I actually had an entire section devoted to the process. :)
Alas, the problem with that idea is that once I set all the people in their places, they have to stay there -- so the empty space available for the text is all that there is. More than a few times I had to re-write the gag just to make it fit in the space.
At present, with CorelDraw, I can re-size and move around the images *and* move around the text, all at the same time. It's a lot more convenient.
For a while I tried using StarOffice, but I kept having problems. Can't remember right offhand what they were, but I gradually stopped trying to use it.