AKMA’s Random Thoughts

Another Aspect of Digital Identity

I gave in; once I clicked to the build-yourself-in-Legos site (via frizzylogic, who found it on boingboing, image float code courtesy of Mandarin Design, to which I always go because I turn out to be too lazy to type it myself, even though I remember it adequately by now), I couldn’t not see how close I could get. And on the whole, I think this is pretty close. Clerical collar added via Photoshop.

Oh, and I did subscribe to Scott McCloud’s “The Right Number” online comic, for 75 cents total (over 3 25-cent issues). The registration with BitPass micropayment service was painless; I bought five dollars’ worth of credit with my Paypal account.

The comic itself is handsome and ingenious, and actually involves questions of digital identity (in a certain sense). Each frame expands from the center of the frame before, and McCloud has (usually subtly) provided visual cues that justify a rectangle at the center of the frame. The premise is pleasingly ingenious; the art is strong, mostly monochromatic blue (though with a few effective accents in red). The point-of-view doesn’t draw readers out of expectations that so far remain complicit with cultural androcentrism, to the extent that this will no doubt seem “no big deal” to most readers — still, someone with McCloud’s insight ought to, and may be be planning to, take readers out of the assumptions that they take for granted.