Comic Book vs Comic Strip
Now, there is a huge difference between a comic book and comic strip. A comic book is a whole story where a comic strip can be a part of it. You can consider Marvel Comics such as Batman, Spiderman to be a comic book whereas the strip of a comic can be the XKCD comic or in your regular newspaper. So, creating a comic book is a much tougher job than creating a comic strip. You would need storyboarding, scripting and days of sketch work. While on the other, Comic Strip is anecdotal of your daily life which is much shorter and can be done in one go. There are apps which you let you create a comic book or comic strip from scratch. While you also get simpler apps which have a template and requires simple drag and drop. So, here is a neat list of best Comic creator apps for all devices.
Best Comic Creator Apps For All Devices
1. Comic Strip Maker
The first one in the list is Comic Strip Maker. It’s fairly a simple app and does what the name says. You have drag and drop templates to create comic strips. The first step involves selecting a comic strip which will contain all your scenes. You have some built-in templates for comic strips. Once you have the template in, you can choose your comic characters from a provided list of character. It provides a bunch of human characters ranging from children to teenagers, superheroes, full-grown men and even anime characters. What’s missing?
Custom text options. Cannot import gallery photos and customize them. No option to make a comic book.
Platform: Android Download Comic Strip Maker
2. Comica
If you want to give a real-life touch to your comic strips, what would be better than your own photos or photos of people around you? Comica lets you import photos from gallery or click a picture on the go and these can be later converted into a comic strip. First, you have to select your comic strip template as usual and then import your photos into it. Now, you can quickly snap a purple-blue tint on it or you have a bunch of other comic filters. Comica gives you contrast, Brightness, saturation and detail slider to adjust the filter and get a perfect edit. You also get 8 chat bubbles to curate your dialogues for the entire scene. Although you have only 1 font option, the font is quite better than Comic Strip Maker. Finally, you can import your comic strip as a picture or PDF if you want to get it printed. What’s missing?
Inbuilt comic characters and multiple fonts. No option to make a comic book.
Platform: Android Download Comica
3. Comic Strip
Well, all the apps mentioned above are only on Android. So for the iOS folks, you have Comic Strip that lets you do all the comic creation on the iPhone. It is much similar to Comica with a tad bit of extra filters, fonts and chats bubbles. The process to create a comic strip is pretty much straightforward. You choose a comic strip template and then it opens the camera app. You can either snap a photo or select the right amount of pictures from your gallery. It also provides certain extra props which you can put in your pictures. You can also snap a color gradient on top of the comic to give it a different look. Like, mostly I use an orange gradient with 30% opacity to give that Japanese anime kind off surprise look. What’s missing?
Inbuilt comic templates & characters.
Platform: iOS, iPad. Download Comic Strip
Read: 10 Best Android and iOS Apps to Make Avatar of Yourself
4. MediBang Paint
All the apps mentioned above kind of automate the comic creation process for you. They don’t really bring out the artistic skill in you. Well, MediBang lets you create a comic from scratch. MediBang is, however, more of a painting app where you can design your characters and then export them to create a comic strip. There is no inbuilt chat bubbles or comic strips which you can import and drop into your creation. You have brushes and pen tools and the best device to handle this is the iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil. The app is well optimized to react to touches and the Apple pencil’s quick shortcut works well. The layout is much similar to Photoshop wherein you have all the tools on the left, the canvas on the center and the layers laid out on the right. It is much easier to understand once you get the hang of it or run-and-gun if you come from Photoshop. What’s missing?
Comic Strip Templates Storyboarding options.
Platform: Windows, macOS, iPad, iOS, Android. Download MediBang Paint
5. Clip Studio
Well, Clip Studio is quite the industry standard if you want to create Comic Books from scratch. The software is paid and you will have to shell out $25 and $109 for the Pro and full version respectively. You get full blown advanced controls to basic customizations like deciding the resolution and type of comic print. There are various paint brushes and painting tools available to draw the perfect comic character. The app is available for various platforms but the best option is to use it with an iPad or get yourself a digital pen. If you are ready to invest some time in learning this tool, Clip Studio has great options which really enhance your drawing and comic skills. The paint board interface draws similarities from Photoshop and that really helps if you are a Photoshop user. Platform: Windows, macOS, iPad Download Clip Studio
6. ToonDoo
ToonDo is by far the best free web app I have seen for making comic strips or comic books. The only caveat is that you have to signup on the website to use even the smallest tool. But, that’s not too much considering that we already surrendered our data to FB. ToonDo lets you create your own avatars which have limitless customization. It lets you modify the hair, eyes, eyebrows, attire everything from scratch. Now, once you have your avatars made, save it and move ahead to make your comic strip or book. The canvas has inbuilt templates which let you create your own environment, place props or text bubbles. ToonDo is ideal for people who are not good at drawing and want to create their own stories. The web app is full of templates, inbuilt character, and customizations. What’s missing?
Option to import photos and edit them. Draw cartoons or characters.
Platform: Windows, Android, iOS, Mac, etc. Visit ToonDo
Wrapping Up
If you are serious about comic creation, it’s would be a good step to invest in Clip Studio or MediaBang Paint. These are the industry standard so spending time learning it would be a good career investment. For Android, Comica is a good option which lets you make anecdotal of your personal life and incidents. Comic Strip does the same for iOS so that would be an ideal choice for iOS For any issues or queries, let me know in the comments below. If you make comic strips & memes, do tag me on Instagram, we can have a good laugh at it. Also Read: 6 Best Comic Book Reader Apps for Android
