Reddit AMA Recap: Cyanide and Happiness producers

 

 

Cyanide and Happiness has successfully turned itself from a web comic sensation to a legitimate animated operation that houses over 2 million subscribers even with only under 60 uploaded videos as of this writing! Let’s put it this way, that’s more subscribers than the Ultimate Fighting Championship has on their Youtube page and that’s which almost 3,000 uploaded videos!

That said, Kris, Rob, Matt & Dave LOVE their fans and I actually eye-witnessed this at New York Comic Con 2013 where despite the fact that there was a LINE and I mean a LINE wrapped around their booth and like three other booths and those guys drew pictures and signed autographs for every fucking one of their fans like a boss which officially makes these guys awesome in my book.

To further the point, the Cyanide and Happiness producers had a chance to drop by Reddit not once, not twice, but THREE times to answer questions for their adoring fans and we have the highlights:

On how Kris, Rob, Matt & Dave first came together to produce the style of Cyanide and Happiness:

[Rob]

Basically we all copied Kris.

Before it was called Cyanide & Happiness, Kris posted his comics under the name “Comicazi” to the forums of a stick figure death website I ran with Matt and Dave. I really, really liked them, made a few fan comics of my own, and asked him if he wanted to take a crack at doing them daily together. Matt and Dave joined the effort shortly thereafter. So our styles all kind of blended.

A few key differences though: My characters are taller than Kris’ and have longer arms, which lets them do crazy things like take hats on and off which Kris’ characters cannot without looking mega stupid.

How about the best prank ever?

[Rob]

Dave put the tiniest “Rob is gay” in the background of one of his comics in the Depressing Comic Book, and didn’t tell me until after we’d printed 20,000 copies.

Still trying to get him back for that one.

[Dave]

Hahaha. It was fucking great to just let you know in person, too. “Rob look at the comic on page *** real closely.”

Your fucking face. Gold.

On how the idea for Depressing Comic Week had come about:

[Rob}

I made one about a kid in a wheelchair dying of crushed dreams after his dad tells him he can’t play basketball. I didn’t have “depressing” in mind, but it had a darker edge to it, so I asked Dave if he thought we should do a week of depressing comics. Without hesitation he said “yes”, and the other guys were onboard just as fast.

I like Depressing Comic Week because we get to take away a little joy from our readers once a year, after giving it out for free the other 51 weeks. It’s like when a really evil oil company plants a few trees for goodwill, except the other way around.

[Dave]

Rob and I discussed the idea of making comics with no jokes whatsoever, just sadness, one night in late 2006. We presented it to the other guys, and somehow made a whole week out of it.

Weird fact: This comic, about getting a new games console was posted on the day the Wii was released in the US, and THIS depressing comic about getting a new games console was posted on the day the PS4 was released in the US.

The producers of Cyanide and Happiness stuck around and did a BUNCH more AMA on Reddit, and you can check it out here.