The Infinite Canvas Digital Comics - Lecture Slides | GEOG 4043, Study notes of Geography

Download The Infinite Canvas Digital Comics - Lecture Slides | GEOG 4043 and more Study notes Geography in PDF only on Docsity! THE INFINI Digita Ol 1 Te CANVAS Comics [ What /S com | in Comics, I used E'sner’s term as mL basic definition -- Not Comics Understanding “Sequential Art” -- then offered ay expanded, more clinical one .c close off any semantic foophotes." Beyond semantics, thougn, it was the simplicity and breadth of Le idea that all-acted me; with its power bo dos ‘ar more than comics’ “ewsprint-and-stanles standardbearers. pistes (aca Pate LG BE “Sequential Art” welcomed a limitless variety and physical media -- tein rece mallet) eee eI Cie Ff uta rae) of style, content fase "European  Je search for those new shapes is the search digital COMICS, our twelfth ard final evolution. Digital comics are comics that exist as pure information. “ey may be delivered rough the means. cussed in the Jast Saater -- entualij, the -- of through objects dventures Of protagonists, such as CDs -- that store information -- but they all embrace the digital environment as their native sai -- best. they Plant in that soil what could never grow anywhere esse, fol Gl IOV ARES) = , a5 COMICS prepares Qniina comics are all ital comi technical jense@, but many till no more than “repurposed” prin’ at For hurdreds of years. comics has existed nsice the shell OF print -- Set — and row digila media are swallowing comics, shed and aif 203  Comics and arnt. aren't. unique in this regarc. Some forms cf art in chis century have been so associated with ther respective technolog’es a5 to be defined by Lrarm -- a -- but, a5 the full spectrum of audi vyisuél gitar those various technoiagical shells will begin 20 separate from their Contents. -- both varbor the art of the moving image -- flim praje television. example -- HEL -- both harbor the art of the sti picture -- -- as the technclogies of painting and drawing -- The exa irre -- and tre zechnologies of radio ant sound playback devices -- -- both harbor the art, of sound, But as these ‘\ technological shells fait away, oot expect. all their contents to mix | Each irrea ‘cory the m 211 he art of sound, “or example, is nol an ireducible concept. Tt harbors. among other things, the arts Of music and Lhe Spoken word. >| S| Ly Coavergence* is a two-way street. As lhe technological cistinc Lions be.ween media tai! away, their conceptual distinctions will become more important than ever fhe resuttant media landscape will be poputatec with art forms nov rooted in a particu’ machine. | venue, cr physical substance, bul. in the imalementatio- of their respective ideas. 3S we B ach one, ¢ simple, reducible concept -- 5 ys Le ec ce oo~ AH -- one that distinguishes it from all others. oy See Y con definition, pertiaps, but. something more 4 than that -- MICS: ' yx tapos” = and something less, ~ A DNA strand maybe... A genetic code... 3 not only te thi shape of the art as it is -- -- bu to aff the shapes the art might take. ion of <reditionel media 102 was A popular term ir the Alinstie 0 lig'Lal ‘ology.  CD-ROMS gave many their Fest glimpse of nat first question -- the creative possiblities of digital madia. What C@/7 comics do in a digital environment? -- was first addressed by cartoonists in the heyday of multimedia CD-ROMS,* To this e4 actors w read wor out Joua But because the pages themselves remained unchanged, the work was less about comics & tAultimedia offerec te supplement comics visual basics with sound, motion and interactivit Some exercised s.:ch options in 4 supplemental way. Art Spiegciman in converting Maus, trented the plastic disks as “five mile deep fring cabinets,” away to offer notes, sketches. home movies and other suprort material along with fic original work, and mare about comics and mu timedia Comics 4S muttimecia was t 1 collaboration, a natura: avenue of exploration, ream fic though, and most CB-ROM comics took what approac: on | oo NWA® | oo ® "Roughly the eany Nineties, before the Web caught 208 on, in@t that they we Coased £6 8x5 or omything...» fi yb abel?  Such experiments were Still ‘argely additive in nature, {rough by combining the styles. genres and visual trappings of printed comics -- a wilh the interactive bag of tricks assuciated with multimedia gaming ard “infotainment’-- producers hoped to make comics “come alive.” To this end. voice ators were used to ad word baliocns tut loud -- WE MUST STOP THIS _ KILLING SPREE! animation o*ered -- -- ang, reasers were alcwed co chaase from skort menus of bioe twists. FIGHT RUN AWA’ gaving the temporal map on the cutting- mom floor. aoe B. Whatever their relative quality." additive appreaches ped the tion of comics’ own evoluLion by letting comics become an undigested jump in multimedia’s stomach -- Yy Unfortunately, te compensate for the low resolution of computer monitors, cares panels often appeared on screen one at a time. ever expanding on the ideas at comics" SOE of 209  Mare ambitious and innovative projects like 1993's Sinkha, a CD-ROM graphic novel by ilustrator Marco Patrita, seemed Lo new ard possibly vital mutation of comics. The goal of making cor ome alive” seems closer ‘n such works where the sound, motion end images create an immersive experience. king f Tf partial sound ard motion can help create an immersive goal jtsalf experience -- becomes 4 In Sinkha, lush dgially gene-ated 3-2 fmages -- some static. some moving -- are accompanied by music, reovenciy juxtaposed and combined with texd. As the goai of “coming alive” is fuifilled more ana When ft comes co won't more by sound and motion which -epresents time-based immersion, fulf source and time through tine -- the art. of fim already mozion do the does a better job than any tricked-up job more Comic Can. effectively? -- comics’ multi-image structure -~ the portrayal of time through Space -- becomes superfluous, if not a nufsance, and isn't likely to endure. 210 ward . Can the Eventudliy, Wik. wilt fake its place, the vacuum will be filled -- re andl other forms, having Shed some -- may stand upright again and rediscover their root strengths. of their ociginal functions -- AS broadband* becomes a reality, the Web will be ablé to deliver the kind of multimedia content first. associated CB-ROMS, and ihese same issues will be faced again, But even as some sites forge ahead with multimedia comics in the style cf 90's Co- ROMs," other artists search for new forms that preserve Comics’ s#ent, static nature whie explating other capabilities of gitar media. The and as Web cor | Challenges they move out of their _ face center on farval stage, a few issues af design dasign modeis are and usability -- beginning to emerge. Comic strips omploy the simpjest of these, the al-in-one approach -- Ut. fOr fonger arious models ow being tested to helo comics fit into its new venue, ay | ———  One of the more obvious Solutions is ta treat the screen as a page, aiongside a fink Lo tne following page.* [_ | Though screen resolution is fixed, image resolution can at} veast be increas increasing ima To compensate for the Jow resolution and screen shape, eech page has roughly the same amount. of visual information as a half page ot printed comics.** This and simply put one big panei per screen insteac of several Smad ones, After all. witrout the soace-savirig imperatives of paper costs and traditional distribution, why not take advantage of the web's potentially! limitless “page count"? ~ Such sticing and dicingof oo comics renders it parvicularly suitable for life in hypertext, the lingua franca of the World Wide Web. <= / Just as documents filled with ideas i and images are finked Lhrcughout the Web, inviting us to expicre them in any order -- rs -- $0 toa can individual panels be licked in an interactive matrix ot narrative choices. K.com) was his monel. Chavie Parke ies tO emp! “Pictured: Argon Zane one oF the eariest web « Tac y, tats cane eels beyore some of scAndere. pi shapes even wher there is PO oF nl versio? creen js fixed, Any comic on the Web is in hypertext’s backyard, it. makes tense Lo adjust comics to fit its new environment, Pupertex’ 5. After ail a powerful and progressive force in information design -- aly In, euar -- an idea that strives to match the agility of Auman thought -- ae? 19> oe fe Os yOug e a a Se ON Ne £ hry ON af (Sark oe - 2 or ON 4 ee aor 1 O07 AWW. (Op oo A OO go“ yy gr 5 5 behind hypertext and comics are But for all of hypertext’s advantages, the basic (eas diametrically opposed! Fypentexs relies cm the prit tt exists in space. Everything Ser here, not here. or Conngeted to >, tome Random — Conta I ehiie in the temporal map of comics, every cement of the work has a spatial relationship to every ether element at alf tines. ——— /- and with ‘\ it. the very \ fabric of comics down inta single picturcs § te tear that map 0 shreds -- | core identity. eesti)  Very different from both cave and tomb, yet also following & single unbroken reading line. If we could unwind that column, we might produce something like the Bayeux tapestry with its picture story cf the Norman Conquest 0” 1066. Paine, 5 five me straight 230-foot path ‘rom feft to right. Amap of time toat for all its complexity is. from our standooir Tne “Codex Nutalr of pre-Columbian Mexico would, 4 few centuries later, tell its own story of conquest on accordion-folded deerskin -- -- and when laic fat, ead ~eaders trom right co left ‘na winding but unbroxer zigzag of gengrations, NUIN YN NV —LA DA AAADAALA DY uJ 218 Paint, stone, Cloth, skin... five more diverse exanpl Tt would Ge hard to find les Of the femporal map. Yet all stayed true to the nature of the aisp -- and never viniated its basic tenet that to move in Eine is LO move in Space, — 7 And the longer the time -- -- the longer the fine. ations. But print was different. For ali tne benefits tL gave to comics, there was one thing it fowk away -- For the first time, readers of such picture sion could no longer assume that adjacent images meant adjacent moments. A new formula “28 taking hold, and it wasn't nearly as simple as the ofa.  The ancestors of Print, trough, presented a eandscape cf tiny cul- A protecol pented comics drew, de-sacs, ascing reacers 2O to new paths painted and carved every few pare’s based om a complex protocel.. ~ cheir time-paths from imported “rom the beginning to end, without interruption. right and ——_——> down tradition cf the ——- orinted word. ———__+ When the “cave walr Print subverted space, folding it upon itself, of the page came to allowing s-oriés to grow bo any fength without an end, ri relying cn fraying cloth or crumbling stone. to simply beg But to reap the Since that fateful benefits of print meant. meeting of arf and Every few -- and Keeping Comics’ core technotogy, much of niches, anew naturally, we a assets packed inte cing the subsequent work barrier is reached, jeamed to hve of creating comics another imitation with it. has been figuring out. tackled - how to make it a ob { b ly) disagvorsbicd at that. 220  B88 (uate no veasor & "Oo GUIGESE environment 500 panel story cant be told vertically -- Yl Seas We could indulge our feft- to-right and up-to-down hatits from beginning to end i> a giant descending staircase -- | \ ©" back it al into a slowly revolving cube. Ina digitat enviranment, Com) take virtually any si 4 Shape as the temporal map --  -- and the upper limits O* processor cf course, Speed and power. imciucing stow connection speeds -- = # \9¢ But while 70 one in five Aundred years has Foured out a w2y for images to go beord the edge of the page -- -- digital technologies are pusning their limits Om a daily There will aiways oe some limits on speed, power and storage, A lterally “infinite” Canvas may “ever Oxist But the experience of such spatial freedom lies just Leyord the very faite limits of human perception. For example, a squere matrix gant comic ha:ding forty thousand panels in 'ook something like this from @ distance. Tight When viewed more closely, individuat panels mal) become aiscernible -- ce hoo aol any +> end as hoy craw Still closer and become clearer, ech inciv‘dual panel mai, be revealed -- 224 The human eye cor C! information at a tim andi has @ limited fleld of -- asa full-size. high resolution vision. At the distance necessary to view the color ittustration. whole of such a comic, @ach Individual panel “eed be no more -- THERE MUST BE , SOME WAY OUT. | sou “| RO END | EM SIGHT! a giant pana by olin monster y forty | _the time comic mai exist as panels in individual panels many cocuments in trix might You may come inte view, our storage -- ing like ke wonder how any Tee ot vein will Oni; ss distance. computer, now or in take in a small part ee the near future, could of the whole. onsen possinly hold this entire “| mind's eye. comic in memory aff ou 5 ye. ct Lee a4 ft gee Answer: Tt probabty We haven't reached -- Due that's ro that threshold of reason not Lc give human perc Our imaginations a yet.oF good head start! should it have tol ot 225 -- cr how Simple trose sizes and shapes may be Whether b A sense Cf “where you are” at any given time could be provided through color changes in the panels already read." Fven the recaif of stories cout be nelped by treir varying overal appearance -- a far more revealing cue than words on a Ps cardboa'd spine. To keep true to the simplicity of the temporai map, it may ba necessary to etminate the kird interactivity iS By no of autenemaus sound and motion found ir means off-limits, traditional multimedia -- —> — ee mteractior 22.8  Whether by choosing a path, revealing a hidden window or zooming incr a eter, there are countess ways tc interact with sequentiai art ina agitat environment. Mest importent, the of “reading” -- moving through -- digital comics should be a deeply interactive process, Comics "5 a stilt fife: mute, unmoying ard passive in ard ut itselF -- figure B. -- out tne act of reading comics -- ever through tre technology you held ‘n your hands -- Comics in a cigita, environment will remain 2 still life -- -- but a4 still fife we explore dynamically! action. £ venice side effect of interactivity ts that id and retion can actuelly smeak in through eback door as a byoroduct of reader Sort of iike the sound and motion you are doout to produce with your Aand on this piece of paper. yy an i  For the mos, part. -- and Web comics, 49 AS a result, the kind cf rere _| hen novelist. here at the turn of for the most part. R Spatial exploitation I've discussed * atl Gibson first en the century, digital mean Aypertext- O has been Aard tc implement on a || the glittering ¢ comics mein Web based comics, ON today’s Web.” information 4e comics TO>< STR — “Cyberspace” i There's no way Rea om fo tzoon i generation of information des to think spatia \te ( SY} | he) +——____ F 5 LOLGR= "433333" UA ) ~P7 ‘| ial, Geneva, Hal vc lub, con/ index B eS =SS Se ee pagle.cons L_ lif fon at at en Tortunate'y, the Web itself is evofving beyoud -- of absoiute -- ana as such, pig: the Jimited definition of its origins toward the ACCESS -- tas ard Web-based Simpler, nore enduring idea -- programming environments that can take better acvanzage of spatial modeis brave found the Web increasingly accommodating.” o-20 absoluvely everything -- More generally. though. the idea that art and The licn’s snare cf art -- and soon, comics informetion can Lake on shape ard form may not and information artists won't be the her be as dead as the ascerdance of hypertext media deionged to ang ones on anew :gh the Web might lead us to believe. that spatial world for contemplating the | oF = Aypertext ay ZOE SERIE thousands OF Potential of an emerge as t sp LEE, Yee ENG generations -- infinite canvas. information ¢ COLELLO LEE and « } KG f SEIZE } “ “VS ' Me = 1. this problem iy « gh pagin and Sut Jo from day one, 230 OS, both have some potenti  is tcday’s popular belief that full Spatial approaches -- and comics’ own visual and aud!tory immersion, until now the to art ard information use of that infinite province Of science Action, will be an everyday will have no troubie Canvas will oe a part fact before long. taking roat in such @ oF that evolution, worlc, whenever it arrives -- she Oper, the ideas that traditional media hacpor wit continue to escape Lhe shells of the tectnclogies that. Neb won't be | Sought them inte beiry, untit Lhe irreducible @ss@NCe@ Of each has emerged -- yo — C e EDAD CEN 1 shared by -and vnth it the Coda -- Comics #S such ar idea, and most cf its wr, 20 years checkered history has been the Shel. age could desks — < oR / «X } 233 Yere at tre dawn of a new century, it’s become a éliché to tout one’s ability to tink “outside the box,” yet that's what any act of true creation reauiras. DO NOT ENTER Bus it can also mean rediscovering a simple truth at the hearL Of a complex system -- O ys eae b 234 2 For artists in general, that box is tre stifing influence of Conventional wisdom -- Boe -- and tor comics artists in particular, thinking outside the box will soon have an additionat, fiteral meaning. -- taking On quests that no one else can see -- - OF finding ' Snalie ide the ~ CF findirg in setutions So an o'd need -- - the beginnings of avew desire. vr, thinking Fey = iitional, very a No art form has lived io box than comics for the ww) buadred years. : oe  O (°) QO r C Comics is a powerful idea, but an idea that's been squandered, ignored and misunderstood for generations. Today, for all the hopes of those wha vaiue it. th’s form seems ‘ncrecsingl, obscure, ‘solated and obsolete. So smati at times as to almost drop out Of sight. Sma!  ke an eter...