What Goes in the Comic Cosmos: Stories from CyberFunnies
Brother Bill, can you spare a dime?
I was browsing through the list of active chat rooms one day (see
it under [View + Chat Room List]) when I spied a discussion on
Windows hosted by none other than Bill Gates! My heart skipped
a beat as I teleported, or clicked, into that room. Gullible me,
as I arrived as alien XENO (this might be how Bill sees most users)
I found that I was all alone with Bill (at least at first).
I was so excited! Maybe I could convince Bill to buy 100,000 copies
of my book for his home library, which I am sure is larger than
my cabin here in the redwoods.
Bill (playing a DAN) looked like Bill, so I grabbed my opportunity.
I could just picture Bill in his corner office up in Redmond munching
a sandwich and killing time on Comic Chat. The conversation was
captured just for you, dear reader:
Figure 15: Wow! Meeting Bill Gates in Comic
Chat!
You must understand how I felt when the Bill Gates cover story
started to smell of week old Pacific Northwest salmon. An impostor
unmasked! My greatest career break blown!
Figure 16: An impostor unmasked!
Superman, jerk of the day
On another bright and early morning on Comic Chat (you really
must think I am crazy!), ANNA ran into a character called
Superman. Suspect from the beginning, Superman proved to
be both a poser and provocateur extraordinaire. Conversation was
moving right along, as I was helping two newbies, or new users,
who were portrayed as the aliens in the following figure, when
in came Superman, entering stage left.
Figure 17: Newbie confusion in the main chat
room
As you can see next, Superman started to monopolize the conversation…
Figure 18: Superman is getting obnoxious!
So I tried to find out who this character was by selecting him
from the member list…
Figure 19: Using the member list to find out
who this Superman is
...and I found out he had not entered a profile in his personal
information!
Figure 20: Who is this Superman? OOPS, no profile!
The power to Ignore
So my only option left was to Ignore him! Which I did by
selecting [Member + Ignore]. Now I no longer have to see this
person's character or what they have been spouting out. This type
of banishment is controversial but often useful in virtual
worlds. See our chapter on Netiquette for a more in-depth treatment
of ignoring. You can also Ignore someone by right-clicking with
your mouse over top of their character in the Member List area
in the upper right hand corner of the Comic Chat screen.
Figure 21: Using member options to find out
who someone is or to Ignore them
To quickly find out what a character's chosen name is, just hold
your mouse over that character until you see their badge
appear, as in the following figure. You can also right click on
a character inside the comic strip panels and get the same menu
you would by right clicking on them in the member list. So you
can right click on a character in a panel and Ignore them or Get
Info on them.
Figure 22: Hold your mouse over a character
and find out who is speaking