Create Your Own Digital Comics Whether You Can Draw or Not

Got a tale to tell but don’t want to bang it out as a traditional book? Try doing it as a digital comic — and ignore anyone who thinks visual narratives are a lesser art form or basic fodder for Hollywood action movies. The tradition of storytelling through sequential art has a long and noble history, used in ancient cave paintings, Roman carvings, tapestries and woodblock printing.

Although you start with stock objects on the screen, you can customize characters and their actions, then add your own dialogue. You need to create a user account to store and save your creations. Beyond limited versions and free trials, Canva, Pixton and Storyboard That each cost $10 to $13 a month for full access to comics-building content.

If you can’t draw but can take pictures, you can craft comics out of the photos sitting on your smartphone. It’s a great way to turn the family pet into a superhero, relive a vacation or jazz up a presentation.

After you arrange the photos, apply filters to the images that make them look like panels in a printed comic. The apps include elements like customizable speech bubbles you can drag onto the images and digital stickers with graphical type (BAM!, POW! and such) to add a few classic comics accents to the page. When you’re finished, just export or email your comic to share it.

source: nytimes.com