curiousities - Microsoft Comic Chat

back in the halcyon days of the 90s and early 00's, IRC clients were a pretty popular way for people to message each other and host chatrooms where likeminded people could gather around and talk about things. of course, with instant messengers like MSN and Skype and the like becoming more widely used in today's more streamlined era, IRC chat clients saw a significant decline in use (from one million users in 2003 to around 400,000 in 2014, according to Wikipedia).

of course, that doesn't mean IRC chatting as a whole has dropped off the face of the earth. while it has gone scarce, there are quite a few communities around the net who still host IRC servers for people to chat about stuff, and of course IRC clients still exist. one of which we're going to talk about today.

i'll be honest, i know very little about IRC stuff aside from this one client and the Wiki page, but hey, having your chats in comic form is always rad, innit?

Microsoft Chat (sometimes called Microsoft Comic Chat or just Comic Chat) was released in 1996 by... well, Microsoft. it was bundled with the full downloads of Internet Explorer 3, 4, and 5, though distributions of Windows 98 and 2000 included the program as well. for quite some time, it was Microsoft's main chat program until some time around 2001, thanks to MSN discontinuing the official Comic Chat servers.

of course, that didn't spell the complete end of the program; being an IRC-based client, it still works with a lot of IRC servers out there today since it runs on the same standard protocols. course, there's a bit more to Comic Chat than that, obviously.

Comic Chat has two modes of displaying conversations: comic strip and plain text. pretty much what it says on the tin, though the comic mode needs a bit of explaining.

in comic mode, chatlogs are displayed as comics. when a person speaks, they're displayed as a character with their message appearing in a speech bubble. if the speaker is using Comic Chat, they'll appear as the character they've chosen (you'll also automatically download their character if you don't have it). if they're not using Comic Chat, they'll just appear as a random character you have installed/downloaded.

my screenshots don't show the default character/background graphics; the default stuff's in a more toonier style. most sites that hosted Comic Chat characters in the past are lost to time now, but a kind soul by the name of Mermeliz runs a site with pages of various characters up for download. the ones shown in my screenshots are japanese-made characters not available on the current version of the site, but a little trip to the Wayback Machine might net you what you need.

anyhow. to change the expression of your character, there's a little wheel underneath your character on the right side of the screen. there are nine moods, clockwise from the top: shouting, laughing, happy, coy, bored, scared, sad, angry, and neutral (in the middle). by moving the dot to a face on the wheel, you can change the mood and the intensity of said expression.

the default characters bundled with Comic Chat have the nine basic expressions, though usermade characters may have more, and can be seen by changing the mood intensity. honestly, just fiddle around with the wheel and you'll find some fun frames for your character. :'D

text emoticons and certain words typed will also affect your character's expression if you don't manually choose one. :) and :( will make your character smile or frown, typing in allcaps will make them shout, and acronyms like LOL and the like will make them laugh.

you can also talk in thought bubbles and action boxes (whispers to other users also have their own bubbles). these are a bit trickier to describe, so i'll let the above screenshot speak for itself. just a little comparison between normal IRC text chat (bottom) and how Comic Chat interprets it (top).

aside from characters and backgrounds, there's a couple other ways to customize your comical experience. you can change your font and text color, jot down stuff on your profile, save servers and networks to lists to return to them easier, and adjust preferences for your client and comic layouts.

'course, those are just the basics i know of. there's quite a bit of interesting stuff about Comic Chat, such as how the concept was spawned and what algorithms and such go on behind it. David Kurlander, who proposed the idea for CC and developed the initial code, has a page on his site with some history on the program and quite a few other related articles and resources. it's a pretty interesting read if you're into the whole workings of the client and such.

while Mircosoft no longer supports Comic Chat and the MSN IRC servers are no longer around, the client as a whole is still functional, if possibly dated. as said before, CC will work with pretty much nearly every IRC server, though non-CC folk won't be able to see your characters, obviously. though, with how fondly the program's remembered by its users, you'll probably find some Comic Chat folk if you look in the right places.

if you're interested in trying out the program yourself, Kurlander has a handy guide on installing and getting yourself started with Comic Chat. Mermeliz also has some other stuff on Comic Chat, including client downloads in various languages, additional backgrounds, and some ComicChat-friendly IRC servers, alongside characters and other things.

my hat tips off to you two, Mermy and Kurlander. you guys are doing a p great job at helping keep the CC community alive. c:

anyhow, this is gen ichida, signing off. and hopefully getting back on other important article stuff. i promised content this year and i want to deliver on that. *^*