Mediums - Master List of Comic Making Digital Programs and Apps

While you can make some form of comic with just about any art software if you try, choosing quality art software that is geared toward the unique needs of comic-making can make your life easier. There are programs across every operating system and price range (even free!), and community resources like video tutorials and brush packs for many of them.

Things good comic-making programs and apps have in common:

• Ability to handle large files at print resolutions (300dpi) in case you ever want to print your comics.
• Layer functionality for keeping your art, panels, and text separate and editable.
• Connectivity with pressure-sensitive tablet hardware to emulate the drawing experience.
• Compatibility with your operating system (not every program works on every computer or tablet!)
• An active userbase invested in making tutorials. While you can go it alone, the more popular a program is, the more resources you have from the community when you get stuck.

Here’s our current list of recommended comic-making programs!

Clip Studio Paint/EX

Price: $50 (Paint) /$219 (EX), monthly subscriptions from $2.09-$14.99/month
Platform: Windows, macOS, iPad, iPhone, Galaxy, Android, Chromebook
Clip Studio’s software is specifically made with comics in mind, and comes with built-in word bubble, paneling, 3D modelling, rulers, and many helpful tools. Clip Studio has frequent sales and is very actively engaged in the comic-making community, integrating a lot of new features like Webtoon scrolling formatting and timelapse recording in their recent version.

Beginning Tutorials:
VAMPBYTE’s Intro to Clip Studio

Procreate

Price: $10
Platform: iPad only

Procreate is a raster graphics editor app for digital painting. It is iPad-only and specifically tooled for touch response and the iPad pencil, which it is integrated very smoothly with to emulate the feel of physical drawing. Also allows integrated export of process videos. The larger your canvas, and/or the higher the DPI, the fewer layers you’ll have to work with, presumably to keep things manageable processing-wise.

Beginning Tutorials:
James Julier’s App Guide to Procreate (video)

Paint Tool SAI

Price: $50 after free trial
Platform: Windows

SAI (or Easy Paint Tool SAI) is a lightweight painting software, with very smooth painting functionality. As of SAI2, the program now has some shape and text tool functionality, though it is still limited when it comes to tools for assembling art into a comic page format.

Beginning Tutorials:
Anastasia Purtova’s Beginner’s Guide to Paint Tool SAI

Krita

Price: Free
Platform: Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and Chrome OS

Krita is a free and open-source raster and vector graphics editor designed primarily for digital painting and 2D animation. It has good gesture/hotkey commands to make switching tools quick and easy.

Beginning Tutorials:
Sara Tepe’s Introduction to Krita (video)

MediBang Paint

Price: Free
Platform: Windows, macOS, iPad, iPhone, Android

MediBang is a free digital painting and manga creation software. The smartphone and tablet versions are particularly optimized for mobile devices, and auto cloud backup are nice. Particularly nice for comic creators are the comic page file types, which include include page margins and guidelines, and the edge pen which lets you create adjustable speech bubbles.

Beginning Tutorials:
Winged Canvas How To Use MediBangPaint Pro (video)

Adobe Photoshop

Price: $10/month
Platform: Windows, macOS, iPad

Adobe Photoshop is the oldest and most established art program out there, and the PSD file format it uses is a standard that most other art programs also try to align to. Many brushes and resources have been developed for it over the years. It is very multi-purpose and used across many artistic disciplines, so while it can do almost everything the above programs can do, it isn’t specifically made with comic artists in mind. It’s also the only option that has a recurring subscription fee, which can be a hard hit unless you’re getting the software through work or school.

Beginning Tutorials:
Justin Oshido’s Adobe Photoshop CC Beginners Tutorial (video)