Common Sense Media Review
By Mark Raby
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Turn photos into comics if you can navigate clunky controls.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 8+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Download
Videos and Photos
Comic Life
Parent and Kid Reviews
Privacy Rating Warning
Privacy Rating
Our expert evaluators create our privacy ratings. The ratings are designed to help you understand how apps use your data for commercial purposes.
Pass
Meets our minimum requirements for privacy and security practices.
Warning
Does not meet our recommendations for privacy and security practices.
Fail
Does not have a privacy policy and should not be used.
Privacy Rating
Our expert evaluators create our privacy ratings. The ratings are designed to help you understand how apps use your data for commercial purposes.
Pass
Meets our minimum requirements for privacy and security practices.
Warning
Does not meet our recommendations for privacy and security practices.
Fail
Does not have a privacy policy and should not be used.
What's It About?
Comic Life is all about creativity. Users are able to transform their own personal photos from their mobile device and bring them to life in an interactive comic book. Any photo will do, no matter how seemingly boring or mundane. This app is for more than just budding comic book artists though. Anyone can pick-up-and-play, with user-friendly and intuitive controls that make every process -- from adding cartoon-style graphics, speech bubbles, and giant action words, to editing images on-the-fly, to setting the layout of each comic book page -- simple and enjoyable. Once complete, the creations can be shared through social media sites, email, or sent directly to a wireless printer to create a hard copy.
Is It Any Good?
COMIC LIFE allows users to take their ordinary, everyday photos and turn them into an exciting comic book adventure. However, the level of customization feels somewhat limited. The available templates are bland and have no special flavor or feeling, and the number of fonts, speech bubbles, and canned photos is limited. Additionally, because it acts more like a computer program than a mobile app, the controls are sometimes clunky. As a result, this app does have value and anyone with a little creativity can unleash a fair share of masterpieces with this, but it may fall short of some users' expectations.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Look at cartoons in the newspaper and discuss how the author uses visual elements, instead of words, to tell a story.
Go over a comic your kid created; reflect, and discuss if all elements are clear to the reader.
Help your kids create a cartoon by outlining the story offline, and then design it with the application.
App Details
- Device : iPad
- Pricing structure :
- Release date : July 19, 2011
- Genre : Photo & Video
- Publisher : plasq LLC
- Version : 1.0.4
- Minimum software requirements : iOS 4.3 or later
- Last updated : June 19, 2019
Did we miss something on diversity?
Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by
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