Cyanide and Happiness
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Cyanide and Happiness | |
|---|---|
 A One-Panel Comic of Cyanide and Happiness |
|
| Author(s) | Kris Wilson, Rob DenBleyker, Matt Melvin, and Dave McElfatrick |
| Website | Explosm.net |
| Update schedule | Updated daily |
| Launch date | January 26, 2005 |
| Genre | random/distasteful |
Cyanide and Happiness is a webcomic hosted on Explosm.net and written by four authors. It was founded on 9th December 2004 and has since hosted daily comics. It appears frequently on sites like Myspace, Livejournal, web forums, and blogs as it openly allows and encourages fans to hotlink images, a behavior that many webcomics frown upon as "leeching." The comic's authors attribute the comic's success to its often controversial nature.[1]
The site claims almost a million daily views, and is one of the ten thousand most viewed pages on the web according to Alexa.com. On September 19, 2006 notable gaming weblog Joystiq held its weekly readers poll of favorite webcomics. Cyanide and Happiness, mistakenly called Superjerk Returns, competed against eight other webcomics and came out with 30% of the vote to win for that week.[2] The creators also have made comics and a television advert for Orange Mobile's Orange Wednesdays, which have appeared in The Sun newspaper.[3][4]
Contents |
[edit] History
Cyanide and Happiness began as a small series of comics drawn by Kris Wilson, and hosted at Comicazi.tk. Kris shared his comics with the forum of Sticksuicide.com, a now defunct site featuring stick-figure Flash animation. The webmasters of Sticksuicide.com, Matt Melvin, Rob Denbleyker and Dave McElfatrick, eventually gave up on StickSuicide and started Explosm.net, a new site less focused on Flash Stick Death animation and more on art in general. They saw potential in Kris' comics, so they used their new site to host his work. Explosm is currently run by Matt, Rob, Dave, Kris and forum administrator Lee (known under his forum sign-in name as "Kwanza"). The entire Explosm team (excluding Lee) now make comics. Most are based on Kris' style, although there are occasional departures from that form.[5]
Occasionally Explosm features a Guest Week. Readers submit entries to the administrators, and the best are featured as daily comics over the course of the week. One notable guest artist is AltF4, author of Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny.
[edit] Style
The style of Cyanide and Happiness is best described as random, cynical and sometimes offensive. Frequent topics of humour include disabilities, cancer, murder, necrophilia, sexual deviancy, racism, and violence. The comic does not always have a definite punchline in each strip, or may have several panels of "awkward silence" after (or instead of) the punchline, with characters simply staring at each other. There are few recurring characters and virtually no characterization, with characters often acting irrationally or nonsensically. The few recurring characters include peculiarly-named superheroes such as Seizure Man and the Purple Shirted Eye Stabber.
The lack of characterization is supported by the primitive drawing style. Characters rarely have names, and are usually only distinguishable by the colors of their shirts. This naturally precludes most character-driven humour.[1] The male characters almost always have no hair, which became a joke in itself. Female characters are distinguishable by their long hair and chest size, often used to comedic effect. The strip also features many pop culture references such as Nike and Star Wars and famous characters such as Lindsay Lohan and Metallica.
Although the comics are visually similar there are subtle differences between each of the four artists' strips:
- Rob: Characters have oval-like heads with fatter bodies.
- Kris: Characters have round heads with squarish bodies, with eyes usually near the bottom of the head.
- Matt: Characters' bodies and heads are rounder and more simple.
- Dave: Similar to characters drawn by Kris, except his earlier characters had longer legs.
[edit] Other Explosm Content
- Since 2006 there have been a total of 9 Flash "Shorts" done by the site administrators. They follow the same theme as the Cyanide and Happiness comics and are drawn in the same style. All characters are voiced by the webmasters themselves.
- The site additionally hosts Joe Zombie, a Flash series by Rob. Flash work by Matt and Dave is also featured on the site.
- Explosm also has a Merchandise store, from which fans can purchase a variety of Cyanide and Happiness T-shirt designs.
- A book was released by Kris Wilson containing his first volume of Cyanide and Happiness comics. [6]
- Wilson announced on September 6, 2006 that he will be releasing a second volume of Cyanide and Happiness comics. [7]
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ a b Student draws explosive web comic. The UTD Mercury (April 3, 2006). Retrieved on 2006-09-26.
- ^ Readers pick best webcomic: Cyanide and Happiness FTW. Joystiq (September 19, 2006). Retrieved on 2006-09-28.
- ^ Orange unveils cartoon stick man print campaign. Brand Republic (July 18, 2006). Retrieved on 2006-09-27.
- ^ Orange Wednesday campaign. DM weekly. Direct Marketing Association (July 27, 2006). Retrieved on 2006-09-28.
- ^ Explosm.net FAQ. Retrieved on 2006-09-26.
- ^ Cyanide & Happiness by Kris Wilson. Lulu.com. Retrieved on 2006-09-27.
- ^ kris-wilson's deviantART Journal. Kris Wilson (September 6, 2006). Retrieved on 2006-09-27.
