 "Rob DenBleyker at Comic con 2015")
Rob DenBleyker at Comic con 2015
Cyanide & Happiness, a webcomic written and illustrated by Rob DenBleyker, Kris Wilson, Dave McElfatrick and formerly Matt Melvin, enjoys immense popularity. With the advent of social media, the comic attracted a huge number of fans in India as well. Known for its dark humour, the comic has been a favourite of many. With one of the creators, Rob DenBleyker, visiting the Delhi Comic Con, Kakoli Chakraborty took the opportunity to pick his brain on what he thought of the convention and what’s in store for the franchise. Edited excerpts.
It has been almost a decade since Cyanide and Happiness started on Newgrounds. But it gained popularity after the social media buzz kicked in.
Social media was a big thing for us. Even in those days, we used to share the comic on Myspace and encourage people to share it further.
What do you think about the Indian response to the comic?
It’s been overwhelming. I had an inkling that there were Cyanide and Happiness fans in India. But when I actually came here for the first time, last year for the Bangalore comic con, I realized how big a deal it was here and how many fans we had here.
Wilson created Cyanide and Happiness characters, so how did you get involved with it?
I had been making flash cartoons on Newgrounds since 2001 when I was a kid. And over the years, I grew a small audience for my work that’s where I met Dave. Kris Wilson joined our forum on our website and he used to post comics that he was making since the age of 16. I adored them and thought they were hilarious. I thought I would make some comics of my own and we would invite other forum members to contribute comics. Eventually, late 2004, I was talking to Kris online (He lives in Wyoming and I lived in Texas) and I proposed the idea of doing it as a team and making it a daily comic and we could do it everyday. Starting January, we started doing just that. We would take turns to make that and in a few months Dave and Matt joined us. We did for about two years and very gradually we became a regular comic.
Your comic relies on dark humour, along the lines of South Park, so did it faze you in any way? Were you worried that the comic might not go well with the readers?
Not really because the way we approach comics is we try to make people laugh and make each other laugh. But we’re never going out of the way to offend people. I think, yes, there are some of our topics that are definitely risque or dark but I think that’s more about how we write it. And because of that, I’m not too worried about any negative comments and I know our fans realize that too.
Now that the new Cyanide and Happiness book has come out, what is in store for the franchise?
Yeah we came out with a new book. We are about to launch season 2 of our show along. We have a lot of things coming out in 2016. There are a lot of things that we haven’t announced yet.
Are you looking for any kind of collaboration with a TV network?
Kind of. With Cyanide and Happiness, not so much. But we are launching hopefully some new things for TV.
The best thing about Cyanide and Happiness is that it’s available for free. So, do you plan to keep it that way?
Our comics have always been free. Even with our animations, you can pay an amount for early access but we eventually release it on YouTube where people can view it for free.
