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Comic-Con ‘07: Planetwide Media’s Comic Book Creator

By Garrett Fuller

While I attended San Diego Comic-Con, I noticed that there was a huge mix of comics, games, and movies on display. The three media genres seem to be going hand-in-hand these days, and with employee working to constantly bring great content to fans. The Comic Book Creator, developed by Planetwide Media, works within this cross-genre friendship by allowing people to build their own comics online by working with very easy-to-use software. Sounds fun right?

The Comic Book Creator is easy to use and fun to work with.

But what about making online comics using your screenshots from your favorite MMOs? I have spent time making player videos to music and also capturing my favorite screens when we killed Onyxia, yet Comic Book Creator adds something extra for players, the ability to write their own stories within the games they play.

To bring this sort of storytelling even closer to the MMOG front, the folks at Planetwide Media have set up a Comic Book Creator version that works specifically with EverQuest II. The program allows players to grab screenshots and art from the game. Once you start filling in the panels you can add thought bubbles, dialogue, story arcs. It really is easy to use. The EQ2 Creator comes standard with some specific screenshots and backgrounds, but Planetwide Media also opted to make CBC compatible with Fraps.

What is Fraps? Okay for those who may not play MMOs too often, Fraps is software that allows you to record video or take screenshots of your game. From what I know, Fraps has been used as far back as Dark Age of Camelot, and it could be even older than that. It is fairly simple software to use and quickly allows you to capture the action in a game.

Comic Book Creator allows players to take their stories to the next level. Everyone needs a break from game play once in a while. Comic Book Creator gives you a platform to tell your stories. Let’s say you just downed a huge boss, you got the screenshot, now how about taking us back to the beginning of the quest. Telling the story of your hero and how you met up with your companions. What steps did you take to get to the boss? Did you have to kill monsters long the way? All these elements can be added into your comic book and given full dialogue as well as thoughts.

A specific version of Comic Book Creator was developed for use with Evequest 2 and its subsequent expansions.

Here is a quick run down of the software: Players can log into Comic Book Creator and select templates to tell their stories with, the same as a regular comic book. You can adjust the size and shape of the panels on the page to fit any comic book style. Once you have your page set up you can drag and drop backgrounds or screenshots into each panel. Once you have your background you can add clip art, character images, and even overlap NPCs or other characters in the background.

Now that you have your pictures down, it is time to add the text. Voice and thought bubbles can be added to all the frames and even get adjusted to cross frames making them stand out on a page. You can also use any fonts you want to “ink” the words. Perhaps to illustrate a particular voice you want to use a specific font, different from say - BLAM! -  a sound effect. Players can add their own dialogue and adjust the bubbles to fit well in the panels.

The entire process does not take that long at all. Comic Book Creator has been made easy for players and readers alike. Once you complete your story you have a digital comic that you can post at different sites. There are many readers out there who also review and comment on player made comics.

Though Comic Book Creator is not an MMO specifically, it does add a great element to the game play of an MMO. Players who like to make their own stories will really enjoy the enhancement of this software to add to their game play. The folks at Planetwide Media said they are talking to a number of other games right now and hope to have comics for many other MMOs in the near future. As we move further into the digital world I expect we’ll see more and more software like Comic Book Creator. It is fun, easy to work with, and allows players to really tell their stories in a non-standard way.

Make sure you check out all of our Comic-Con 2007 coverage!