See Copyright and Usage Notice

Favorite places and Hot Spots in Comic Chat

If you had a particularly good time in a Comic Chat room, you can save it as a Favorite by selecting [Favorites + Add to Favorites]. You can then open the favorite area later with Favorites + Open Favorites or stow your favorite room right on your desktop by selecting File + Create Shortcut. When connecting to Comic Chat in the future, your favorites are also shown and now easily accessible to visit. Favorite is one of my favorite features! Note that Comic Chat brings you back into the chat area you were in during your last session.

Hot Comic Chat Home Pages

Note that some of these web page links may have changed or the web pages may have been discontinued. Consult your Avatars book home page at http://www.digitalspace.com/avatars for a more up to date list of links.

Official pages

Comic Chat Home Page is at: http://www.microsoft.com/ie/comichat/default.htm

Press Blab about Comic Chat

Window on Windows Comic Chat review is at: http://www.star-telegram.com:80/archives/07141996.arc/news/opinions/starcol/wow.htm

Interview with Comic Chat cartoonist Jim Woodring is at: http://www.usyd.edu.au/~mwoodman/spunk/woodring.html

Review of Comic Chat in C|Net is at: http://register.cnet.com/Content/Reviews/Hands/082096/comic.html

Some Unofficial User Pages

Ireland On-Line's Chat Centre Comic Chat Page, the gift of the gab is at: http://www.iol.ie:80/chat/index.html

CyberWay's IRC pages featuring Comic Chat is at: http://www.cyberway.com.sg/irc.html

Davecentral's IRC Universe is at: http://www.davecentral.com/irc.html

OzBiz Comic Chat is at: http://www.ozbiz.com.au:80/comicch.htm

Digi's Diary: Toons Teach Us How

Hey, did you know how many people are working on the problem of getting your face onto the Internet? There are half million dollar scanners that can scan your head all the way around and make a three dimensional model. Researchers are putting little detectors on your cheeks, and eyebrows to send your expressions over the Internet and move a dummy computer model at the other end. They have even connected a face recognizer to a real rubber puppet head.. wild!

But I say, hey, why go to all this trouble!? Cartoons have been used for about as long as humans could start doodling on cave walls to communicate expressive feelings. Back in my halcyon days, I was a cartoonist for local newspapers in my town. At school I also participated in producing a weekly teacher caricature which was posted by the school office (until one time it got a little too expressive for one very special teacher). With just a few strokes of the pen, I could create a face and body that would express any kind of emotion or action. So why do we need to do all this work to put our 'real' faces on the Internet? The answer is right in front of you. We do not have to wait around for the virtual reality types to get that perfect human online (and sell us those funny glasses too). We can start expressing ourselves today through avatars. Any why not, who wants their every wrinkle and wobble to be seen by the whole world? Besides, it is much more fun living the fantasy of a big masquerade party.

So, the long and the short of it is that the toons have a lot to teach us about how to make and move avatars. Jim Woodring, the comic artist who designed the Comic Chat world and avatars, shows us all how good toons can do the job. If you are interested in cartooning and how it is great for avatar cyberspace, see Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, listed in our Bibliography. Go toons!

End of Chapter CC.