Using Comic Characters to Communicate

Reading Time: 3 mins

If you haven’t created comic strips before but have been longing to create one, Comicgen is a free comic creator which is here to help you. Comicgen is a life-saver for those who find drawing a nightmare. The opensource comic library at the time of writing has a collection of 14 characters with a range of emotions, angles & poses.

Now that we have an easy way to create characters, how do we use these characters in a comic strip to communicate to our readers? Let’s take a look.

Create comics using one character

a simple comic strip created using comicgen
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A single character comic strip
  • One character strips are usually useful to express personal opinion. Through single characters we could choose to communicate insights & also express personal opinion about the insight/fact. In the above example, Dee reads about Katy Perry’s Met Gala look and expresses her opinion.
  • The above strip doesn’t really require a speech bubble since the reader knows that it is just a single character narrating. Instead of a speech bubble you could choose to use a curved line to connect the character & the text.
  • Sometimes you might need a gap between two related pieces of speech text with a connecting line. This is generally used to indicate pause in thought or simply to separate two sequential speech texts.

Generate conversations using two characters

comic strip created using comicgen - The opensource comic generator
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A two character comic strip
  • Two character comic strips help communicate multiple opinions better.
  • Two character comic strips can be used for debates, explanations & to point out personal opinion.
  • These strips are usually better off with speech bubbles, but curved lines as connectors are okay as well.

Highlighting Expressions & Props

Comic strip created from comicgen - A free comic creator
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Using zoom techiques for impact

Whenever we read comic strips, we tend to absorb the emotions that come out of a panel. In the above strip, the panel expressing Dee’s furious reaction to Dey’s comment is very impactful. Zooming or highlighting helps bring out this impact & brings focus to crucial portions of the strip.

What do we need to create a simple comic strip?

Now that we know how to use comic characters, let’s use the following tips to create a simple comic strip.

  • Develop a story outline and select the panels.
  • Pick characters from our free comic creator – Comicgen.
  • Use the ‘save image’ option to save them as .png files.
  • Crop the prop/pose/emotion which you are going to highlight.
  • Arrange all these in a powerpoint slide.
  • Select a comic font and add the supporting text.
  • Add a speech bubble on top of the text and arrange accordingly.

A few examples where we used the free comic creator

Need help? Please reach out to storylabs@gramener.com

2 thoughts on “Using Comic Characters to Communicate”

  1. Hi,
    Could you tell me if I can use your comic creator and its characters and features to create my own commercial comic for publication which would then be copyrighted in my name?

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