For, say, black floating text with a white outside border, this has the effect of making the text itself look really spindly if the border is thicker. It's in there, but hard to find things if you don't know where they are, and they aren't always clearly labeled with what they do.Īlso, it's a shame there's no "outline" feature to SFX text-if you add a border to text, the border ends up centered on the text outline, with no option to give it an external "halo". My only other complaints are that accessing the advanced text features is cumbersome, since most of it is buried in tiny tabs in a small floating properties window, and it's organized the way I'd expect. Functional, but clumsy, so I usually end up adding balloons in Manga Studio. The only disadvantage to using it in this completely non-standard way: If you're not using ComicLife to do the panels themselves, clipping SFX or dialogue balloons to the edge of panels is awkward-it requires adding an invisible, borderless panel overlaying the one in the image and putting the text inside it. Works just as well in greyscale as color, too. The sound effect lettering tools are also great-you can stretch, bend, tweak, and outline fully-editable text to your heart's content.įor my use, if I set up page sizes correctly, import full-page images, and set them to "actual size", I can then add lettering on top and export a 1:1 pixel-accurate PDF of each page with correctly anti-aliased text added. It supports advanced OpenType text features (auto ligatures, etc), is extremely fast and smooth-feeling, and tweaking the size of a balloon-shaped dialogue box is fast and easy. Unfortunately, the English-language lettering tools in that software are a disaster (no kerning or ligatures at all, awkward, etc), so I need something else for lettering, and Comic Life is exactly the tool I need for that. In my case, I have an artist that works in Manga Studio (Clip Studio Pro). While this app is clearly designed for casual consumer use, it's actually a fully functional professional tool as well. Its priced modestly & is sure worth the price. Perhaps their new drawing app will address that part of the equation more robustly. If you have to draw the panels in relative context - you are doing it elsewhere already. For that it would be a little awkward production tool, though I have used it similarly. The script page addition in version 3 was a nice touch.Ĭreating actual comic strips or graphic novels with it is quite possible, but not ideal.Ĭonsistent line weights from frame-to-frame could become a problem, if you used this to generate an “approaching professional” level comic. The multiple panel templates & type of “flyer” pages is really very nice as a starting point to generate “how-to’s” & gag flyers. I’d recommend Comic Life, if that means anything to anybody. You CAN storyboard effectively with it, even if you aren’t a killer artist.ĪND they are about to release some type of draw application soon, too. Comic Life burst onto the Mac scene in 2005 and caused a sensation winning both an Apple Design Award (for Best Product New to Mac OS X) and a Macworld Eddy.Pretty cool for single panels & smart cracks attached to photos. With Comic Life you'll never look at your pictures the same way again. Filter your images and add in some halftones or speedlines for more action. It's simple to do: just drag photos onto the page and add your text in speech balloons and captions. You can retell a family vacation or capture a special day using your photos. Start with fully customizable templates or build your own pages with speech balloons, comic lettering, and photo filters so slick they can make your grandmother look like a superhero.Ĭomic Life isn't just for creating comics. Turn your photos into amazing comic pages or create an entire comic book with Comic Life. "I am so excited about Comic Life 3 for Mac." With so many options at my disposal, I feel like I have ultimate control of the way the page gets rendered. Chris Shoemaker, Co-Founder of Freshi Media It's intuitive and it has a wider selection of title treatments and templates - love the retro look!" "Comic Life is one of our favorite apps!"
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