Cartoon Helpers

Since I can't draw but wish I could, I continue to look for tools that will do the work for me. Because I also have a small humourous bent, the online comic generators are really appealing! The above is created through the Comic Strip Generator site www.comicstripgenerator.com It is my least favorite so far but perhaps there is more to it than meets the eye. Nice for a quick book recommendation, as we see.

One of my favorites so far is Toonlet http://toonlet.com which has many mix and match body parts and styles and options for adding as many panels as you like. It also saves your characters so once you have a character all set up you can feature them in a new comic rather than starting from scratch each time. The drawback is that even a two panel comic is too wide for my blog template. There isn't a way to make it fit. So you can create there, but would be limited to a single panel here:




There is an option to email the panel to yourself or your friends as well so you can share your work, just not stick it on your blogger blog.

Another fun one is Toondoo www.toondoo.com It does not allow the character customization you have with Toonlet, but it does fit on the blog with its intriguing floating frame. You are able to create strips in a variety of formats and backgrounds, you can create books with multiple pages or you can do some freeform drawing with their drawing toolset. (Use the slider arrow on this one to view entire comic. I was trying out a longer panel.)

One more that is cute but not so far able to be inserted easily into my blog is Make Belief Comics at www.makebeliefcomix.com This has 3 panel toons, with customizeable moods in set characters that you can email to yourself or friends. I had to scan this comic (crooked, alas) and then upload it as an image. Click on it to read the comic a bit better.






Happy Tooning, Librarian D.O.A.