Making Comic Strips Easy
With Bitstrips, you can do it in seconds.
Create your own characters, backgrounds and stories, as simple or as complex as you like. Think you have a funny bit? Bitstrip it! Like to editorialize about life, politics, world affairs? Bitstrip it!
Who am I? I'm Fortunalee
Occupation: Pixel Pusher
Hometown: Bitsville
Hobbies: Blogging, Bitstripping
Member since: 2008-03-09
Bitstrips Read: 18,550
Published Strips: 300
Total Views: 37,508
Total Laughs: 1,907
Total Groans: 146
Total Faves: 423
Total Kudos: 1,081
AUSTIN, Texas -- No steady hand or even a keen eye is required to create a polished webcomic, thanks to a new, easy-to-use tool that lets users create a comic strip from scratch.
Bitstrips, the brainchild of a group of cartoonists and animators, launched at South by Southwest by inviting convention attendees on the showroom floor to test the service by creating a personalized avatar.
"Comics are usually so labor intensive," said Jacob "Ba" Blackstock, who designed and drew all of the art and character components used in the service. "With Bitstrips, we're sidestepping the hard parts." - Wired Blog
Whether you're into pixel painting, fall-on-the-floor-laughing jokes, superhero adventures, sight gags, or graphic novels, Bitstrips is the easiest to use, most versatile comic creator out there.
Let your imagination fly!
Layman's Guide to Stripping
Bitstripping, that is. Get your mind out of the gutter.
But there's more. The Bitstrips creators knew right up front that they were building a social web application. They knew their users would enjoy talking to each other, learning from each other - as well as teaching, collaborating on comic strips, remixing others' strips, and socializing. Becoming a community. They've made it all quite easy to do, with sidebar status updates, email, and commenting.Express your approval of a strip (or disapproval,) or let the author know that you laughed out loud with the ratings system of laughs and groans.
Not fond of adult content strips? You can filter those out, as well as flag those strips that contain mature or offensive content.
Share the strips you make by either embedding the flash strip on your blog or webpage, or display an image of it (which is how I've done it here on Squidoo.)
Bitstrips' special comic viewer works great for embedding your strips in blogs and webpages. It will automatically resize your strip so you don't lose the full impact. On multi-pane comics, each frame is displayed separately, like a slideshow, with a final display of the entire comic at the end. You can see the comic viewer in action here. Click on the gray arrow to see the next frame.
You can email your strips to your friends too, or share them on more than 2 dozen other social networks including Reddit, Digg, Facebook, MySpace, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Technorati, Google, Yahoo Bookmarks, Yahoo!, My Web, Windows Live, Propeller, Slashdot, Newsvine and more.
How about creating your own not-for-business cards via Bitstrips?
New Toys!
When our Bitstrips overlords... er... developers have new toys to introduce, they do so on their developer's blog. This week's introduction = wow!
Fetching RSS feed... please stand by1st Annual Best of Bitstrips Awards
This past summer, Bitstrips held their first annual Best of Bitstrips awards. The community voted on their favorite strips in a variety of categories. Click on the links below to see who won! To see the winning entries, search for the strip title in the Bitstrips search box.
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byMememememememe
Is the comic the meme, or is the meme the comic?
You get multi-person series like The Starinator!
Kathy & Dare have been battling wills in a staring contest for weeks now. Will Kathi or Dare eventually win? There's no frontrunner - yet! (Be sure to click on the comics to see the accompanying comments by the authors.)
Totem Tales
My current series, Totem Tales, began because I wanted to see if I could stretch the Bitstrips character builder to create totem pole heads. While I couldn't quite get everything I wanted, these characters took on a life of their own, and instead of creating a one off simple totem pole post, there's now a whole series of comics featuring Marg, Herb, Oca, Tiffany and the others.
Life really isn't so different now than from ancient times, when totems walked the Pacific Northwest.
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byAmazon Spotlight
Bitstripper Recommendation
Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
Amazon Price: $15.82 (as of 12/19/2009)
"... the one that is absolutely necessary is "Understanding Comics" by Scott McCloud. If you understand that book, you have everything you need to know about making comics." - Vi Paravane
Strip Painting
We've gotten a few new toys recently from the Bitstrip development team, including a spotlight that makes for interesting shading and shadowing possibilities.
In my case, it made more realistic space scenes possible, such as the ones below.
Favorite Bitstrippers - Pauly Hart
No one will give you much of an argument if you call Bitstripper Pauly Hart the king of Bitstrips. Since March 2008, Pauly has created over 1,100 bitstrips, including two games, one a dice game, the other series of playing cards, a film noir style adult drama, abstract art, experimental strips, as well as numerous strips containing philosophybits, poetry and his newest, a series of t-shirt designs. Check out especially the "Paulywallys"!
Fetching RSS feed... please stand bySpace Duhhst
Space is funny. Really. Big, too.
I didn't create the characters below, they were created by fellow Bitstripper doyoulikekung. They're called Squiggles - I found them on the "featured character" section on Bitstrips' Page One, where everyone is invited to create a strip using the featured character. Since doyoulikekung allowed the characters to be used by anyone, I've sort of adopted them, transported them to various planets off-world, and they're the stars of one of my series, Space Duhhst.
If you want to reserve your characters for only your own use, that option is available as well!
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byFavorite Bitstrippers: Uzi Bazooka
This Action Figure toy by TheDoctor features Uzi Bazooka, winner of Best Author in the 1st Annual Best of Bitstrip Awards.
If Pauly is Bitstrips' king, Uzi Bazooka is its mad scientist. He's talented, irreverent, wild, imaginative, and sometimes just a touch degenerate. In a nice way. I love both Uzi's bold colors, and his bold humor. Uzi comes with a warning label though, since seemingly nothing is off-limits. Check out "Hiroshima/Nagasaki" for a taste of his wicked humor.
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byBitstrips' Editorial Page
The Bitstrips folks use both their developer's blog and an editorial cartoon on the front page to communicate with Bitstrippers.
The long-awaited Bitstrips Store has been introduced, giving us the ability to order t-shirts featuring our favorite comic strips.
I've ordered several already for Christmas gifts, and am looking forward to their arrival.
Help support the totally free Bitstrips site by ordering a few today.
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byBitstrips Demo'd by Chris Pirillo
How to Put Yourself and Friends in a Comic Strip
http://live.pirillo.com - I have always loved comic strips. However, there's a problem. I cannot draw! Thankfully, I found BitStrip online. I can now easily create my own comics... for free! Bwana joined me on this video, and let me create "him" in cartoon form!
Runtime: 1224
9908 views
40 Comments:
curated content from YouTube
Favorite Bitstrippers: Ralph LeBeau
One of the longest - and most enjoyed - series on Bitstrips has been Ralph LeBeau's "Displaced Persons" strips, chronicling newlyloves Glen and Ralph, and the blending of their families. We have one word for this series: Yay!
Ralph has also recently created, "The Madness of King George", an hilarious political humor strip.
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byFollow your favorite Bitstrips folks on Twitter
Let us know your Twitter and Bitstrip names, and we'll add you here!
- bitstrips
- aka Bitstrips
- 136 followers
- 23 following
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- @mrsshori If you're running in to any issues, we'd be happy to help out!
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- @davidwees Nice presentation!
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- Happy Internet Dependence Day - http://bit.ly/7k7uO
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- @JackPappas Bitstrips doesn't require registration to read most comics (or try making them) - just to display mature content.
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- And... we're back!
Social Media ... er, Integration
Bitstrips via Squidoo via Twitter via Summize, and back to you...
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byFavorite Bitstrippers: BoomMike
A few months ago, cartoonist BoomMike burst on the scene, and began publishing his Local Patrol series. This funny little space opera now numbers over 500 episodes, and recounts the adventures of a not-always-so-lucky local space patrol crew. Join Zed, Captain Hell, Buzz, the Professor, Swami-Gra and the rest for the adventures of the Local Patrol.
Sweet steel toed muffin tops!
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byThe Best of the Best
Bitstrips' editors choose their favorite strips each day, and flag them with an "Editor's Pick" designation. If you're looking for the best strips that have been published, scroll through the Editor's Picks to see the wide variety of strips and styles.
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byBitstrips Store
Proceeds go to Bitstrips.com to help support this free comic-creation service.Create a comic or character, then transfer it to a t-shirt with the easy t-shirt creator by Spreadshirt.com.
You can also order t-shirts (and soon other products) from comic strips that the authors have made available to everyone.
The main Bitstrips shop is now open! Here you can buy premade t-shirts from Bitstrips, Pauly Hart, and Boommike's Local Patrol.
Are you looking for mugs, mousepads or playing cards made from your own Bitstrips' designs? Details are available here.
T-Shirts by Pauly Hart
Pauly Hart's T-Shirts by Pauly Hart featuring the Paulywallys.Paul Jr.'s been making t-shirt designs for months - long before a store was even announced. Though they started out as just cartoons, you can now have classic lines such as, "Got Nuts?" on a tee.
Totem T's
Some of my Totem designs are available as t-shirts.I have a series of Muggables (designs optimized to put on a coffee mug) from the Nutcracker, Totem, and several other series, with more to come!
Geokis32 has all her designs open for merchandising. Check out her Artsy series for t-shirt inspiration.Thomasilly has several designs available, including "Glitch".
Wireless has offered some of his pirate strips for t-shirt designs, including "Same ship, different day."
The Mostest!
In addition to Editor's Picks, there are various metrics which will show the bitstrips that are Most Discussed, Most Recent, Top Rated, and Most Viewed.
A big honor is to have a strip show on Most Favorites. That means your strip has been marked as a favorite by more people than the other 69,000 strips out there.
Yes, I'm proud to have a strip that reached the first page of Most Favorites! Speech balloons and bananas - our most versatile tools!
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byComic Strip Books
Favorite Bitstrippers: Kathi
Kathi has been stripping since June, and has quickly become a community favorite. Her humor, grace and artistic talent are an inspiration to us all.
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byBlog Posts
- Bitstrips: DUST
- Post this bitstrip: (close). You must publish your strip before embedding/posting it. Flag this Strip: (close). Please sign up to flag this comic. Put this Bitstrip on a product: ...
- The Nintendo Download: Bits, Trips, Karts, And Blobs - wiiware ...
- It's a jam-packed Thanksgiving edition of the Nintendo Download, with enough games to leave you comatose on the couch for hours.
- Bitstrips for Schools! « Bitstrips News
- Soon after we launched Bitstrips.com, we found that teachers everywhere were using Bitstrips as a teaching tool, engaging their students with the exciting power of comic creation. So, we decided to build a new version of Bitstrips, ...
- Link to Bitstrips
- HERE is a link to bitstrips. My family.ca link worked so I will do the same thing that I did with that link. I hope it works! Please comment and tell me if it works.
Addictive?
You bet!Bitstripping is every bit as addictive as coffee, cigarettes, drugs, sex, or gambling. At first, you think you can handle it. Before long, you realize that you haven't moved away from your computer in 9 hours, you're sitting around waiting for updates to the site, or need Bitstrips Anonymous, or that your family and friends will soon be performing an intervention.
Write a Mystery
Write your own online mystery novel and illustrate it with Bitstrips!
Breaking Comic News! New series published only moments ago by ste: "Haunted House". Wowsa!
Once you've saved your comic, you have the option to select one of several genre categories. Mystery/Horror is one, others include Comedy, Pop Culture, Experimental, News/Politics etc. Check out some of the Mystery comics by clicking on the links below, or view dozens of them by clicking on the genre tabs.
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byThe Oldest Profession
Ok, so maybe it's the 3rd oldest...
Political cartooning is one of the oldest professions out there. Sometimes when the truth hurts just a little too much, the only way you say it out loud, is through political or editorial cartooning.
At user request, Bitstrips added a News/Politics category for strips which just weren't funny - but were relevent and important, nonetheless.
Check out Vi Paravane's latest series, "Homeless in America".
Ok, so it is too funny.
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byPolitics At Play
- It's A Guy Thing
- Some guys just can't seem to learn from example!
Bitstripper Threw His Hat In the Ring, and His Clothes Away!
Update: Sadly, he was defeated in the end by those who would cling to their clothes and sense of reality.
This November, elect the emperor who knows he has no clothes, elect Thomasilly!
Friday, August 15, 2008, Thomasilly officially threw his hat in the ring.
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byMore Books on Cartooning
More Great Bitstrippers!
- AuClair 672
- Visit AuClair wherever he is!
- BA
- He's the one behind all these shenanigans.
- doyoulikekung
- He created the Squiggles. Nuff said?
- Jas
- Creator one of the most popular Featured Series strips out there.
- Mom-ba
- You gotta love her!
- ste
- The one with the hair - and the wild imagination!
- technutz
- You were doing what with your right hand when you broke it??
- Thomasilly
- Necessity may be the mother of invention, but Thomasilly is its father.
- Wireless
- Tutorials on every subject. Follow the wires... er, Wireless!
- Missgolightly
- Missgolightly never misses.
- Forsythe
- The man who never sleeps - he and Dr. Insomniac!
- Vi Paravane
- The beautiful dreamer... except when she bites!
- Pseuz
- Our tourguide extraordinaire - caves and mountaintops a specialty!
They'll Make Movies About Us!
Bitstrips Animated
A short animation with my bitstrips avatar. www.bitstrips.com Film based on a Mr. Boomba vid. If I can ever remember which one I'll add a link
Runtime: 0:57 | 441 views | 12 Comments
automatically generated by YouTube
Comics Online
- Canadian Comix News & Culture
- Comics in the news.
- Gaping Void
- Popular comic artist Hugh MacLeod.
- xkcd - A Webcomic of Romance, Sarcasm, Math & Language
- It doesn't get too much more irreverent than this.
- Blog Catalog Comics Category
- Who's blogging about comics, comic strips and graphic novels?
- Daily Comics Review
- No holds barred reviews of various web and print comics. Not kidding with the "no holds barred" comment, either.
- The Comics Curmudgeon
- "Curmudgeon" says it all. But then I always did like tart commentary.
- CBR Gift Guide
- Holiday gift guide from Comic Book Resources. A - Z for the comic book lover on your holiday shopping list.
Join us at Bitstrips!
Reader Feedback
If you enjoyed this lens, especially if you're a fellow Bitstripper, give a shout, and be sure to include a link to your own Bitstrip profile page. Who knows? I may add you as a Bitstrip Favorite too!
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Reply
- adiw adiw Aug 6, 2009 @ 12:20 pm
- This web page just about sums it up! If you can tell me how to 5 star/fav,I will. This is a very terrific blog thingy!
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Reply
- DarkDork DarkDork Aug 3, 2009 @ 5:50 am
- I am on BS for a long time and i think your blog is verry helpfull for new-joiners.
on BS i would say: LKF!
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Reply
- Fortunalee Fortunalee Apr 12, 2009 @ 1:51 pm
- Thanks, Moby!
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Reply
- MobyD MobyD Apr 12, 2009 @ 10:57 am
- This lens has earned a Squid Angel blessing!
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Reply
- Fortunalee Fortunalee Dec 10, 2008 @ 4:36 pm
- Thanks so much. :)
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Table of Contents
- Layman's Guide to Stripping
- New Toys!
- 1st Annual Best of Bitstrips Awards
- Mememememememe
- Totem Tales
- Amazon Spotlight
- Strip Painting
- Favorite Bitstrippers - Pauly Hart
- Space Duhhst
- Favorite Bitstrippers: Uzi Bazooka
- Bitstrips' Editorial Page
- Bitstrips Demo'd by Chris Pirillo
- Favorite Bitstrippers: Ralph LeBeau
- Follow your favorite Bitstrips folks on Twitter
- Social Media ... er, Integration
- Favorite Bitstrippers: BoomMike
- The Best of the Best
- Bitstrips Store
- The Mostest!
- Comic Strip Books
- Favorite Bitstrippers: Kathi
- Blog Posts
- Addictive?
- Write a Mystery
- The Oldest Profession
- Politics At Play
- Bitstripper Threw His Hat In the Ring, and His Clothes Away!
- More Books on Cartooning
- More Great Bitstrippers!
- They'll Make Movies About Us!
- Bitstrips Tutorials
- Comics Online
- Join us at Bitstrips!
- Reader Feedback
- Older News Items
- New Text / Write module
"Bitstrips will make 'comic blogging' easy & encourage communities to form around them. -ReadWriteWeb"
Older News Items
Version 1.2 Released July 3, 2008
We tried to be patient. Really.
Well, mostly we tried to be patient. Sometimes we whined.
But when the developers started teasing us with a new series of editorials, and had our buddy Buddy getting whisked off on a purple couch by Tom Cruise & Oprah, things started to get ugly.
We're happy to report however, that Version 1.2 has (finally) been installed.
It's slick and sleek, with improved navigation, a new Read/Unread feature so you can catch up on strips you've missed, some new props that we've sorely needed, like rocks, fire, liquid, and explosions... and Daleks??
There are now some very happy Bitstrippers out there playing with all of our new toys.
Thanks, BA, DK1, Dorian and everyone else involved!
New Discovery! Blog post by the folks at Creative Creature, a small web development company that helped improve and polish Bitstrips' look, and bring it out of Beta.
by Fortunalee
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