Make Beliefs is a fairly well-known site that has a variety of characters that can be used in pre-made templates. It’s already popular in schools — both in mainstream and ESL/EFL classes.
Write Comics is a super-simple tool to create comic strips without requiring any registration. You can learn more about it, and see samples and a video, at Ana Maria Menezes’ blog.
And now for my choices in Category 2:
I have four sites in this batch, and I have to say — in my eyes at least — it’s difficult to distinguish between them. The four are:
Pixton, a newer site that, if you make a series of comic strips, lets you put them into a virtual “book.” It also seems to have a very overt and pro-active (at least it says it does) policy on ensuring that only appropriate content remains on the site.
The final one on my list is ToonDoo. When you go to their site, at the top you see something that says “Safe Search On.” All you have to do is click on that to gain access to mature content, apparently, but I’ve done that and haven’t actually found anything inappropriate.
Creaza has a number of student tools, including ones mindmapping, moviemaking and audio recording. I’ve posted about them in the past, and wrote that I thought their apps were just a bit too complicated to be included on any of my “The Best…” lists. I took another look this past week and, though I still feel that way for most of their tools, the one for making cartoons appears to have been simplified.
The Texas Independence Convention Comic Maker is obviously pretty narrow in scope, but it’s great if you’re teaching U.S. History (the site has a nice movie, too, on Texas independence.)
20+ Tips and Resources to Engage Learners with Comics is from Shelly Terrell.
Using cartoons and comic strips is from The British Council.
After quickly registering, Marvel Comics lets you create your own comic that you can print, send, or embed.
Richard Byrne just posted about a new free and easy tool for creating a free comic – without having to even register. Read Richard’s post and check out ToonyTool.
Culture Street lets you make and save comic strips online.
These next sites let you create comics. However, they don’t let you send or save them – only print them out: