Express Yourself!
We all know that cartoon characters can be very expressive. This
is why they make such great avatars! Comic Chat Cartoonist Jim
Woodring has done a great job of giving us characters in many
poses and emotional states. To make ANNA laugh outrageously or
be very annoyed , just click and slide the black dot around the
wheel. In the next cartoon panel where ANNA talks, this will be
her body language. This feature can be used to great effect, as
we shall see later.
Figure 4: Setting stronger emotions with the
wheel: get off my case!
You can choose eight different emotions for your character. They
are listed in the following table.
| Shouting | Angry |
| Happy | Laughing |
| Bored | Scared |
| Sad | Coy |
Table 2: the range of emotions available on the Emotion Wheel
The closer to the outer edge of the wheel you move the dot, the
more extreme the emotion; the closer to the center, the more moderate.
Note that not all characters are designed to display the full
range of emotions.
When you chat, your character is painted into the next panel in
the comic strip. ANNA will be placed into the scene with the other
characters who have recently chatted. The following figure shows
ANNA in a nonchalant state, which matches her words nicely.
Figure 5: Combining the emotion with the words:
outta here!
Your moods match your words
Through another great trick, Comic Chat will automatically match
your gestures and mood depending on what you say in your chat.
Word choices and some punctuation (!) will trigger a new position
on the emotion wheel, unless you have already chosen the next
gesture. The following table lists some of the automatic word/gesture
matches.
| Words or symbols | Gestures they generate |
| I | makes your character gesture to itself |
| You | points your character's arm and hand |
| :) or :-) | makes your character smile |
| :( or :-( | makes your character frown |
| ;-) | makes your character appear flirtatious |
| LOL (Laughing out Loud) or ROTFL (Rolling on the Floor Laughing) | make your character laugh |
| typing in ALL CAPS | makes your character shout |
| Hello, hi, bye | makes your character wave |
Table 3: words and symbols and their automatic gestures
Getting a Word in Edgewise
Getting heard is no problem here! You may have noticed the long
white strip with four buttons on the right at the bottom of the
Comic Chat window. This is the chat entry area. If you type into
this area and hit [Enter] your words appear in a bubble over your
character's head. The following figure shows some text I entered
in response to a remark ANNA did not appreciate too much.
Figure 6: Type into the chat area to put in
your two bits!
And the next figure shows how ANNA is seen speaking…
Figure 7: A comic panel shows how what you
say gets seen
And so it goes, the strip is cranked out, one panel at a time.
The following figure illustrates just how interesting (or inane)
the conversation can get.
Figure 8: Catch my drift! A typical Comic Chat
Conversation
Confusing threads
All text chat environments have problems when there are many distinct
conversations going on at once. These distinct conversations are
often called "threads". On top of all this, there can
be delays of up to ten seconds before what you type gets to the
other people. It is like everyone in mission control trying to
talk to a group of astronauts on the moon through one radio link…
confusing!
For example, in the preceding figure, there are several conversations
going on. I have put the identifiable threads together so you
can make sense of it:
Thread One:
Suave dude in beret in the first panel: "Any cute women here now"
Suave dude in the eighth panel asks Nikki playing as an ANNA character: "Nikki you cute"
Nikki as ANNA answers: "Hey you, watch it! We don't like
the way this conversation is going!"
Thread Two:
Newbie Alien in the second panel: "I'm new here"
Nice guy in the fourth panel: "Thats nice…" (note that he uses "…" to indicate there is more to come)
Newbie Alien making a joke in the fifth panel: "I saw my
self on the Weekly World News the other day"
Thread Three:
Laughing Alien in the third panel: "Did you see Ajax play tonight in Amsterdam"
New woman character in the seventh panel: "No but I used
Ajax in my Toilet!!"
With threads, sometimes your conversations can be "out of
synch". For example, you can ask a question and be asked
a question and answer the other person's question and get the
answer to your question all out of order. The first rule of chat
netiquette is be patient and if you are uncertain, ask again.
I have seen people take great offense when they have misinterpreted
something out of order, for example:
Me: "Are you a veteran here"
Other person: "Yes, is the world running slowly today?"
Other person: "Am I boring you?"
Me: "Yes"
Other person: "I am sorry about that.. goodbye!"
If an area is just too full of people to be able to converse, you have several options:
- Suggest to your conversation partner that you move to another, less crowded chat room or area
- Set up a private chat with a person through the use of the whisper commands (described later in this chapter)
- Using the Ignore feature (described later), screening out other people's conversation, leaving only the people you wish to hear. Note that using the Ignore feature can be misinterpreted, as people who may want to talk to you will get no answer and might deduce that you have ignored them!
Conversation in Comic Chat might sometimes seem quite random until
you put the threads together. Scrolling back up through the panels
of the comic strip (as described in the following section) is
very useful way to find these threads.
That's a Take!
One excellent feature about Comic Chat is that you can scroll
back up and see what was said earlier in the conversation.. The
history of all conversations in the chat room since you arrived
is automatically recorded. On top of all that, you can save
the chat, in comic strip form! You can create an album of your
own personal comic strips (ranking right up there with the home
movies), to be reloaded and read or shared with friends any time.
I have found myself rolling over jokes I missed in the heat of
the drama. When they become part of a living and breathing comic
strip, people say the funniest things. You can save and print
your own private funny papers on your laser or ink jet printer
and rush upstairs and magnet it to the refrigerator. Your friends
(your kids, your parents?) won't believe it was you in
there!
Bear in mind that people can be people and sometimes say very
embarrassing or offensive things so be sure to check over
what every character says before you pin it up at the Laundromat!
Words, Words, Words
In Comic Chat, you are not just limited to spoken words and body
lingo, you have the other types of communication familiar to us
from the funnies: thought clouds, whisperings of sweet nothings
and action captions. Pressing the buttons shown in the following
figure above will send your next text chat into the scene as a
thought, whisper or action caption. You can also press the keystrokes
shown in the following table to have the same effect as pushing
the buttons.
Figure 9: Use the chat option buttons to say,
think, whisper or declare an action
Sending private messages by whispering
If you want to send a message to be heard only by a particular
character, select them from the member list, found in the upper
right hand corner, and then enter your text and press the whisper
button (or press Ctrl+W) to send it to that person only. Note
that the other forms of communication, thoughts, action captions,
and normal speech can be seen by everyone.
| Action | Keystroke |
| Say | Enter or (CTRL+Y) |
| Think | (CTRL+T) |
| Whisper | (CTRL+W) |
| Action Caption | (CTRL+I) |
Table 4: communication keystrokes to send your words into the
comic ether
As you can see below, I (as the Alien) am trying out the thought
clouds ("Where is he?"), whispering ("Whispering?")
which confuses the other character. She asks in a normal voice
"Yea, why???" and I respond with an action caption which
can be seen by everyone "DIGIGRDR, Well, Hello" and
then explain to her that I am just testing the different ways
to communicate. The action caption would typically be used to
make a general statement about a scene, "Dick Tracy calls
HQ".
You can use action captions to narrate your own actions. Captions
will always begin with the name of the person that wrote the caption.
If I wrote a caption, it might come out looking like: "DIGIGRDR
seeks someone to share an intelligent conversation." The
Action command automatically inserts your character's name, you
don't have to type it.
Figure 10: How can I communicate? Trying out
all the options
Speaking in Web-ese
Another cool trick in Comic Chat is that if you include a web
page URL in your text chat, it is shown as a link that anyone
can click on, starting their web browsers and automatically bringing
up that web page. So, I could say "Hey, take a look at my
cool web page at http://www.biota.org" and the other Comic
Chat players could immediately click on that link in my character's
speech bubble and bring up the page. Note that you must include
the "http://" for Comic Chat to know it is a web link.