Comic life 3 is out and there is a discount until 20/10/13 (50%)

It's at the app store and at this stage is mac only.

I've tried it already and it is reminiscent of comic life magiq which they used to make before CL2 came out. I like this version the best out of all the CL versions I have ever tried.

And my old CL2 comic still loads into CL3 so that is great too.

Love esther

That is a fun app.  I use the Windows version of CL2 which was buggy when I first got it but has been fine with the latest patch.  Looking forward to version 3 for Windows soon.

keep your eye out for the initial discount.

Thanks for the tip. When it is available for PC I'll take a look at it. I teach a course called Literature of the Graphic Word and the final exam is simple: My students have to script, layout, and create a comic book (minimum of six pages). I've used Planetside's software in the past but they have vanished and the newer version is much, much less "value for the dollar" than the original. I am always looking for software for this course.

I love Comic Life. Both of my comics were done with it. I'll have to upgrade, but still don't know when I'll get back to working on my comics.

Love CL as well, got version 2, looking forward to CL3 for Windows. Don't underestimate this little gem, you can even do commercially printed comics on it. On of my comics, done with CL2, has been printed (10,000 copies), by a commercial printer and the outcome looked awesome. It goes way beyond creating webcomics and comics just for fun. Heading over to http://plasq.com/ now to see what version 3 will bring :-)

EDIT: Wow, that are quite some cool new features and a some I really wanted for a while. I've been thinking about upgrading Manga Studio, but I'm glad I've seen this. Looks like soon my old version of Manga Studio will be replaced by CL3.

Comic Life doesn't have the wonderful drawing toolset of Manga Studio.  I like CL a lot better for layout and text balloons though.

CL2 doesn't have a drawing toolset indeed, but the comic features it does have are way better and user friendly then what mange studio offers.. I only use rendered images for my comics. With manga studio I add speed lines and such effects, I don't draw comics or color them with it. Until now CL didn't provide me with the extra options I needed manga studio for, but that changed now with the new features in CL3. No more switching between the two. Beside other cool new features, CL3 has added has added a complete drawing toolset.

• 17 advanced parametric image filters, including
  Rotoscope, Paintoscope, Hatched, Sketched, Smooth, Pen, Retro and more.

• 191 built-in creative fill options including speedlines, halftones, textures and tiles

• 11 stroke types from clean lines to scratchy pens

• Shape line endings: arrows, circles etc.

That sounds like a nice drawing toolset to me, so no more switching between 2 applications. I'm sure it cannot compare to the newest versions of mange studio, but I still have an old one and for the little upgrading price plasq asks for CL3, I don't think it will be a waste of money! Saving the time between switching two applications and constantly importing and exporting is worth the small amount the ask.

I have MS and agree it is better to use comic life for the panels and balloons. I do want to get into MS though for effects and I was thinking hair drawing too.  but I can't seem to draw hair that I like no matter what I do.

Yea, Manga Studio was one of those diamonds in the rough to me.  Never realized it had such a terrific drawing toolset.  I think they could sell more copies with a different name though.  A lot of us think/thought it was just a Manga specific product but that's only one small corner of the drawing universe that MS is great for.

I don't know why photoshop doesn't have those same sorts of brushes and pen features.  I suppose illustrator does but I would need to do a 12 month course in illustrator to get the hang of it.  then again MS has also got quite a steep learning curve.

Some of the things I loved about Planetsides' software for creating comics were that there were dozens of free page templates available for download, the same with word balloons, fill materials, etc.  It also allowed you to create your own character libraries so it was possible to do a full range of motion for one character if you ran them up in Poser first and saved them correctly.

I used to use comic life and tried comic life 2. I just use photoshop for the pages/panels/balloons/etc

well comic life 3 is pretty darn good and very quick and easy. it even has built in variability in default balloon shapes. I'm sure I haven't even discovered all the things it can do as yet.

I couldn't imagine doing it all in photoshop. I'd run out of time.

love esther

PS I'm taking too  long for each page as it is.