When reading the comics, I found two opinions I really like. One is that one of the advantages of comics is that it is abstract. Just as McCloud says, comics is not much like other media, you do not only read it and comprehend it, you also become part of it. Since the image of the characters in the comics is far less abstract than movies, it is easier for us to imagine we are part in the comics. Comics minimize the difference between people, so it gives the readers a huge space of imagination. And that is what I feel when I read the comics, the main difference between two characters are usually their hairstyle and clothing instead of their face. And I always let myself become part of it when I read a comic, which can make myself deeper immersed in it.

Another idea is about the closure. In McCloud’s description, closure is a kind of associate of an incomplete thing with something we are really familiar with. I also have the feeling that we can see human’s face everywhere in the world, even though they are just some blocks and circles. McCloud says that closure helps us to understand the things happened between two images in the comics. This also gives readers their own space to imagine the story, which is a good way of narrative. Personally, I think closure can also be used in the images of comics. For example, when drawing a boxing game of a duel between cowboys. The cartoonist does not need to draw the whole body of the man. He only needs to draw the fists and the guns, and readers will also know what is going on. This not only helps the cartoonists to save lots of space when drawing, but also encourage them to emphasize the key point they want to convey.

Here is the address of my project: http://imanas.shanghai.nyu.edu/~yy2572/project1/

The topic of my project is a popular game named “Dark Soul 3”, the game is famous for (its insane difficulty and) the way it tells the players story, it only gives very limited information while it tells us a huge story and an enormous world.So I did not provide with much information but only the description from the game to keep it alike to the game.

1. Making a background image which is a scene from that game.

2. Since the background image is pretty big, I searched on line to figure out how to make my website scrolled. And I used “overflow” style in the html file to achieve that.

3. I then made a very simple heading at the top in the center (Making everything briefly is just the style of that game).

4. There is a bonfire at the center of the background image, and it can be lit in the game. And the animation of it is very gentle and beautiful. So I want to download a gif of bonfire and then replace the bonfire at the background when the mouse is on the bonfire.

Firstly, I want to use the photoshop to cut off the black background of that gif and only leave the bonfire. But then I found out that the gif had more than 300 frames, which means I have to repeat for 300 times, so I gave up. Instead, I used the “clip:rect()” to cut the gif when it is shown on the screen. So that a large area of black background was deleted. Then I find the right location letting the gif perfectly coincide with the bonfire on the background.

Then I started to figure out how to show the gif only when the mouse is on it. I first used hover, but then I searched online and found that “onmouseover” and “onmouseout” can do the same thing more easily. I set my gif the “onmouseover” picture and a blank image the “onmouseout” picture.

5. Then I started to work on the image of the four main bosses in the game. I download their image from the websites and cut the background off in the photoshop. And then I placed them in the right place using “position:absolute”.

6. I then added description for those bosses, this time I used the “hover”. You can see the name of those bosses initially, and when you move your mouse on it, it will show a brief introduction of them. I also carefully chose the text color for each character and copy the hex value to the html file.

Then a wanted to use the “text-align” to make all the texts in the center. It took me sometime to figure out in which class and div I should add that sentence.

I added a outside url to the text and the link will take you to a preciser introduction of those characters. However, at first, the text would turn into purple while I wrote in css file that the text should be white. Finally, I found out that it was because I wrote the “<a>” function as inner function of “<div>” function in html file. After I changed “<div>” function into inner function of “<a>” function, it works well.

7. I think my website was still too simple, so I wanted to make some creation on the bonfire again. In the game, the bonfire is lit by our main character–the ashen one. So I wanted to be the ashen one, I downloaded his picture and cut his head and sword by using photoshop. And then I took a photo of myself with the exact posture to light a bonfire. After that, I combined them together in the photoshop and put the combined image just beside the bonfire. So now it looks like I am lighting the bonfire.

When the bonfire is lit in the game, the screen will show “BONFIRE LIT”, which is a classic and typical scene in the game. So I downloaded that image, cut it and put it in the right location.

8. I think the website cannot be without a background music. So I chose one in its soundtrack. I learned on the website how to play a background music in html file and I got five ways. But I only succeeded using one way, and it will show a player at the left-top corner which seemed a little incongruous. Also, I set it to autoplay but it did not work as I want. So I cannot hide the player or the visitor cannot play the music.

If I can have more time.

1. I want to make the gif clear and only leave the bonfire, so it will look more beautiful as it will perfectly fit the background image.

2. Make the background music automatic to play and hide the player.

3. Add more characters on the website and tell more about their stories.

In “The Medium is the Message”, McLuhan show his deep insight towards the medium. His opinion is advanced and predictive at his time as his main point is that the medium is much more important than the content in it. In the past, people think that it is the content in the medium that influences the people. The information and content certainly influence people’s opinion and movement, but only in a short period of time and the influence is very limited and external. However, the medium, as the way to transfer information, has profound influence to people in a large scale and for a long period of time. For example, he seemed to predict the internet society, the internet completely change the communication and social contact, which is the sense and awareness of people. Moreover, he argues that the content of on kind of medium is another medium, thus the content of any medium is always a old medium we have seen before, so it is just typical. Following the opinion that current medium can be transformed to the content to a new medium, we can imagine some new mediums and bring new change to our society. And this point also helps to explain that it is the new medium which brings the largest and most important influence to the society.

Here is the link to my work on the first recitation

http://imanas.shanghai.nyu.edu/~yy2572/Com%20Lab%20Rec1/