I have never thought of myself as a good artist. At least, not if we aren’t drawing Minecraft grass blocks or the Chick-Fil-A logo (my ERB drawings were the best I’d ever made). Naturally I wasn’t exactly thrilled when we were told we were making a comic. You know, it was actually pretty fun! The story doesn’t start there, though. It goes way back to September, 2024.
If you were there, you would think the two things were completely different, but just wait. We started when this whole thing was just disguised as ‘The History of Stories’. Like I said, what in the world does the history of stories have to do with a comic, other than language arts. Just you wait!
Then we start getting into types of stories. Okay. Still not related as long as a comic isn’t considered a type of story. Spoiler Alert: It isn’t. Then we started reading stories (fables, parables, legends, etc… turns out, they’re called wisdom tales because they have morals. Who knew?) and wrote down the morals and the summaries. Yes, I know, it’s sort of a long story, but stay with me here. This is when we were told we were making a comic, early December. We listened to a presentation on comics (Though I wasn’t able to be there). We chose a story to base it off of and got to work.
So yeah. That’s how we got into making comics. Well, one page.
I chose The Smuggler, which is about a border inspector who meets a person (he is a smuggler) crossing the border with a donkey and a cart full of hay and is instantly suspicious. The man crosses the border every day and the inspector is sure he is smuggling something, but doesn’t have any evidence. He thinks about the man, even after retiring, until one day he sees the man at the market. He asks what the man was smuggling and the man says “donkeys”.
The moral of the story is that, sometimes, the hardest thing to see is the one that is right in front of you.
I chose this story because I found it hilarious, and completely agree with the moral. My grandfather knows this, so he always wins at Hide-and-Seek. One time in Mexico, he climbed up an umbrella. Many times, he has put a lampshade on his head and completely won.
The art was pretty easy, actually. I used Sketchbook for the majority of my comic, but I put it all together in Comic Life 3. Sketchbook is my personal favorite of the drawing apps, but I have to warn you, Sketchbook colors are bright! Like, melt your eyes bright. I like bright colors, so I’m used to the eye melting by now. However, if you prefer to have your drawings look even semi-realistic, I do not suggest Sketchbook. However, there is a 60% chance that I am simply using Sketchbook wrong (wouldn’t be the first time), in which case, you should not be reading this.
This was my first time using Comic Life 3 because, as I said, I don’t draw comics. Or, I didn’t. Anyway, Comic Life 3 is a great app! I have no regrets. The text bubbles and boxes make it easy to customize, and the backgrounds are awesome.
As I have clearly stated, I prefer Sketchbook much more than Comic Life 3.
If you happen to know of any apps that are less eye-melty, please let me know in the comments below (not that I don’t like it when my eyes melt). Also, if you’ve never made a comic before, you should try it. You might enjoy it. I know I certainly did. Thank you for reading my blog!
Until next time!…