Comics in the Curriculum

At first blush, comics might not seem to have a place in the career-oriented college. That was my knee-jerk reaction. But after reading about them, looking at examples, and trying three different comic-making sites on my own, I have found useful applications.

Makebeliefscomix
The first comic I created was to illustrate an existing policy manual that instructs teachers how to respond to common student concerns. Since the policy manual is written as a dialogue, a comic is an idea way to bring the policy manual to life. The comic is more fun to read, more succinct, and offers potential for a touch of humor. Sarcasm/humor is hard to interpret in a personnel manual (and probably not appropriate). However, in a comic, it can easily be interpreted and felt more appropriate.

http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/Comix/?comix_id=3924233C165707

For this comic, I used makebeliefscomix. The site, which lets you create comics online for free, has a limited amount of options but is perfect for the kind of comic I created: something short, sweet, and dialogue based. However, there was enough selection of characters that I was able to find ones that illustrated the student rule violation under consideration. The site is very easy to use relative to the other sites reviewed here. While you can save a link to your comic, you can't save just the strip. So while it had the most limited options, it was user-friendly. I will create an entire set of cartoon strips to illustrate the college's rules. I will probably print them and cut them out. I might even consider sharing them with students in our orientation process.

ComicLife
The second comic I created used Comic Life. This is a software program that you download (free 30-day trial). The program is based on using real images. You can access photos on your computer or capture images to import directly into ComicLife. The program is robust and provides options to create the feel of real comic books, though you can choose short comic strip panels as well. You can save the individual comics, can create comic books, and can export them as html or image filed (i.e. jpg).

My graphic design students already use this program (comes with iMac) as an initial assignment to orient them to the Mac, planning, and basic design. The Graphic Design Program Director told me the program is not advanced enough for a final professional-level portfolio. Page layout software (i.e. Adobe InDesign) would be used instead.

I think ComicLife would be useful also to our Travel students. I designed a basic travel brochure comic to promote South Dakota. The practice of choosing "representative" images for a particular destination would be a good practice for these future travel professionals. Students could access images using creative commons images on flickr. My pictures came from a family trip a few years ago. Click the comic to enlarge it.

Toondoo
The third comic I created used an internet-based site called toondoo. This site combined the best of the previous two tools and had some additional features. First of all, it was free, and you can save your comic online and access an embed code. Toondo had a large selection of cartoon people, backgrounds, objects, etc. What was neat is that you can also create your own characters right down to their posture, clothing, facial expression, etc. And you can make these characters available to the entire toondo community, thereby adding to the selection of the site.

This site would be useful for my context in the same way as makebeliefscomix. However, given that it is so robust, it might actually be overkill for the simple, dialogue-based strips I wanted. On this site, I made a political cartoon. This has always been something I've wanted to do. I am an avid reader of political cartoons. While there are many sites dedicated to sharing the best political cartoons, this is the site I visit: http://www.cagle.com/politicalcartoons/.

My process for creating this cartoon was to decide first what I wanted to say and then to find the right backgrounds to accommodate my ideas. For the second panel, representing an election ballot, I used a background of a clipboard and a dialogue balloon without the "downspout." I made the woman in the first panel, while the other characters were pre-made. Use the scroll bar below the comic or click on it to see it full.