| Version | 1.2.29 |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Planetwide Games |
| Release date | Nov 7, 2008 |
| Date added | May 7, 2007 |
| Os requirements | Windows, Windows 2000, Windows XP |
| Requirements | Windows 2000/XP |
| Total downloads | 118,242 |
| Downloads per week | 2 |
| Price | Free to try |
Description
Video gamers can now create a professional-looking, high-quality comic book to immortalize an important battle scene or dramatic encounter within their game play. Comic Book Creator lets gamers add in text bubbles to their digital screenshots, as well as classic comic book features like powerful action-word graphics that emphasize their game play. To create a comic, you need to select from one of the 500 unique layout and design templates, drop in your captured digital images and insert text bubbles, icons, captions and clipart to bring to life whatever story you can imagine. Comic Book Creator will work with any JPEG, BMP, or GIF digital image and will allow users to share their masterpiece with friends. Version 1.2.29 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, and bug fixes.
Review
Comic Book Creator is an admirable attempt to make comic-book making accessible to the artistically disinclined. Loaded with a wide array of page and panel layouts, but lacking in drawing tools, CBC is aimed at those who already have their story and art ready to load, or for those who don't mind investing in the publisher's clipart packages.
The program has some strengths, the greatest being the variety of built-in word balloons and fonts you can choose from. Especially helpful is the ability to reposition the word balloon stems, to maximize their use in the panel and point exactly where you want them to go. Imported art is easy to resize, but there's no way to vectorize imports, so unless it's close to the size you want it to be, pixelation will be a concern. There's a convenient link to Hypercomics.com so that you can easily publish your comic on the Web.
However, the program is enormous with a download larger than 150 MB. The lack of in-app art tools was frustrating, and although you can load your own art or screenshots, it must be done through the left-nav Resource Browser and then drag-and-dropping into the page--not the most intuitive method. There are also options to include animations and sounds in your digital comic, but they were inaccessible in the trial, unless you provide your own.
