More flexible than some comic creators, so it may be worth the fee.

My Take

I used Comic Life with a group of fourth grade English learners as an extension of traditional narrative writing. It was already loaded on our Mac laptops, so I am unaware of the cost. Now that I no longer have it, I see how much more flexibility it offered in creativity. Comic Life allows students to create a story using templates and insert images from the web or their own files. The latter is how we used it after drawing our own comics, we uploaded the jpg files and merely dropped and dragged to the panel of their choice. I have found that other software is limited to pre-made animation choices. Some students like creating their own drawings, particularly fans of manga and want to create a story around their original work. It is precisely this feature (the use of student generated images, either from camera phones, digital cameras or the web) that distinguishes this program from others that I use. I have also used this program with fifth grade students in science to illustrate conceptual understanding in a non-linguistic form. This is helpful for struggling writers and students who prefer visual demonstration of what they have learned.