One can be a busy blogger just copying the neat things D’Arcy Norman does… liks playing with the gnomz comic creator he wrote about a while back.
This is just one of those things that at first you might thing, “What a silly waste of time and computer resources!”, which is true, but don’t be so quick to judge… the site, gnomz.com allows anyone like me who can barely draw a stick figure, to create their one characters and build a comic strip. Now if you think about it, writing a good comic is not easy as you have limited space and dialogue, and really need to tell a story very quickly, and end with a punch.
I cannot claim my first lame attempt is anything to send Doonesbury off the pages, but here is my cats and dogs yapping about “Aren’t They Just Diaries?” (first pane snapped below):
If you look a bit more, what is great about the site is that it taps into your left and right brains for creativity, it has social tools built in to email or embed your comics, ratings, RSS feeds… it is more than just a “waste of time” (though you can sink a lot there).
Uses? It can make a great way to create a visual for a presentation or a newsletter. One could try and do a short story in comic format. Once can do political commentary, satire.
I know it’s not free, but check out Comic Life – you can capture yourself, or your favorite canine with your iSight.
http://www.plasq.com
Alan, you’re too modest. Your little cartoon captured in an amusing way an insight that I bet many of us who follow weblogs can resonate to. What compels us to to track the minutia of other peoples’ lives, knowing that there’s not time to pay attention to important stuff in our own? I quoted your dialog to my wife last night when we had a rare night out and were catching each other up on who each of us are at the moment. Thanks for that and for this rich soup that you dole out here in such prodigous ladelfuls. You either work very fast or are terribly sleep deprived.
-Peter
Hey Alan,
Can I use your comic in our blendedlearning.wikispaces.org?
Regards
Leigh – Blue Mountains – Australia
Leigh,
Everything I have is open for re-use (tagged at the bottom h ere with Creative Commons), so yes, if it fits, go ahead!
Thanks mate,
I’ve added it in at http://blendedlearning.wikispaces.org/What+exactly+is+a+blog
Its part of a sequence though that you’d be better off viewing from the start.
http://blendedlearning.wikispaces.org
This wiki is pretty fresh and new, and we’d appreciate help from anyone who’s up for it 😉