Scott McCloud's Blog, page 36
February 18, 2010
Why??
Why is nearly every ice bag in nearly every ice bucket in nearly every hotel in America too small for the bucket??
2.Why do Zuda's webcomics blur needlessly between pages??
3.Why is it so hard to find black bottled ice tea without any kind of sweetener in it?? (Especially in NYC)
4.Why is it so hard to find official confirmation (instead of just message board chatter) on whether uncooked French green beans are really toxic or not (something I hadn't even heard of until recently, but is...
February 17, 2010
"3,856 Story Possibilities"
This book is going to be so, so, cool!
Many of us cartoonists already own Jason Shiga's original hand-printed version of this insane choose-own-adventure masterpiece (he even has a quote from me), but the idea of a full-out professionally printed version with tabs. Ah, be still my heart…
Best of all is the absolute certainty that whenever we see the number "3,856″ used to describe the many branching possibilities, it was Shiga himself that came up with the number and the number's gonna be...
February 16, 2010
Thought Crimes, Curling, and my Big Ugly Pen
In looking over this travesty, keep in mind that the "crime" in question is essentially a Thought Crime with no victims, and that the man going to jail is doing so for a small fraction of the comics in his collection. If these sorts of victimless crimes sound insane to you as they do to me and my family, please consider a donation to help fight such cases in the future.
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In happier news, I notice today's Google Doodle (Feb 16) is Curling! Since Ivy's curling these days, I'm giving a...
February 15, 2010
Polaroid Swan Song
Photographer Reluctantgod writes with news of a cool project:
It is a sequential narrative composed of 73 Polaroids. I utilized Autoviewer technology (from Simpleviewer.net) to create a Flash gallery where the photos are arranged in a continuous row, with no page breaks. Each new photo in the sequence is advanced from left to right in front of the viewer, by way of non-intrusive buttons and/or the arrow keys on the keyboard. Each time an image is centered, its corresponding caption is...
The Polaroid's Swan Song
Photographer Reluctantgod writes with news of a cool project:
It is a sequential narrative composed of 73 Polaroids. I utilized Autoviewer technology (from Simpleviewer.net) to create a Flash gallery where the photos are arranged in a continuous row, with no page breaks. Each new photo in the sequence is advanced from left to right in front of the viewer, by way of non-intrusive buttons and/or the arrow keys on the keyboard. Each time an image is centered, its corresponding caption is...
February 12, 2010
Ego-Surfing is a Double-Edged Sword
Blogger Curt Purcell takes issue with some of Understanding Comics' speculations about the way readers stitch together individual panels into a sense of continuous experience. Two entries so far: 1 | 2.
Although he takes the above panel's analogy more literally than I'd intended (as the first comment by "Doruk" suggests) it still offers interesting reading and makes me wish I had a more time to dig into these debates.
Unrelated: Whoah.
February 11, 2010
Back Home | Odds and Ends
Back home from my visit to the University of Houston. Thanks to everybody who came out Tuesday for the lecture and to my gracious hosts. I especially enjoyed my stay at the slightly bizarre Hotel Zaza, with two great art museums right next door. I even found a painting of people curling which I had to call and tell Ivy about.
(Yes, my wife has been curling. In Southern California. How cool is that?!)
Some odds and ends:
Favorite Kate Beaton panel yet.
Mobile comics outfits have been moving into t...
February 8, 2010
Tuesday Night: University of Houston
I just want it noted that I resisted the temptation to indulge in any "Houston, We Have a Lecture"-style headings. I figure the fine residents of America's fourth largest city must be pretty sick of that phrase by now.
If you're in the Houston area, drop by and say Hi. Lecture starts at 7 pm Tuesday.
I'm in transit Monday-Wednesday, so back to posting later this week.
February 5, 2010
February 4, 2010
Moving with the Beat
Heidi MacDonald's comics news site The Beat has jumped to its own domain comicsbeat.com after 3 and 1/2 years under the Publishers Weekly umbrella.
The Beat is one of three comics news sites that I'd take to a desert island with me (you know that desert island with wifi and electricity, but a strange way of limiting which IP addresses you can… okay, maybe that metaphor doesn't work anymore).
No one's coverage is more comprehensive than Dirk's and no one takes a deeper look at the scene than
