February 2005: Scott McCloud gave a speech at TED regarding what he saw as a possible future for the medium of comics, and called it “infinite canvas”. He pointed out that if comic book artists viewed the computer as a window into space then panels could be arranged in more dynamic ways. And not only dynamic, but artists would have an endless number of variations for their panel compositions.The narrative’s movement would not be constrained to the dimensions of paper, but instead would be free to move in anyway needed to best tell the story. McCloud gives two examples of this in his speech of this movement and ends with a plea for the expansion of comic books in this format.

February 2009: Microsoft Labs developer Ian Gilman took the idea and ran with it. He created a sequential-art viewing platform, which provides users with the ability to create exactly what Scott McCloud spoke about in his 2005 TED talk. The platform, naturally titled “Infinite Canvas”, is in beta testing right now. You can read about its development on his blog.

You can also play around with it and read other comics users have submitted, including artists like “Neil Gaiman and, of course, Scott McCloud.

• “The Day The Saucers Came” - Neil Gaiman
• “Somber Mood” - Scott McCloud