Rachel Nabors: Position Paper

I care about this workshop because I have worked with cartoonists on the web for many years and watched them experiment with interactive and rich media comics. As a web developer, I understand the challenges they face in their creative and publishing flows and want to represent their concerns and struggles as well as present a standards-based view on what is possible with current technologies.

I would like to talk about the technical side of content creation, including:

• Advanced layout using recent and upcoming CSS innovations, particularly for mobile and other devices 

• Interactive features (e.g., scroll snap) of CSS for sequential art
• Programmatic (JavaScript) vs. declarative (HTML/CSS, SVG) approaches to animation

I think it will stimulate the audience to see the browser as Scott McCloud’s “Infinite Canvas,” based on which we can start thinking of ways to make these technologies more accessible to the creative communities, be it through simpler APIs or working closer with tooling creators.

I am well qualified run this topic because I’m an award-winning cartoonist who has worked with the W3C on standards like the Web Animations API and actively uses web technologies to tell stories in new and unusual ways as well as build better interfaces.

I think the minimum time needed to cover this topic is 20 minutes, but I could usefully cover up to 40 minutes, after which I expect a lively discussion with shared examples.

Rachel Nabors