanings.

Lettering: Lettering flexibility comes in 8 font types, bold, underline and italic feature. When the cursor is placed over the sample, the font in the balloon changes. When the user has decided which font he/she wants, they than click on the chosen font.

Speech Balloons: The speech balloons in this comic creator can easily move about the screen. Rather then providing a visual selection of different balloon types (based on the curve or sharpness of the corners), two scales are provided below the panel that increases/decreases the balloon size and sharpen or curve the corners. The only bubbly thing about the bubble balloon is the bubble(s) that connect the balloon to the character. There are no narrative balloons. The title above the comic is limited to 35 characters. All narration is accomplished through speech or though balloons.

Gutters: Gutters are a basic thin white strip between the panels in this comic create.

Panels: Panels selection is quite creative in Pixton. A creator can choose a template of pre-made panels set with characters and background (which also can be changed), or create from scratch. The creation of panels in this comic creator is unique. A box is provided where the story takes place. The box can be stretched to cover three panels, or separate panels of three can be added with the click of a button.

Focus: Focus is easily accomplished with this comic creator. The characters can be brought to the for front or placed to the back, and the same methods also apply to the background with its objects (example: mountain scenery, mountain moved from side to side, made larger or smaller, color changed, etc). Objects and characters can also be tilted left or right. If the user just wanted to tilt the entire frame left or right, there is a small button at the base of the panel to do so.

Stereotypes: There are not many stereotypical templates provided by this comic creator although many of the users do create their own within their comic strips.

Accessibility: Pixton comics have embedded coding that can be transfered but there is no suggestion anywhere to link to an outside social networking site.

Intended User: The intended user is adult and teens. The use of this comic creator would be to the teacher's discretion. Librarians could use this comic as a creating stories activity for their teen group, posting a weekly comic to the library website to discuss topics or issues.

Summary: The flexibility, creativity and the easy access to and about the site makes this comic creator a great entry for a user into the comic world. By tapping into the reservoir of other user comics, a user can see the extent to which Pixton can be used.

Stripgenerator

Registration: Registration is not required to play with the basic Stripgenerator, however to access more features, creating a user account is required.

Background: The only background option for for Stripgenerator is white.

Body Language: There are two means of producing characters; either choosing from the large list of pre-made bodies or creating new ones. The user can choose from a list of ready made drawings of hair, eyes, mouth, head and body. Once created, they are stored away for future comics. Most characters are black and white and can be polar-reversed once in the panel. The facial expressions range from happy to moody, sad to grumpy. The characters have no arms or legs, hence gestures are limited to the props that are used to illustrate gesture.

Clothing: Clothing is a considered a body part and thus is a part of the body selection when creating a character. Clothing is simple, black and white and in the case of this comic strip, sets the tone of each character.

Devices: There are only four devices, a wisp of steam, motions to show that an item or person has disappeared, a sound word (BAM) and music notes. However there are props that could be used as devices for example the bundle of flames could be used above the head to indicate anger.

Lettering: Only one font and font size is used.

Speech Balloons: There are 9 Speech Balloons, half that do not have a tail to connect the box to the character. The balloons are all squares and the color of the box is white or black. The white or black background of the speech balloon can be one way of portraying emotion.

Gutters: Gutters are a regular thin white strip.

Panels: Panels range from 1-3 and offer no variety in width or height proportions.

Focus: Depth of field is created by the zooming feature of the characters. Characters can also be rotated and placed on their heads, or on their sides.

Stereotypes: The only stereotypes in this comic creator are the characters. They could be portrayed as gothic, emo-ish or vampire-ish.

Accessibility: Sharing a newly created strip is easily done through email, embedding the code into any social networking site or providing a link.

Intended User: Users would most likely be from the teen or adult group just because of the overall tone that is set by the black and white colors, and punk style characters. Presenting this comic creator to students would be at the teacher's discretion. Librarians could use this comic creator with their teen groups to create stories or discuss issues through creating comics.

Summary: Stripgenerator is easy to share, flexible with its characters, and creative in its content. This comic creator's characters, props and shapes are rather unique compared to other comic creators. Not alien but not human, this comic creator gives a different comic experience.

ToonDoo

Registration: Registration is needed to create comics in ToonDoo, but not needed to read the comics put out by the users.

Background: There is an unimaginable amount of backgrounds provided in this comic creator. Everything from fantasy, outer space, everyday life environment (home, school, stores, etc) are a few of the themes mentioned. However, none of the objects such as trees, landscape elements, weather elements, man-made objects can be moved.

Body Language: Two methods of obtaining character(s) is provide. Template characters that have no moving body parts but with several copies that have different gestures and facial emotions, or making a character from scratch but still limited to only 4 or 5 gestures and a few more facial expressions.

Clothing: Clothing is limited for both styles of characters. Ready-made characters come with the clothes they are in, and the built character has a limited amount of tops/bottoms and several complete outfits. Accessories are available in such forms as glasses, jewelry and umbrellas.

Lettering: Text can be increased and decreased. There are four fonts provided. Font size has a decent scale.

Speech Balloons: So far in this review, this comic creator has the most flexible speech balloons. The shape can be changed at three points: the balloon part, the tail and the tip of the tail. The outline of the speech balloon can be in black or white. Look to the strip above to see speech balloons.

Gutters: The gutters in this comic creator are the typical marginal thin lined gutters.

Panels: Only a selected number of panels is offered in a typical square shape. There is no variety in their width or heights.

Focus: Focus is achieved when the characters are placed near or far in the panel. This is achieved not with the actually moving of the character or the box that surrounds them but there are buttons below the screen that shrink and expand the characters as well as the backgrounds.

Stereotypes: Much of the ready-made characters are stereotypical, especially with the use of dragons and wizards. There are science-fiction, fantasy, sports and action characters.

Accessibility: Sending out the comic strip to friends, twitter, facebook, emailing it to a friend, printing it or just downloading it onto the user's computer is feasible.

Intended User: This comic creator is intended for all ages, however it is the decision of the teacher to make the call for using it in the classroom. Librarians can introduce this comic creator to a wide range of users. With children, they could create a ToonDoo comic book. Teens that lack the artistic ability could use the Toondoodler. Adults can upload personal photos and make goofy changes to the content.

Summary: ToonDoo is a very substantial comic creator. Not only can a user create a comic but he/she can post the comic, enter it into a contest, find it in the ToonDoo gallery or use it as a starter for a personal ToonDoo book. Photos can be uploaded and be used in the comic creation. Toondoo is creative with its appearance and offering variety, easy to navigate, and accessible through email and social networking sites. ToonDoo can be overwhelming. With so many options, students may find it either confusing or spend too much time trying to understand the many layers. At times the palettes that contain color, character creation, etc were slow in appearing. To use in a pinch, ToonDoo may not do, however for extended use, ToonDoo would work just well.

Toonlet

The Journey To Comic Making by drezbee

Registration: To use Toonlet and read other Toonlet comics does not require registration and an extensive exploration of their selections is provided. A registration is needed to post comics to the Toonlet social network.

Background: Backgrounds are limited to a diverse selection of color but no landscapes of any sort are provided.

Body Language: Body language is limited to the upper proportions of the body. Users can pick a character by clicking a button labeled "random" which is body parts generated randomly or choose body parts from the 15 groupings called "packs." Although the body is limited to the upper portion, a user can find plenty to create different facial expression and there are multiple arm and hand gestures to compensate for the lack of a lower body. Every body part can be scaled (made larger or smaller).

Clothing: Clothing and accessories are quite abundant in Toonlet. Hats, jewelry and glasses have an excellent selection. Clothing can be scaled along with jewelry, glasses and props.

Devices: Toonlet has an unbelievable amount of devices. Shapes and sizes of action lines and sound words can found and used.

Lettering: Lettering is limited to one font size and style.

Speech Balloons: Speech balloons are limited to a regular speech balloon and a narrative bar. The speech balloon or narrative bar cannot be placed anywhere in the panel but are always positioned at the top of the panel. If there is too much lettering in the speech balloon, it will overlap onto the head of the speaking character.

Gutters: Gutters are typical thin white lines that appear to give no significance to the story.

Panels: The selection of panels is numerous. Any number of panels can be used however, panels are a regular square shape and come in no other sizes.

Focus: Focus is mainly on the characters. This is created through the rich uses of texture and design in the clothing. The character can be moved from side to side and scaled. Focus can also be applied to the facial structure since there are exaggerated noses, eyes and mouths to bring attention to the character as they speak.

Stereotypes: Since the focus of Toonlet is its characters, any stereotypes will be found.

Accessibility: Other users or guests to the site can bookmark their favorite comic strip to their favorite bookmarking social network. The embedded coding is accessibly and can provide access to numerous avenues.

Intended User: Users would be from the teen and/or adult category. Children may find this style boring. This style of art seems to cater towards an older audience, especially with the limited background, limited panel size, and the black and white coloring of the characters, clothes and props. High school teachers would be able to use this comic creator in their classrooms. Due to its unique style, Librarians would have to search for an appropriate user group.

Summary: Toonlet has its pros and cons. It has no environmental backgrounds, one speech balloon, half body characters, black and white as its primary colors are a few of its cons. However, with rich patterns/textures and multiple styles and genres of clothes, props, facial expressions, gestures, and upper portion bodies, Toonlet is incredibly diverse. Easy to navigate, accessible to all and offering a palette of creativity, a user could spend hours reading and creating comics.

Summary

Comics are becoming a part of everyday life. They are no longer cornered off in the children's section of bookstores and libraries. This visual sequential art is gaining momentum as media and pop culture take a hold of it and explore the present world through this paradigm. Outside the media, teachers and librarians are the professionals that are asking the tough question of, "what can we do with this medium in our field?" Comics are not just for reading in the classroom, but can be used to illustrate a lesson and supplement the overall curriculum. In libraries, the main activity of comics, for the most part, is being read. However, libraries are beginning to find methods to explore comics beyond reading, and one way that this can be accomplished is through online comic creators.

For those that lack the artistic talent, some comic creators allow for comic creation without lifting a pen. Quick, easy and manageable, comic creators are one way to introduce all age groups to topics, interests, or issues through the use of comics. Aside from the 8 comic creators that are presented, there are plenty more that can be found. As is mentioned at the beginning, the presentation and review of comic creators is based on the "Reading the Pictures" lecture notes of LIS 518, and that several topics were purposely missed. The topics of text, duration and time and perspective look more at a created comic rather than the tools of creating the comic. Whereas the topics chosen play a significant or minor role in the creation of a comic.

Comic creators not only introduce people to comics in general but also open the path to other hobbies, habits and interests in the comic world.