It’s easy to make your own comics, even without drawing skills. ComicBook! ($1.99, universal) lets your kids take a bunch of photos, then turn those into superheroic comic pages. The app is universal, so this can also be done with an iPhone or iPod touch, but the end results are certainly more impressive on the iPad’s larger display.
In ComicBook, tap Create, then the first icon, Layouts. Select a design that holds a few images. Each panel includes an icon to use an existing image, or to shoot a new one if your device has a camera. Fill up your layout with photos—if you don’t like one, double-tap it and select Delete Image, then try again.
Drag images around inside each panel, and pinch with two fingers to scale or rotate. Do this before applying effects. Next, tap FX in the upper-right corner of each panel. The Halftone button makes each photo look like an old-fashioned comic book—the Small setting generally looks best. Then choose one of nine vintage comic “looks.”
Tap the Create drawer and select Captions to find a variety of balloons for adding dialogue. Select one, tap inside the balloon, and type a caption. Tap the F circle at right to fiddle with font, size, and color. Balloons can be deleted by tapping the X. To position balloons, tap and drag, and don’t forget to adjust the tail at the bottom of each balloon to point it toward your subject’s mouth.
Choose Stickers from the Create drawer to add popular sound effects like “Wham!” or “Pow!” as well as stickers to add laughter, crying, sleeping, or more. Sticker text can’t be modified, but tapping one calls up a submenu for adjusting its size and rotation. Don’t forget to add a price tag to your first page to make your comic book look real!
The Utilities icon lets you save a page to your Camera Roll, print via AirPrint, and share via email, Facebook, and Twitter. Using AirPrint to commit a few pages to photo paper wirelessly can be great fun for kids. And you can use emailed pages to create a photo book in iPhoto. But be sure to save each page somehow, because starting a new one (Create > Layouts > New) will permanently delete your existing page.
Moku Hanga is fun to mess around with.
Everyone loves Comic Life 2 ($29.99 in the Mac App Store, free trial at www.plasq.com), which has lots of templates and everything you need to make them yours. If your kids are interested in Japanese wood-block printing, check out Moku Hanga ($7.99 in the Mac App Store), which turns your photos into outlines that look hand-chiseled that you can adjust and customize, for gorgeous results that could be used in some very fancy comics projects.
