A few days back, more than one web-comic artist I follow linked to an interactive comic as an example of a cool use of technology to enhance cartooning. The problem for me was that it was in Flash and a little complicated. I wanted to build a tool that any cartoonist could use to create something like that.

So I came up with a utility I call ComicScript. I'm still just at the proof of concept stage, but basically when it's done, any comic artist who wants to build a grid of panels will just fill in a few details about his/her grid and get the JavaScript code and files needed to implement the grid on their site or blog.

Check out my test of an 8 x 2 (8 wide by 2 tall) grid comic (I would have posted it here, but I realized my proof of concept was too wide. Love to hear what you think.

Some of you may recall me griping about how you could only get the latest version of Inkscape compiled for Mac OS/X Leopard with Tiger users left out in the cold. But because these were just development releases and relied on one motivated developer to compile them, we all thought it wouldn't be a big issue. Surely there would be a Tiger user who would compile a DMG package of 0.46 when it was released. Not so much.

Inkscape 0.46 stealth released on March 10 to make some Ubuntu deadlines, then officially announced the release yesterday (March 24) on inkscape.org. So far, there are binaries for Ubuntu and Mac OS/X Leopard, but if you're on Fedora, Debian, OS/X Tiger, or Windows, you're left to compile it yourself or continue to wait.

According to an insider part of this is due to the fact that Inkscape wasn't really ready to release across all platforms. There was a major printing bug in the Windows version, but if they didn't release now, they'd be locked out of the next version of Ubuntu and have to wait 6 months.

So, for all of you who have been anxiously awaiting Inkscape 0.46 and are not Ubuntu or Leopard users, or have the technical skills to compile it yourself (I tried for Tiger, following Jiho's fairly detailed instructions, but kept running up against issues that would wait until an hour into the compile to obtusely rear their ugly heads), it's not really released. It's just reached another milestone on its way to an eventual stable binary release for your platform.

Perhaps that's why, despite the announcement saying 0.46 has been released, the inkscape.org site stills says that 0.45.1 is the latest stable version. Ahwell.