A History of
Pixton 1.0
Before Pixton
Before Pixton, Clive Goodinson’s interests had already taken him through science, design, music, and computer programming. The website would eventually bring several of those pursuits together, drawing on both his experience building things and his longstanding affection for comics.
Born in England and raised in Canada, Clive grew up reading The Beano, Astérix, and, especially, Hergé’s Tintin. Looking back on Pixton’s beginnings, he identified the humour and visual style of these comics as formative influences. They established an association between pictures and storytelling that remained with him into adulthood. As he later wrote, “it was natural to draw a connection between comics and storytelling.”
His education followed a scientific path, but there were early opportunities for his artistic interests to surface. In 1996, Queen’s University’s alumni review reported that Clive had won a competition to design a logo for its School of Environmental Studies. His design, a green globe with red lettering, was selected for the school’s stationery, signs, and publications. It also appeared on a sweatshirt presented to him at a student symposium. Years before Pixton’s characters began appearing on computer screens, one of his designs was already finding a public audience.
Clive went on to earn a Master of Science degree at the University of British Columbia, studying woodpeckers. His working life also included programming: UBC’s Manufacturing Automation Laboratory records him as a software engineer between September 1999 and August 2000. These details give a sense of the range of experience he brought to his later work.
Music provided another outlet. Green College’s 2003–04 annual report records a performance by CLIVE, a four-piece Vancouver jazz-rock band, with Goodinson on vocals. The group performed original songs from a forthcoming album. Alongside his technical work, he was participating in the shared creative work of making music and performing for an audience.
By late 2007, Clive was an experienced web developer. When he began considering an online storytelling platform, he could imagine how its tools might actually work: people using the same system to create, exchange, and build upon one another’s contributions. His familiarity with comics supplied a medium; his programming experience supplied a way to make it accessible. A visit to Wikipedia would provide the spark that brought those possibilities together.
An Idea Takes Shape
In late 2007, Clive Goodinson was browsing Wikipedia when he began thinking about what its model of collaboration might make possible elsewhere. Anyone could contribute to an article, and others could expand, refine, or correct it. He admired that shared process, but his interests led him toward a different kind of contribution. What might people build together if the subject were storytelling—if imagination, rather than factual accuracy, were the point?
Comics offered a way to explore that question. They were a familiar medium from his childhood, combining pictures and words in a form that could accommodate a brief joke or a longer story. As an experienced web developer, Clive could also begin imagining how an online comic maker would work. Giving everyone access to the same tools would allow people to create stories and build upon one another’s work without requiring them to draw each panel by hand. In his later account of Pixton’s beginnings, this connection between comics and collaborative storytelling was the decisive idea.
That idea soon became something people could use in a browser. A February 2008 review described an early Pixton built around simple stick-figure characters. Users could position their bodies, change their expressions, and add dialogue. The interface took some getting used to, but the reviewer found that a basic strip could be assembled within minutes. The drawings were supplied by the tool; the situation, timing, and humor still depended on the person making the comic.
Collaboration was already part of that first experience. Users could make their comics available for others to remix, producing an editable copy while leaving the original intact. A published comic could therefore become a starting point for someone else’s interpretation. The Wikipedia inspiration had found a practical expression in the comic maker itself.
Behind the growing website were Clive and his wife, Daina. By November 2008, contemporary coverage described them as Pixton’s two-person staff. What had begun as a question about shared storytelling was now a working project, with its own tools, characters, and people beginning to discover what they could make with them.
The First Characters
Pixton’s first characters were simple figures with stick-like arms and legs. Their appearance could be adjusted through choices such as hair and skin color, while their bodies and facial expressions could be manipulated to suit a scene. A February 2008 review described a comic maker that was still visually basic, but already offered considerable flexibility in how its characters could express themselves.
That flexibility was central to the experience. Making a comic involved arranging small performances: positioning a body, choosing an expression, and finding the right words to accompany it. Even a simply drawn figure could communicate something through its posture or react to another character. The reviewer singled out this relationship between expressions and speech bubbles as a strength, observing that the results could be surprisingly effective.
The appearance of those figures was already changing during Pixton’s first year. By November 2008, contemporary coverage described the website as having progressed beyond its original stick-limbed characters toward more polished comics. Pixton 1.0 therefore had an evolving visual identity, with its earliest appearance representing one stage in an ongoing process of development.
The same report offers a small example of those characters at work. A popular two-panel comic showed a bearded man congratulating the newly elected Barack Obama, then turning stern and telling him to get to work. Its joke depended on a change in attitude between panels—a compact demonstration of how expression and dialogue could work together.
These early figures helped establish a lasting principle of Pixton’s comic maker: a character became useful through what an author could make it do. Appearance supplied a starting point. Gesture, expression, and words gave that figure a part to play.
Opening the Doors
Pixton opened to the public in January 2008. The idea Clive had developed was now available for other people to explore: a website where visitors could make comics, publish them, and encounter the work of other authors.
One early invitation survives in a January 21 post on the blog So Misguided. “Cool interface, fun to play with. Give it a try,” the author wrote, sharing a first comic and announcing plans for a series about Sam. The brief post captures a small but meaningful step in Pixton’s beginnings: someone had tried the tool, made something, and already imagined returning to make more.
In February, reviewer Ciaran Moore introduced Pixton through a familiar frustration: wanting to make a comic without being able to draw. His review acknowledged that the interface required some adjustment, but reported that a basic strip could be made within minutes. Readers were invited to follow a link and try the comic maker online.
Together, these early notices suggest an approachable invitation. A visitor could arrive with curiosity, experiment with the tools, and leave with a first comic. The possibility of making a continuing series was there, but so was the pleasure of simply trying something new.
By November, contemporary coverage reported that Pixton had attracted 9,000 members and 150,000 visitors since its January launch. Basic membership was free, with paid options available for additional features. Clive and Daina were still its entire staff, while Clive was demonstrating the website at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.
The growing collection of comics also gave visitors reasons to stay beyond their own experiments. Users could rank favorites and discuss what others had made. Those encounters would become part of Pixton’s appeal: making a comic meant joining a space where someone else might read it and respond.
Finding Each Other
The people arriving at Pixton brought different ages, experiences, and interests to the same comic maker. A November 2008 report offered three glimpses of that variety: the website’s most prolific cartoonist was an eighth-grader; a woman in Milan had attracted a following for her single-panel artwork; and a syndicated cartoonist in New Zealand was making comics about talking cactuses.
Readers helped shape what others encountered. Users could rank their favourite comics, bringing popular work into more prominent positions, and discuss comics through online chats. Publishing a strip opened it to an audience that could respond and help it find further readers.
Remixing gave that exchange a creative form. Already documented in February 2008, the feature allowed users to offer their comics for others to modify. The original remained intact while another author worked with a copy. This created the possibility of answering a comic with a different version of it: changing the dialogue, rearranging a scene, or taking the same material in another direction. The tools made another person’s work a potential starting point for participation.
Language was another boundary the website sought to cross. By November, Pixton was using Google translation software for comics and chats. Clive described the result in personal terms: “We have people from around the world who don’t speak the same language becoming friends and sharing cartoons.”
That international participation continued to feature in Pixton’s account of itself. In its 2009 Applied Arts award entry, the company reported that, by December, it had attracted people representing 45 languages.
These early accounts suggest how a comic could become an introduction. Someone’s joke, drawing, or unusual character gave another person something to respond to. Through those exchanges, the people using Pixton were beginning to become part of one another’s experience of the website.
A Two-Person Operation
As Pixton’s community grew, the company behind it remained small. In November 2008, contemporary reporting described Clive and Daina Goodinson as the website’s entire two-person staff. Thousands of people were already using a service being developed and run by a husband-and-wife team in Vancouver.
The credits for Pixton’s 2009 Applied Arts award provide a concise record of their creative partnership. Clive was credited with programming, while both Clive and Daina received design credits. Those few lines place them together in the work of shaping Pixton, with Clive also responsible for the code that made its interactive tools possible.
Daina brought experience across several fields relevant to a small creative business. Her professional biography lists earlier work in marketing and research, graphic design and photography, and office management. Alongside the contemporary design credit, that background offers a fuller picture of the experience she brought to the partnership.
The project was also developing a business model. By late 2008, Pixton offered free basic membership, paid features, and a subscription package for schools. Its founders were overseeing a website that combined a comic maker, a public community, and services for paying customers—all within that same small operation.
Clive’s work extended to introducing Pixton in person. At the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco that November, he demonstrated the website and explained its ambition to connect people through comics. The programmer was also presenting the project to the wider technology world.
Together, these records show the scale of Pixton’s beginnings: programming, shared design, a developing business, and public demonstrations concentrated around its two founders. The community was expanding, while the operation supporting it was still a close creative partnership.
Getting Noticed
Within months of its launch, Pixton was attracting attention from the design and technology communities. In April 2008, So Misguided returned to the comic maker it had recommended in January, announcing that Pixton was a finalist in the FITC awards and encouraging readers to vote. FITC’s published results subsequently listed Pixton, credited to Goodinson Design, as the winner in the Self Promotion category.
That November, Clive demonstrated Pixton at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. Coverage of his appearance connected the comic maker to its broader social ambition, describing people in different countries creating, sharing, and discussing their work. The website was being introduced as a practical example of how online tools could enable participation and collaboration.
Recognition continued in 2009. Applied Arts named Pixton a winner in its Weblog/Social Networking—Single category. The accompanying entry highlighted its adjustable characters, direct editing, and other interactive features. The category itself reflected how closely the creative tool and the community around it were connected.
Pixton also placed twentieth in the 2009 PICK 20 ranking, created by Backbone magazine and KPMG to recognize Canadian innovation on the web. The judges’ comments praised its combination of creativity, collaboration, and community. A comic maker had earned a place in a list that also included services for business communication, publishing, and organization.
Those comments also raised a practical question: how could Pixton turn its appeal into a sustainable business? The judges identified classroom subscriptions as a promising possibility, suggesting that the company would need to demonstrate enough educational value for institutions to pay. Alongside recognition of what Pixton had already achieved, there was interest in what it might become—and schools were already part of that discussion.
The First Classrooms
Schools were part of Pixton’s story during its first year. By November 2008, the website offered an education package priced at one US dollar per student per month. Alongside its public community, Pixton was already making provision for teachers who wanted to bring comic creation into their lessons.
Teacher interest involved a process of exploration. A March 2009 post on Kevin’s Meandering Mind introduced Pixton with a practical observation: “I keep exploring new comic sites, wondering about applications for the classroom.” The question was how a tool for making comics might fit into the work teachers and students were already doing.
A teaching guide published that June offered several possibilities. Students could write dialogue to practise a language, create political cartoons, or illustrate concepts such as fair trade and gravity. Teachers could also use comics to introduce a unit or explain an assignment. These suggestions gave the same creative tools different purposes depending on the subject and the lesson.
Pixton for Schools added ways to organise that work. The guide described teachers adding students to accounts and classrooms, adjusting settings for ratings, comments, and remixing, and building lesson banks labelled by grade level and subject. A thirty-day trial allowed teachers to explore the service before deciding how many months to purchase.
Those classroom settings adapted familiar parts of Pixton to a teacher’s responsibilities. Sharing work, responding to another author, and remixing a comic could become activities managed within a lesson. Students still made creative decisions, while teachers gained tools for arranging the setting in which that work happened.
Education was becoming a distinct use of Pixton alongside its wider community. A comic might tell a joke or continue a personal story; it could also practise dialogue, explain an idea, or demonstrate an interpretation. During these early years, teachers were beginning to explore how much classroom work the format could accommodate.
Outgrowing the Original
By the end of 2009, Pixton had accumulated nearly two years of development and use. Its community was making comics, exchanging ideas, and finding audiences, while teachers were exploring its place in their classrooms. The next iteration would build on a website that already served several purposes and had become part of people’s creative lives.
The original had continued to evolve throughout that period. Contemporary reporting described improvements to its characters during 2008, and its 2009 Applied Arts entry highlighted adjustable poses, prop grouping, and direct editing. Pixton’s first version was itself a succession of refinements, expanding what authors could accomplish with the tools.
Seen against those developments, the move toward Pixton 2.0 can be understood as a continuing design challenge: giving authors more room to express themselves while keeping comic creation approachable. Every additional choice offered creative possibilities, but also had to find a workable place within the interface.
For longtime user Chekko, the transition remained a distinct moment. He remembers Pixton 2.0 arriving on New Year’s Eve 2009 and identifies “the dot eyes every character had back then” as a particularly memorable feature of the earlier version. His recollection gives the change a visual marker: the familiar characters of Pixton’s beginnings belonged to an increasingly different-looking website.
By March 2010, comics author Scott McCloud was drawing attention to Pixton’s current incarnation. He recognised thoughtful design behind the software and saw it answering requests he had heard from aspiring comic makers. The discussion around his post also brought Clive into the conversation, explaining his continuing ambition to make collaborative comic creation accessible.
Pixton 1.0 had given that ambition its first working form. Its successor inherited the tools, the community, and the central invitation to participate—and began the next chapter of what people could make together.
Legacy
Pixton 1.0 gave practical form to a simple invitation: make a comic and share it. For someone with a story in mind and little confidence in drawing, it offered a place to begin. Characters, expressions, and speech bubbles became materials an author could arrange, experiment with, and gradually learn to use.
Collaboration was part of that invitation from the earliest months. A published comic could become material for another person’s interpretation through remixing. Readers could enter the creative process themselves, taking an existing scene or idea in a different direction. The connection between making something and sharing it was built into the experience.
The community gave those possibilities a human dimension. Within its first year, Pixton was bringing together school-age creators, experienced cartoonists, and people working across languages. Their comics provided occasions to meet, respond, and discover what someone else had imagined. Clive and Daina’s small operation had become a gathering place with contributions extending well beyond its founders.
The first iteration also established an educational direction. Teachers were exploring comics as a way to practice language, explain concepts, and organize ideas. Classroom accounts and settings gave that experimentation a structure, placing education alongside the public community early in Pixton’s development.
In March 2010, Clive described what he believed an audience could offer these creators: “Our website gives them an audience, that too inspires them to strive to do better.” His observation connected the tools to the people using them—and to the encouragement that could come from having someone read their work.
That possibility was already present in the original Pixton. A first attempt could become a finished comic. A finished comic could find a reader. And the exchange could give its author a reason to return.