Brief History of Code Cartooning
1992: As a cartoonist, I wanted to see my computer make randomly generated comics. It sounded fun and easy. And like the wrong way to do comics.
With books and a laser printer, I learned to code (a little) in PostScript. The idea was: make a grid of panels that resembled comics, using simple shapes and nonsense text. The page above was made by about 600 lines of code. Half of that was for making the words. And it used only 5 shapes: box, circle, line, round-box, and word-balloon.
1993 - 1995: Thrilled with the idea that code itself could write and draw, I kept experimenting with randomly generated comics. I added more elements to the code for art and writing, and did comics for an entertainment tabloid newspaper (Chris Lauer’s Anthem Monthly).
Each month I changed the program to write a different kind of story or panel sequence. Usually the first and last panels were different from the rest. Some readers enjoyed the random digital comics. Others were puzzled, not finding standard stories and punchlines.
The Comics Journal #171 ran a brief write-up on my code comics work.
1996 - 1998: Feeling the limits of a one-page grid, I revised my random comics-making code so that it could allow scripting (random or non-random), varied page layouts, and multiple pages.
Using that new code, I wrote a script to show the program’s various page layout and drawing features. It included some built-in panel types, shapes, figures, and backgrounds. (PDF here.)
1999: I added color, for RAN DUM LOOP. This program ran on a Mac in a gallery. It writes and draws random comics and cartoon art onscreen endlessly.
The colors, compositions, poses, words and sentences change constantly. Because it uses random combinations of many basic parts, you never see the same drawing twice.
1998 - 2003: I wrote code to make little multi-page zines (unpublished) of random digital comics sketches, fragments, and works in progress. These booklets were in black-and-white or color. Some became my reference for making more complete artworks later.
2002-2004: For art competitions and gallery shows, I began writing code to make full-color poster-size art prints (one-copy editions). Acrobat Distiller made (non-random) printable PDF files, from my random source code.
2005: Wanting to share my code art with others led to publishing RAN DUM 1, a 28-page color zine of random digital comics and random digital art prints.
2010 - current: I found print-on-demand online printers (Blurb, Lulu, and PrestoPhoto), where I could print randomly generated full-color sketchbooks. I’ve made 40 sketchbooks, printing one copy each. (So far, about 8000 pages.)
2012 - current: I started a Tumblr blog, “CodeCartooning”, for sharing my code art experiments. I’ve posted pages from my random code art sketchbooks,
…and some animated gifs (done with Canvas & JavaScript).
2014 - current: I began adding code (Web Audio API) to generate sound in my web-browser based video animations. YouTube channel: poundart1
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