Longer and Roomier

July 14, 2005 12:51 PM

The Tarquin Engine, a series of Action Script routines within a Macromedia Flash FLA file, is raising the bar for infinite canvas comics. With Tarquin now allowing zoomable comics to sprawl in every direction, it would seem that technology is finally catching up to the vision of Scott McCloud, who coined the phrase in his 2000 book.
posted by ScottMorris (10 comments total)

Don't show this to Chris Ware.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 1:06 PM on July 14, 2005

Mimi's last coffe is a very cool story.

Intresting technology.
posted by delmoi at 1:10 PM on July 14, 2005

There's actualy still a real restriction on this though, you're limited to 2-d space. Oh well.
posted by delmoi at 1:11 PM on July 14, 2005

Delmoi: Sort of. Leaving aside the implied third dimension of temporality (which could be more than implied through animation), it's only a matter of time before artists utilizing the new 3-d HDTVs get ahold of it and really change things.
And, c'mon, the "still limited to 2-d" is like complaining that writing is still limited to 2-d. It's kinda irrelevant (though, I suppose you could make sequential sculptures).
posted by klangklangston at 2:46 PM on July 14, 2005

hooray
posted by eustatic at 3:37 PM on July 14, 2005

Just to add to the conversation, please check out Billy Harvey's website
posted by jsavimbi at 4:48 PM on July 14, 2005

Scott McCloud is still quite the douchebag art critic.
The thing is, he knows it, questions it, and ultimately embraces it. And that's good.

That said, he's still an art futurist writer. Whether this is good or bad depends on you.
posted by blasdelf at 12:24 AM on July 15, 2005

Scott McCloud's comics have two merits: They're stupidly formatted, and not at all funny.

...

Wait, those aren't merits at all!
posted by Target Practice at 12:45 AM on July 15, 2005

[this is good trivial]

I've knocked up similar "engines" in an hour or so to use with other projects. Of course I didn't make a web page about them and charge $20 a pop. I'm constantly surprised at what people will pay for, once the right spin is applied - maybe that's one reason I'm not in marketing.
posted by dickasso at 1:28 AM on July 15, 2005

Well, dick, time to toss 'em on sourceforge for free then, innit?
posted by klangklangston at 6:48 AM on July 15, 2005