I picked one from the list that Larson sent us. I used bitstrips.com to create a comic strip. It was incredibly fun! I picked this because I wanted to do something I had never done anything similar to before. When I first got to the website I saw a button that said "Design Yourself" so I picked that. It then brings you to this character creator where you pick things such as gender, skin color, build, height, head shape, hairstyle, nose, eyes, eyebrows, mouth, clothes, facial expressions and more! That was just the simple editor. I saw a small button on the bottom that said advanced editor so I clicked it, of course. It was fantastic. You could make the person look EXACTLY like you if you wanted. Then, to save your character and move on, you had to sign up (10 second process). So then I had to decide between playing with this more or start my reading so I played more and made two more characters that I could make a comic strip using. I created Bruce Banner and The Hulk:
I'm kind of a perfectionist and so this took me about a half hour. I think they look pretty sweet. Creating these two characters was done in the same fashion as when I created my character from above. Next, I wanted to create a comic using these two new characters I had created. I went to the comic editor and picked the strip that had three windows. I played around with some of the buttons, expressions, body positions, and backgrounds and ended with my final comic:
It was truly a learning process. I think for me it is just easier to jump into these sort of things. I did not really see a reason to read the 'how-to' or 'FAQ' parts because something like creating comics and characters is a creative process that I'm not going to follow any method in doing anyway. It seemed to work out okay for me! I think there is a ton more to be done with this website and to play around with and I probably will. I could easily see this being used in a classroom. How easy is it to get kids interested in comics? Throw in a few math jokes and it's a great addition to a worksheet that may make kids enjoy looking at an otherwise boring worksheet. At the bottom of the comics there is a "share" button. I clicked it to see what I would be allowed to do with it. With the click of a button I could connect a comic to facebook, myspace, digg, and so much more. This is web 2.0 - making sharing easy throughout all the internet.
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