Cyanide and Happiness
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| 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 |
| Current status | Updated daily |
| Launch date | January 26, 2005 |
| Genre(s) | random |
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 such as 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 over a million daily visitors (as of November, 20th 2006) 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] Early History (Pre-Explosm.net)
Prior to Explosm.net, in 1998, Californian-based Matt Melvin created a site called Sticksuicide, which featured his Flash stick figure animations inspired by websites such as Stickdeath.com. Through Newgrounds.com he met Texas-based Rob DenBleyker, a fellow aspiring Flash artist. Rob joined Sticksuicide after Matt propositioned him through a review he left for one of Rob's animations on Newgrounds. That review can still be found on Newgrounds today.
In early 2001, another aspiring Flash artist from Ireland, Dave McElfatrick, created another Flash-focused site called StickWars with the help of a friend from school. Similar to Sticksuicide, this site would host Dave's Flash work. Through this Flash community Matt, Rob and Dave connected as both websites became popular. When StickWars was closed down in 2003 Dave joined Sticksuicide as a full time contributor. In late 2004 Sticksuicide was also closed down permanently.
[edit] Explosm
Cyanide and Happiness began as a small series of comics drawn by Kris Wilson at the age of 16. One day whilst ill at his home suffering from Streptococcal Sore Throat, Kris entertained himself by drawing comics by hand, and would later move on to drawing them on his computer. Before long Kris created his own little website called Comicazi, that allowed him to showcase his comics to others. Kris shared his comics with the forum of Sticksuicide.com. The webmasters of Sticksuicide (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. The current name "Cyanide and Happiness" comes from a strip in which one character is selling cotton candy made of cyanide and happiness. The other character replies: "Happiness! Hot damn, I'll take four!"[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 humor include disabilities, cancer, murder, necrophilia, paedophilia, 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 villainous 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 humor.[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:
- Kris: Characters have round heads with squarish bodies, with eyes usually near the bottom of the head.
- Dave: Similar to characters drawn by Kris, except his earlier characters had longer legs.
- Rob: Characters have oval-like heads with fatter bodies.
- Matt: Characters' bodies and heads are rounder and more simple.
All four artists also occasionally use the borders of each comic panel as part of the comic itself, allowing the characters within to interact with them in some form or another. The comics frequently make use of metafiction, with characters acknowledging their status as cartoons in a webcomic and discussing what is expected of them as a consequence.
[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.
- Wilson announced on September 6, 2006 that he will be releasing a second volume of Cyanide and Happiness comics. [6]
[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.
- ^ Comic.
- ^ kris-wilson's deviantART Journal. Kris Wilson (September 6, 2006). Retrieved on 2006-09-27.
