Jump to content

Cyanide & Happiness: Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
→Explosm: rv vandalism
No edit summary
Line 13: Line 13:
|first= 2005-01-26
|first= 2005-01-26
|last=
|last=
|genre= [[Anti-humor]], [[Black]], [[Black comedy|Dark humor]]
|genre= [[Anti-humor]], [[Black humor]], [[Black comedy|Dark humor]]
|rating=
|rating=
|preceded by=
|preceded by=

Revision as of 15:19, 23 October 2010

Cyanide and Happiness
Author(s)Kris Wilson
Rob DenBleyker
Matt Melvin
Dave McElfatrick
Websitehttp://www.explosm.net
Current status/scheduleDaily, with occasional lapses
Launch date2005-01-26
Publisher(s)Explosm
Genre(s)Anti-humor, Black humor, Dark humor

Cyanide and Happiness is a webcomic hosted on Explosm.net and written by four authors with occasional contributions from guests. It was founded on 9 December 2004 and has hosted almost daily comics since 26 January 2005. It appears frequently on social networking sites (such as Myspace and LiveJournal), 4chan, 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 has claimed over a million daily visitors (as of November 20, 2006) and is ranked 2,777th among the most viewed websites and 1,338th in the US alone, according to Alexa.com.[2] The creators also have made comics and television advertisements for Orange Mobile's Orange Wednesdays, which have appeared in The Sun newspaper.[3][4]

Explosm

Cyanide and Happiness began as a small series of comics drawn by Kris Wilson at the age of 16. One day while at his home suffering from strep throat, Kris entertained himself by drawing comics by hand, and would later move on to drawing them on his computer. Kris created his own 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 invited him to continue the comic daily with their help[5] Explosm is currently run by Matt, Rob, Dave, and Kris. The entire Explosm team now make comics on a regular basis. 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: "Happyness!?!? [sic] Hot damn! I'll take 4"[6]

In the past, Explosm has featured Guest Weeks, where 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 (Also known as Altffour or Shawn Vulliez), animator of the flash animation Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny.[7]

In a news post on the site on October 14, 2007 Rob announced that there was a project about to go underway to translate every comic in the archive into various languages. Based on the response, in a subsequent post Rob said that the response had been phenomenal with 1300 replies offering to translate into over 20 different languages.

During the first comic podcast of April 20, 2009 Rob announced that he had purchased a domain and the Explosm team will start a website dedicated solely to the little Flash shorts. He mentioned that more information would be coming within a few weeks.

Style

The style of Cyanide and Happiness is best described as dark, cynical, often offensive, and exceedingly irreverent. Frequent topics of humor include disabilities, rape,[8] cancer,[9] murder,[10] suicide,[11] necrophilia,[12] pedophilia,[13][14] sexual deviancy,[15] sexually transmitted diseases,[16] self-mutilation,[17] nihilism, and violence.[18] The comic does not always have a definite punchline in each strip, or may have several panels of "awkward silence"[19] 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 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.[20] 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 people or celebrities such as Lindsay Lohan, George W. Bush,[21] Richard Nixon,[22] Steven Tyler, Metallica, The Beatles,[23] Queen,[24] Chad Kroeger of Nickelback, Hinder, Soulja Boy Tell 'Em, Chris Martin of Coldplay, and Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day. Jesus also makes numerous appearances, often with the comic containing religious puns.[25]

All four artists also occasionally break the fourth wall, using 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.[26][27] The comics frequently make use of metafiction (or breaking the fourth wall), with characters acknowledging their status as cartoons in a webcomic and discussing what is expected of them as a consequence.[28]

On at least seven occasions, Cyanide and Happiness has used animation in an otherwise static comic.[29][30][31][32][33][34][35]

Other Explosm content

  • Since 2006, there have been a total of 26 Flash "shorts" done by the site administrators, the newest being named "Repulsel". They follow the same theme as the Cyanide and Happiness comics and are drawn in the same style. The characters are, in most instances, voiced by the webmasters themselves.[36] Chase Suddarth contributes substantially to the shorts.
  • The site additionally hosts Joe Zombie, a Flash series by Rob. He recently stated he will not be releasing the sequel Joe Zombie 7.[37] Flash work by Matt and Dave is also featured on the site.
  • Humor articles by all four administrators are regularly featured on the site, with work by Kris, Matt and Dave featured heavily. The newest being "Die Romantic- A Look At Aiden" by Dave, who scathingly critiques goth punk band Aiden.
  • Explosm also has a merchandise store, from which fans can purchase a variety of Cyanide and Happiness T-shirt designs and plushies.
  • A book was released by Kris, Rob, Matt, and Dave containing the first volume of Cyanide and Happiness comics.
  • On the forums there was an interactive story where users got to suggest what the main character did. This was created in 2007, with the first comic about a man finding two warring societies inside Mt. Everest. However, due to a site crash, the story (as well as three others) was deleted. A new one was created in late 2007. This was called "Working on the space station: Day 1," and was created by Rob. This turned out to be very successful in the eyes of the Explosm team and future "Interactive Stories" are planned.
  • Recently, Rob has confirmed a new website on which new interactive stories will be held, www.storydump.com, with a beta version of the site up and running beta.storydump.com/. Completion of the website is estimated to be within several months.[38]
  • Cyanide and Happiness has released an iPhone and iPod Touch app that allows caching of viewed images for offline viewing, as well as a random button. The app is $0.99 and can be obtained through the App Store, and is currently at version 1.2.

Let Dave Into America

Recently, Dave has started to petition for a visa into the United States, so he can be with the other writers to produce more animated shorts. Since Dave posted the petition on the Explosm.net forums on July 28, the petition has garnered over 132,000 signatures in less than 3 weeks.[39] As of September 1, 2010 it has officially been announced that Dave has qualified for the Visa that will allow him enter the United States to work on more comics and animated shorts with Kris, Matt and Rob.

References

  1. ^ a b "Student draws explosive web comic". The UTD Mercury. April 3, 2006. Retrieved 2006-09-26.
  2. ^ "explosm.net". Alexa. Retrieved 2010-08-15.
  3. ^ "Orange unveils cartoon stick man print campaign". Brand Republic. July 18, 2006. Retrieved 2006-09-27.
  4. ^ "Orange Wednesday campaign". DM weekly. Direct Marketing Association. July 27, 2006. Retrieved 2006-09-28.
  5. ^ Reddit.com, AMA
  6. ^ "121 Comics". Explosm.net. 2005-04-15. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  7. ^ "655 Comics". Explosm. 2010-04-21. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  8. ^ "1052 Comics". Explosm.net. 2007-10-16. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  9. ^ "308 Comics". Explosm.net. 2010-04-21. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  10. ^ "399 Comics". Explosm.net. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  11. ^ "263 Comics". Explosm.net. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  12. ^ "617 Comics". Explosm.net. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  13. ^ "268 Comics". Explosm.net. 2010-04-21. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  14. ^ "306 Comics". Explosm.net. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  15. ^ "395 Comics". Explosm.net. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  16. ^ "342 Comics". Explosm.net. 2005-10-13. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  17. ^ "444 Comics". Explosm.net. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  18. ^ "307 Comics". Explosm.net. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  19. ^ "621 Comics". Explosm.net. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  20. ^ "642 Comics". Explosm.net. 2006-08-28. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  21. ^ "887 Comics". Explosm.net. 2010-04-21. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  22. ^ "805 Comics". Explosm.net. 2007-02-16. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  23. ^ "885 Comics". Explosm.net. 2007-04-30. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  24. ^ "666 Comics". Explosm.net. 2006-09-23. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  25. ^ "312 Comics". Explosm.net. 2005-09-15. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  26. ^ "445 Comics". Explosm.net. 2006-02-17. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  27. ^ "680 Comics". Explosm.net. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  28. ^ "375 Comics". Explosm.net. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  29. ^ "1511 Comics". Explosm.net. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  30. ^ "1582 Comics". Explosm.net. 2010-04-21. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  31. ^ "1149 Comics". Explosm.net. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  32. ^ "1007 Comics". Explosm.net. 2010-04-21. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  33. ^ "1802 Comics". Explosm.net. 2009-09-20. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  34. ^ "1847 Comics". Explosm.net. 2010-04-21. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  35. ^ "691 Comics". Explosm.net. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  36. ^ "List of Explosm.net Flash Movies". Kris Wilson, et al. April 1, 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-01.
  37. ^ "Rob posts in thread about Joe Zombie 7". Explosm.net. January 2, 2009. Retrieved 2010-03-21.
  38. ^ "Explosm.net". Forums.explosm.net. Retrieved 2010-06-10.
  39. ^ "Hey guys, REALLY need your help! - The Explosm Fora". Retrieved 28 July 2010.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Cyanide_%26_Happiness&oldid=392416526"