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Friday, January 23, 2009

Books Infinite Canvas

Posted by Paul Constant on Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 12:40 PM

4864/1232743162-saucer.jpg
"The Day the Saucers Came" is a very short illustrated story by Neil Gaiman with nice art by Jouni Koponen, who I've never heard of before. The story itself is so light as to blow away—does anyone else feel like Gaiman has been on mental vacation since he wrote Coraline?—but there's an interesting aspect to the story.

Apparently, Microsoft Labs has a new website called "Infinite Canvas," which refers to Scott McCloud's idea of creating comics on the internet. You can make panels bigger and smaller and view the whole thing at once or view it one panel at a time. A better, but more simple example of the concept is here. And a more interesting example than Gaiman's is here. This feels like it could really become something, if people stick with it.

Comments (9) RSS

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I think Gaiman was on mental vacation WHEN he wrote Coraline.

Posted by anarchy burger on January 23, 2009 at 12:46 PM

it's not exactly a short story. I'd call it a poem. it's not prose by any stretch of the imagination. It was not written to be illustrated, it just got that way--and if you are thinking of this as a comics project i feel you should look into it a bit better--this is a poster, illustrating a poem. This is not supposed to be a webcomic--it CANNOT be illustrating the concept of infinate canvas--it is designed as a POSTER.

i may not agree with your assesment of Gaiman's recent works (and i don't, particularly, but i can at least see where you are coming from)--but this particular critisism is...uhm. weird, to say the least.

Posted by chibi-evil on January 23, 2009 at 12:52 PM

Gaiman's poetry (including this bit) has always been whimsical and fluffy and, actually, I've always enjoyed them for that reason.

But I'd say that I've been less than impressed by everything after Anansi Boys. I'm curious about his upcoming Chinese project but otherwise, eh. Graveyard was pretty dire.

Posted by Chris B on January 23, 2009 at 12:59 PM

"Sleeping Dark Things" was very good.

Posted by Big Sven on January 23, 2009 at 1:09 PM

Wow, I really liked this piece. I left it thinking "oh, how sweet, that's very nice and touching and awwwww." Thanks for the pointer.

Posted by NaFun on January 23, 2009 at 1:09 PM

This is cool. Comics and illustrated stories are a good match for this medium. I've seen powerpoint-ish presentations given in software that does this sort of thing; it didn't really make them better.

By the way, in case anyone's interested in the HI aspect, the interface is an example of a ZUI (zommable/zooming user interface).

Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooming_use…

Posted by tpdg on January 23, 2009 at 1:22 PM

I thought the Graveyard Book was pretty great. I liked it more than Coraline.

And his poetry is very... impressionistic? In a good way, I think.

Posted by Soupytwist on January 23, 2009 at 1:23 PM

Oh, Jesus CHRIST, Paul - do NOT give credit to Microsoft for implementing McCloud's infinite canvas. Many people have built these, but the definitive one would be Daniel Merlin Goodbrey's Tarquin Engine - used by McCloud himself in his own infinite canvas experiments.

Microsoft: below the curve, behind the times.

Posted by Ivan Cockrum on January 23, 2009 at 4:29 PM

Paul, thanks for the mention!

Ivan, this isn't meant to be a definitive implementation, but I did consult with Scott and Merlin, as well as Markus Müller, who's also written an implementation. As far as we're all concerned, the more the merrier!

You can learn more about the project here:

http://dragonosticism.wordpress.com/2009…

Posted by Ian Gilman on January 23, 2009 at 10:59 PM