Infinite Canvas - The Future That Ain't

To Infinity and... Where Did That Get Off To?

Probably the most well known idea of McCloud's as far as digital comic mechanics are concerned is the idea of the Infinite Canvas. A very short explanation of the concept is that the comics "page" is much larger than its viewing area. Therefore, the reader must navigate the view window around the page-plane to explore the narrative.

As I've said before, McCloud's analytical strengths are clear from his insightful observations of existing works, seeing the patterns, abstracting from there. Probably he's at his weakest when he tries to see into the future. I don't mean this to come off as overly critical, seeing the future is mad hard, and nobody can really do it. So now that I'm looking at an assortment of good digital comics, I'm going to go over some of the things that don't seem to be panning out with this approach and some of the reasons for that. I'm hoping some of the newer terminology I've trotted out will help us with this.

To contextualize the Infinite Canvas with my terminology, the image sequence and the turn are not defined by the comic's creator. One could argue that there is no sequence at all, since the "page" is one giant image. As the reader cannot take all this in at once, I believe there is then an implied sequence. The items in this implied sequence are determined by where the view window rests. The turn can likewise be seen as any movement of the view window which creates a new image. I'll touch on some of the ramifications of this below.

The mechanics of the Infinite Canvas are more thoroughly discussed by McCloud in another article. Here he lays out the narrative tools he sees the Infinite Canvas providing to artists who might utilize the concept. These are:

• Trails - Connective lines that can be used to guide the reader between panels, their arrangement no longer presenting "normal" readerly order. 
• Distance Pacing - Artists not being constrained by a physical limit (page size) can be more fee with their use of space between panels. This space can fluctuate more freely without the reader complaining about paying for blank pages. The differences in spacing can be used to pace actions.
• Narrative Subdivision - Without the page as a divider, panels can be chucked in larger groups or smaller groups. The artist can use these different groupings to achieve different effects.
• Sustained Rhythm - Somewhat of a corollary to Narrative Subdivision, the pacing of a story is likewise not dictated by paged chunks.
• Gradualism - Artists can stage their reveals (dramatic or otherwise) much more often. Paper based comics are generally poor at "information hiding" as each page turn opens up a relatively large narrative space to peripheral observation. 

The current style of digital comics that seems to be emerging takes advantage of many of these. Narrative subdivision is one of the hallmarks of this current style. Individual panels can be updated, there's no need for a whole page to turn for something to change. By the same token, gradualism is achieved as well. Panels or panel elements can appear from nothing on each turn.

Actually, I feel that the Infinite Canvas does a poor job with many of these. While McCloud very strongly believes that "space = time" in comics, I'm not sure this holds up in a digital context. The reader's scrolling (the turn in practice) cannot be modulated by the author in any way. The reader might very well scroll more quickly through perceived blank areas to get back to perceived content. Here's where I feel the Infinite Canvas fails Distance Pacing, Sustained Rhythm, and Gradualism. The reader might scroll too far or too quickly and take away any authorial reveals. It's true that the whole point of a turn is user pacing, but the turns themselves are a defined area of authorial intent. Imagine a book displayed as an endless text on your screen. What if you scrolled too far and missed a bunch of details? What if you accidentally scrolled to the end and read the last sentence on accident?

All in all, I think the Infinite Canvas actually takes a number of powerful tools away from the author while providing no real benefit to the reader. In fact, there are those online that argue that readers do not like scrolling at all.

In my next installment, I'm going to review some existing Infinite Canvas works and give a "play by play" as to which of the above theorized issues I encounter.

Defining Terms (part 2)

Doohickeys and Whatchamacallits

    At the risk of descending to the hilarious depths of Mort Walker's Lexicon of Comicana, which I highly recommend, I'd like to propose some new terms to will hopefully help out in the discussions of how digital comics seem to work now.

The Turn

    In my own humble attempts at crafting a new working definition of comics, one of my main focal points was the mechanic of reader advancement of the image sequence. This mostly consists of the reader moving from one panel to the next whenever she feels like it. There is one additional component to sequence traversal, however, that I propose we call the turn. The turn is any non-reading action required by the reader to advance the sequence. In paper comic books, this would include turning the page. At some point, there are no move visible panels for the reader to read without engaging a turn. In a digital comic, this is most often seen as a "click" of either the mouse or an arrow key. I'm proposing the term turn both for backward compatibility (so that we can still talk about non-digital comics) and for it's clear reference to play. The turn is an abstraction (turning the page is a turn, clicking a key is a turn) that will come in handy for discussing digital comics since there is no real concept of a page. How do you discuss "three clicks ago"? I mean, you can say "three clicks ago", but what if the digital comic in question responds to voice commands, or advances whenever the reader touches the screen? Also, the U.S. military uses "click" to mean kilometers, so there's the potential for confusion there.The whole idea of the turn is to settle on a general term for these acts of advancement. I am more than open for someone to propose a different term.

    Another aspect that occurred to me later, is that the turn is not only the advancement of the sequence, it is also the grouping of advancement. A turn is therefore a co-visual sub-sequence of the overall sequence. In paper comics, this would be a page. So, I'm making the term do double duty here as both the act of advancement and the total content that is displayed by the act of advancement.

On The Swipe

    Apparently, some of the practitioners over at Thrillbent.com have already taken to labeling smaller transitions as "on the swipe". You can see this in some of their published scripts as well as in some of their discussions on the form. These guys are on the front lines and they're inventing terms as they need them, and thank goodness they are. I'm not trying to tell them they are wrong, I just think we can expand some of the concepts they are working with a little bit.

    For one thing, the use of "on the swipe" seems to include mostly smaller transitions. Screens are still announced in these scripts like pages would be with a paper comic script. I think we can embrace the new possibilities of the medium even more. I conceive of a turn as a set of all additions and subtractions to the visual plane. There would then be no replacement for the page, there would be no screen. My main disagreement here is that Jeremy Rock refers to these as "Swipe Effects", more like special features. I'm viewing these seemingly incremental updates as the central mechanic of the form.

Conclusion

    I feel that we need this concept. One of McCloud's most interesting types of analysis in Understanding Comics was his look at panel transition type frequency. Likewise, I think there is some mileage to gotten out of looking at digital comics through the types of turns they use. In digital comics, turns tend to be much finer in their granularity. Often single panels are advanced into the reading area. Paper comics are always static, not in the number of panels opened up by each turn, but the overall amount of panel real estate that appears. Digital comics might include turns involving no more than one speech balloon appearing.  
    Also, the turn concept could help with the definition of digital comic readers. The CBR format, for example, consists of full page images. Each turn moves to the next image. Something more advanced could include a configuration file that specifies which images are added (and which subtracted) at each specific turn.

Defining Terms (part 1)

Foolishly Defining Comics

    In my last post, I talked about throwing my hat into the parlor game that is definition seeking with the following entry:

Comics = A sequence* of images** traversed through reader action.

*inclusive (temporal or spatial)
**inclusive (with or without words)

    I work as a programmer and don't doubt that my definition is influenced by the conceptual patterns of programming. Be this as it is, I'm going to go full on in this direction. My definition is loose and less formal. In many ways, it conforms to the idea of duck typing. In the briefest, most concise way I can describe this idea is to say, if it quacks like a duck, it's a duck. Any image collection that is bound together by some mechanism of reader traversal will act like comics, as far as I'm concerned. My goal is discuss mechanisms. The topics I bring up won't apply to something that doesn't have this mechanism.

   Individual illustrations that include conventions from comics, such as speech balloons and the like, are sometimes referred to as single panel comics. This term is an oxymoron, it doesn't make a lot of sense. A single image is a single image. No one considers a single film frame a short film, or a single frame film. The very notion is ludicrous. In the same way, you can't have comics that are not an oddly plural singular. Most of this confusion is likely historical, comics and single narrative panels shared space in newspapers and got lumped together forever more. Also, there can be convention sharing and they are frequently illustrated.

    The fact that the traversal of the comics sequence is reader paced is also fundamental. This addresses the difference between reading and watching, which is the main difference between comics and movies. You read a book but watch a movie. What's the difference? The movie keeps happening even if you fall asleep. Some number of frames are delivered at the same rate whether you are hopped on caffeine or half asleep. In a book you advance from word to word when you see fit. Comics function more like books than movies. The reader moves to the next image whenever she feels like it. When Mark Waid claims that Yves “Balak” Bigerel "broke the code" of digital comics, this is part of it. The readerly advancement of the image sequence mandates engagement. The reader isn't forced to sit through music or transitions that happen at their own pace. The reader is the clock.

Motion Comics

    I've never liked a motion comic. They've never felt "comicy" to me; I didn't get the same enjoyment from them that I got from my paper comics. I couldn't tell if this had to do with the digital nature, the new format, etc. I have noticed, however, that the offerings at Thrillbent.com and the Guided View (tm) comics from Comixology.com feel like comics. I attribute my reactions to the watching vs. reading split. I've always been a reader. Half the time I'm watching a movie I'll be working through some text on my laptop or e-reader. I want to be able to pause, to re-read, to examine some images longer than others to make sure I'm ready to move forward before I move forward.

   This isn't to say that I couldn't like a motion comic. The problem has always been one of marketing/packaging. I don't like that they claim to be comics. I love the "movie" Le Jetee even though it consists of little more than photographs, sounds, and dialog (with panning and other not-really-animation effects). It's practically a motion comic. Thing is, it never told me it was a comic. It told me it was a movie. When I enjoy it (once a year at the very least) I watch it.

    There are also a number of issues surrounding whether something was made for the medium in question or later adapted to it. I don't think many motion comics, at least as of now, started out as motion comics. I'll leave any discussions on this topic for another day.

Next time I'm going to propose some new terms that will hopefully facilitate some discussion along the lines I've already advanced.

Defining Terms (part 0)

The Naming of Parts

    Before we get too deep into this, it might be productive to talk about what exactly is/are comics. Personally, I don't think these sorts of non-actionable definitions are very important. Nevertheless, I'll spend a few minutes discussing McCloud's definition of comics as that is likely the definition anyone nerdy enough to read this blog is familiar with.

    All in all,  McCloud did a pretty good job of describing what he was seeing around him in the early 1990s. I mentioned last week that I've found his comics reading habits to be wide-ranging and thoughtful. The main objections I will lodge to his definition spring from comics I've enjoyed in the wild that violate one or more of his required elements. Some of these points have had to do with how the available digital tools have come to be used, versus how he imagined they would be used, at that very early date.

Comics = "Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer."

Let's break this mouthful down into smaller, more manageable chunks.

"Juxtaposed pictorial and other images" - We can shorten "pictorial and other images" to just images. If you are including "other images" you are saying that the images in question don't have to be pictorial, so why even mention it? The bigger issue here, however, is the juxtaposition requirement. It's clear from his argument that McCloud wanted to rule out movies. Inadvertently, however, he also "problematized" the inset, that fairly common practice of placing the occasional panel on top of another panel. Recent digital comics have embraced this "on top of" move. It's now common to see panels appear on top of the panels they are succeeding. It's also possible that this juxtaposition requirement was important in forming the "Infinite Canvas" concept that I'll address at a later date.

..." in deliberate sequence..." - This section seems to forbid Choose Your Own Adventure style "Garden of Forking Paths" type comics as well as generative comics where the panel sequencing is an emergent property of the system. I guess the real question is who the "deliberator" is. Either way, I'm not convinced that it matters.

"... intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer." - I'm not sure we need any of this. If I enjoy something and want to talk about it with others, it doesn't matter why or how the thing under discussion came into being. Origins are as often as not speculative. I never feel secure attributing a definite reason to why anyone did anything. People are complex creatures and mostly unknowable, even to themselves.

My Turn in the Ring

Obviously I'm going to propose my own definition now. Why else would I spin out such an elaborate exegesis? My stab at it:

Comics = "A sequence* of images** traversed through reader action".

*inclusive (temporal or spatial)
**inclusive (with or without words)

You'll have to tune in next time for further discussion on my thoughts behind this loose definition.

 

Greetings and Salutations

Late to the Party (Like Always)

    I was hanging out at the Motor City Comicon in 2013 and my friend Scott Wegener passed me his tablet and told me to check out a digital native comic the Atomic Robo team had put together. I was apprehensive. I've always seriously dug the fun intelligence of the Robo franchise but not so much the digital native comics. Sound effects and panels jiggling beyond any sense of common decency are fine, just not my thing. I was more than pleasantly surprised, then, to see that Team Tesladyne had not only gotten the hang of the new tools, but had seemingly mastered them as well. I wanted to talk about the parts I really, really liked (I'm a Chatty Cathy), but quickly realized that I didn't have the terminology to do so.

    You have to understand, I bought my copy of Understanding Comics from Scott McCloud in 1993-ish at a con in Philly. I completely absorbed his analytical tools. They structured my thoughts and discussions on what I felt worked or didn't work in comics. Suddenly, these weren't enough. One of the greatest strengths of Understanding Comics is McCloud's far reaching reading of existing comics, and the depth of his reading. He then distilled his observations into useful terminology so that others could discuss the functional attributes of comics they encountered. Clearly this was something new.

    Tearing through the Internet , I watched a Mark Waid talk and checked out his Thrillbent.com. One of Waid's blog posts led me to Yves “Balak” Bigerel's essential about DIGITAL COMICS. Waid's camp seems to be doing the heavy lifting right now, marching into the unknown with purpose and style.

Talking Comics

    You really can't start talking about comics (outside of academia) without addressing McCloud in some way. He's become the non-academic go-to guy for the mainstream media. If a cartoonist of significant standing has indigestion, at least one reporter is going to ask McCloud to comment on what she ate before said gastro-intestinal distress, and perhaps to speculate on her dietary regimen in general. I'm not trying to snipe at the guy or start out on a snarky foot here, I'm just stating that the man is an institution. Don't get me wrong, he earned his spot by producing the work of criticism and analysis for a general audience. I like Understanding Comics and I always have. I don't agree with all of his theories and ideas and that's okay. That's great, actually. I think polite discussion (including polite disagreement) is important to the advancement of knowledge in any field.

    On the topic of advancement in the field of comics, a lot has changed since 1993. Of course, computers and the Internet have played a huge role in this. I'm starting this blog to discuss some of the patterns I've seen emerging in digital comics. Enough time has passed that certain trends have clearly emerged. I want to talk through these and try to clarify the major concepts and mechanisms for myself and, hopefully, for others as well.

    One of the reasons that I think McCloud has been more successful than other comics theorists is that he targets a general audience and so has actually been read by practitioners of the art. I'm sure some working in the field today have read Thierry Groensteen's The System of Comics, I'm equally sure that this number is a tiny fraction of those who have read McCloud. Following on this, I'll touch on academic topics from time to time (my geekery acknowledges no bounds) but mostly I want to participate in the discussion going on amongst practitioners and street-level enthusiasts.

So, I'm starting this blog as my own bookmark page with commentary for future reference. Hopefully I'll stir up some commentary as well. I'm going to try to do this on Thursdays.