Reader Sylvain Poitras emailed recently to suggest that the new ways people are using Google Maps to create online portfolios and game maps could also be applied to expanded canvas comics. It’s a cool idea. Anyone want to give it a try?

(And no, I have no idea why the last three blog post titles all ended in question marks.)

Every once in a while someone gives it a try. Here’s the latest, courtesy of Tim Hall and Jen Ferguson at act-i-vate.

Can there be comics without pictures? Does manipulated, positioned text like this qualify as pictures on some level? Fun questions to ask once in a while.

[Update: Check comments for links to other interesting wordless comics.]

I honestly have no idea if this will fly or not, knee-deep as I am in the graphic novel, but iCents is at least offering a novel approach in some respects and if anyone out there wants to give it a closer look and offer your thoughts, I’d be curious to hear them.

Still having the tar and feathers from last time removed, so I’ll stay on the sideline regarding the more general debate about micropayments that’s been flairing up again recently (at least for now).

More importantly, the whole world is still busy sorting out whether there will even be intellectual property in a decade or two, so the question of what kinds of new industries it might generate could be on a lot of peoples’ back burners a while longer.

[Update: Marc Glasberg from iCents has hopped onto the comments section and has some illuminating answers for those interested in learning more about the system.]

I don’t know why, but this one really made my blood boil.

I know that, all things considered, this is a relatively low rung in the great ladder of corporate abuses, but it hits close enough to home that I needed to give a cheer for Cory and Xeni and I hope you’ll do the same.

Fair use has been under steady attack from legal weasels long enough. A flamboyant gesture or two may be what it takes to finally hit the nightly news and embarrass the hell out of these jerks. Shame is a powerful disinfectant.

Artist and scholar Andrei Molotiu takes a look at the abstract side of Understanding Comics and Zot!

Might be fun to see how many other comics might be similarly mined.

[Update: Andrei has more here.]

I’ll be there. Hope you will be too.

In honor of 24-Hour Comics Day, here’s an old photo of Ivy and me I just received, via my Aunt Pat, dating from around the period over 19 years ago, when the first 24-hour comic was drawn in our Somerville, Massachusetts apartment.

As mentioned last Tuesday, I’m just a bystander this year, but good luck to all those participating today. You’re about to scale the Mount Everest of comics. Don’t forget to breath!

Yesterday brought more information on Apple’s imminent multi-touch device, which looks to be aimed squarely at the print world.

Most of today’s comics publishers are likely to jump into the pool with their clothes on—print-style pages intact. But if Apple’s gadget is anything like what’s being described, we could see a shift over time from point-and-click fragmented delivery, like what we have on the Web today, to more continuous spatial metaphors of the sort a lot of us turn-of-the-century mad scientists were playing with. Should be interesting.

[Via Heidi and Gizmodo]

Be sure to check for events in your area at ComicsPro’s official site and check out my own info page about the 24 Hour Comic and its history here.

I’ll be drawing all day myself, though on the graphic novel (my reward for having started the ball rolling all those years ago is that I only had to do it once) but if you’ve never tried the 24 hour comics challenge, I do recommend it.

For those coming in late, I started the challenge in 1990, but it was Nat Gertler who first came up with the idea of a 24 Hour Comics Day in 2004 to promote an anthology I edited. In 2008, Nat handed it off to ComicsPro.

One of my favorite aspects of my weird little inventions is the way they tend to take on a life of their own over time. This one definitely qualifies.

Kyle Latino in Tuesday’s comments section alerted us to this comics-style architectural pitch for a the construction of a Danish Super-Harbor. Just click on the opening image to read.