This week your dosage of webcomics is covering Cyanide and Happiness, a webcomic hosted by Explosm.net. Now, this comic may not be nearly as nerdy as my past features, but it is nonethless hilarious and worthy of a mention. With running themes such as radioactive turtles, iphone apps, and super jerk men, what more could you want out of a webcomic? So if you want to find out why it made this week's pick, then click on the jump!
Cyanide and Happiness found its beginning way back in 2004 when it's creator, Kris Wilson first began with hand drawn comics. As the comic gathered a following, it also gained writers. Currently the webcomic is run by Matt Melvin, Rob DenBleyker, Dave McElfatrick and forum administrator Lee Mulvey. The comic is updated on an almost daily basis, and features weekly "themed" weeks. Such as "Depressing comic week" and "Guest Weeks" where readers can submit possible comic entries to be published to the site.
The humor in this comic can be a little mature for some readers, with underlying themes of murder, radioactivity, and STD's in some of the comics, but I found nothing to be too seriously offensive. One of my favorite things about this comic is the posse of recurring characters/superheroes, and here are a few of them.
-Captain Obvious: points out obvious facts to the other characters, sometimes blatant, but always ridiculously funny.
-Rubber Arm Man-Pretty self explanatory, a man with the "super power" of having rubber arms, and yes it is as useless as it sounds.
-Firework Man-Reminds me of my favorite power combo from Kirby and the Crystal shards, (bomb+flame), capable of turning himself into an explosive firework, and never fails to injure himself.
Cyanide and Happiness gets it's current title from a well known comic strip that was published centering around the selling of Cotton Candy. However innocent this comic storyline might sound, the cotton candy was advertised to be laced with Cyanide and Happyness, to which customers overlooked the minor detail about the poison to purchase their own little bundle of "happyness".
Another reason the comic has become so successful is because of it's controversial yet almost viral method of advertising. The writers encourage readers to hotlink their images and comics, which some webcomic authors/artists look down upon as "leeching". Either way, it generates readers for them so it seems to be working very well.
Overall I think the comic is worth a look because the concept/storyline of each strip is relatively simple and to the point. Always bringing a smile to your face or even laughter out of your cubicle, this comic is definitely worth a daytime distraction. To check out more of Firework Man's antics with Cyanide and Happiness, check out the site Explosm.net. Enjoy!
