Infinite Canvas

The Web has the ability to present comics in ways that normal print comics are not able to. The theory of the “Infinite Canvas” enables the reader to view a web comic using different points of view along with more of an interactive feel than print.

“The infinite canvas is the idea that the size of a digital comics page is theoretically infinite, and that online comics are therefore not limited by conventional page sizes. An artist could conceivably display a complete comics story of indefinite length on a single "page".[1]

This idea is introduced by cartoonist and theorist Scott McCloud in his book Reinventing Comics.

Web comic writer and illustrator Drew Weing uses a good example of the infinite canvas in his comic “Pup.” In “Pup Ponders the Heat Death of the Universe” [2] we start off with the title which reads downward, as if we would expect to start reading the comic by scrolling down. However, when you get to the first box of the comic there is a large arrow that instructs you to instead of scrolling down farther, to instead start scrolling to the right where the comic continues.

Pup, who is initially sitting on his stoop, begins to float away from his house getting farther and farther away from Earth until he is eventually floating in space observing Earth from the outside.

One of the things that web comics can do is used in Pup. As Pup begins to float away from the house, the farther away he gets from the ground, the larger the panel gets as to see that the universe is getting bigger.

Pup1

The comic panels are so large in fact that the picture goes off any regular-sized computer screen. As Pup comes back to reality, the panel instead of getting larger, it gets smaller again as in the beginning.

pup2
In a regular comic in a newspaper you wouldn’t be able to initiate a scroll mechanism like you can on a computer. Instead of reading the panels one at a time, like you should on a computer, you are bombarded with small and large pictures on multiple pages that make the comic harder to follow.

With the infinite canvas approach to “Pup” the reader can visualize the comic better as he or she can see the comic getting bigger and bigger like they should be able to.

Another terrific example of the infinite canvas comes in McCloud’s example in “Carl.” McCloud uses a technique in which you randomly bring new panels into the comics. At the beginning of the comic, you are give two panels; the first and the last. In the first, Carl’s mom is saying “Promise me you won’t drink and drive” in which he promises not to. The last panel of the comic is a picture of a tombstone that reads “R.I.P. Carl.”

There are two ways that you can read this comic. You can read the comic by randomly adding one panel at a time, or you can click on a number one through 52 and it will automatically generate that number of panels for you. If you choose to randomly add one, one-by-one, there is a small button in the shape of Carl’s head. Eventually in the comic you find out that sadly, Carl did drink and drive and ended up crashing. However, the way in which McCloud is able to show you this is innovative in its idea.

This example of the infinite canvas relates heavily back to the idea of the interactivity that web comics present, unlike print comics.