Infinite Canvas revealed

For comics geeks, any tech that unfurls the promised "infinite canvas" of digital comics is something to behold. Microsoft Live Labs has taken a crack at bringing that ideal -- a comics layout and viewing page in cyberspace, unconstrained by print thinking and limitations -- with a "funky side project" that's attracting attention from some of the greats.

"Infinite canvas" is a phrase coined by Scott McCloud (Understanding Comics, the tech introduction to Google Chrome), and he's one of the creatives highlighted on the site. The idea is that since a screen doesn't have to behave like a printed page, the possibilities for storytelling are expanded. Images can be of various sizes and can be arranged or overlaid in various ways. Text can escape bubbles and captions and behave in ways that emphasize (or subvert) what the words say.

Infinite Canvas was developed at Live Labs by Ian Gilmam, an artist and game programmer responsible for, among other titles, the legendary Heaven & Earth. He put Infinite Canvas together after a recent "Out of the Box Week" at Microsoft. ("Out of the Box Week" is time given to Live Labs employees to spend on some project that's got their interest; it's related in spirit to Bill Gates' old "Think Weeks." PhotoSynth, which made such a splash with its Inauguration Day photo last week, is another Out of the Box Week alum.)

First among comics-pantheon equals on the site right now is Neil Gaiman (Sandman, American Gods, a brand-new Newberry Award this week), represented by a collaboration with artist Jouni Koponen on "The Day The Saucers Came" (an image from which is excerpted above). Gaiman announced it to the world via Twitter ("Oh the Microsoft love! And that's not a phrase I type every day. Or, um, ever. Nice job @jouniac & infinite canvas lab."). The comic's graphics melt and nest into each other, and if you must read things sequentially, the interface allows you to do that too. Other comics move back and forth among multiple images, or create a "page" that would be several yards long and about a foot wide in printed life.

To see or work with Infinite Canvas, you'll need to be using a JavaScript-enabled browser. This is the canvas, not the paint and not the brushes; aspiring artists will want to have graphics and a script to place on their workplace. But it's free to try, and visiting is also free -- and much easier if you're more of a reader than a writer or artist.