Infinite Canvas

[SeanC]

I had never heard of this idea before but it sounds vaguely interesting.

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". The concept was introduced by Scott McCloud in his book Reinventing Comics.

Although McCloud asserted that this freedom was one of the most important qualities of the online comics medium, relatively few webcomics have taken advantage of it; most produce work in more traditional formats such as the serialized comic strip and the rectangular page, rarely exceeding two screens in height. The unpopularity of infinite canvas techniques can be attributed to a few factors: a general aversion to excessive scrolling, particularly horizontal scrolling, among online readers; the problem of long load times for large image files; and the difficulty of producing comics with very large dimensions.

[Gregory]

I've seen some large webcomics that scroll horizontally. I like how it allows the reader to affect composition by stopping the scroll to create a panel wherever they choose.

[Evan Wiener]

Ideas like the Infinite Canvas, to me, are really cool for experimentation, sort of like a Fashion Runway. But may not work effectively when taking into account comfort zones of an audience and commercialism of your work. Some creators like to stay within an audience comfort zone, something they're familiar with.