Scott McCloud is credited with the idea of an infinite canvas.  This is the notion that digital comic strip artists don’t have to be contained by physical space and can create limitless comic strips.  Whereas Charles Schultz was limited by the physical space of a newspaper, a digital comic strip artist, theoretically,  has no bounds.  The  combination of unlimited bandwidth and storage space means the “cost” of displaying a few inches of a panel is no different the same as a few feet.

Recently, Microsoft Live Labs released an application that embraced this concept and put it in a practical, navigable form.  Called, not coincidentally, Infinite Canvas, artists can upload an unlimited number of panels and stitch them together into a single, seamless strip.  The tool also allows you to arrange the panels any way you wish.  A “birds-eye” view of the whole strip using the “Zoom-To-Fit” button.   Want your panels laid out in a square? You can do that.  How about a triangle?  You can do that too.  Infinite Canvas makes the layout a potential dimension on the strip.  If your strip is about baseball, Infinite Canvas enables you to lay it out like a baseball diamond. (Art Spiegelman experimented with this in his book In the Shadow of No Towers where he laid his strips in the shape of the twin towers.)  Forward and backward buttons allow you to scroll between each panel in order.

The tool is free and open to the public and allows you to wade through comic strips of unlimited length.

While the site has a very experimental feel to it, it does include a few features strips from the Neil Gaiman and Scott McCloud himself.

Is it good?  To be honest, I’m not sure.  While the concept seems revolutionary, none of the examples were particularly enjoyable.  We here at Zingerding are all about pushing the future of comic strips.  While having an unlimited canvas to will lend itself to the “long form” comic strip there is something to be said to having some limitations.  Brevity yields creativity.  Would the Far Side have been the same if Gary Larson could tell a story in 10 panels instead of the standard 1?

To that end, I would consider the Infinite Canvas almost a new medium onto itself similar to how blogs are different than a newspapers which are different than magazines.  On the surface they compete with one another, but in the end, each serves a particular purpose that compliments more than competes.