Parents' Guide to

Comic Life

By Mark Raby, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 8+

Turn photos into comics if you can navigate clunky controls.

App iPad Photo & Video
Comic Life Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this app.

  • Comic Life App: Screenshot #1
  • Comic Life App: Screenshot #2
  • Comic Life App: Screenshot #3

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Privacy Rating Warning

  • Personal information is not sold or rented to third parties.
  • Personal information is not shared for third-party marketing.
  • Personalised advertising is displayed.
  • Data are not collected by third-parties for their own purposes.
  • Unclear whether this product uses a user's information to track and target advertisements on other third-party websites or services.
  • Data profiles are not created and used for personalised advertisements.
Learn more about our privacy ratings

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?

Our review:
Parents say: Not yet rated
Kids say: Not yet rated

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
  • Release date: July 19, 2011
  • Category: Photo & Video
  • Publisher: plasq LLC
  • Version: 1.0.4
  • Minimum software requirements: iOS 4.3 or later
  • Last updated: August 22, 2016

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 suggesting a diversity update.

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