Cyanide and Happiness Kickstarter stretch goals list from $250K to $800K

Cyanide And Happiness

2004webcomicclassic

Published August 17, 2026

Cyanide and Happiness is a stick-figure webcomic and animated series hosted at Explosm.net, launched in December 2004 by Kris Wilson, Rob DenBleyker, Matt Melvin, and Dave McElfatrick. Known for its dark, absurd humor and minimalist art, it grew a large audience through the late 2000s, spawning books, an iPhone app, and a Kickstarter-funded animated show.

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Overview

Cyanide and Happiness is a webcomic and animated series drawn in a deliberately crude stick-figure style, hosted at Explosm.net1. The strips are usually four panels long and lean on dark, absurd, and often morbid humor, covering subjects like death, sex, disease, and everyday cruelty6. The minimalist look, four flat colors and blocky shapes, became one of the series' most identifiable traits2.

The comic is written and illustrated by a rotating group of authors, originally Kris Wilson, Rob DenBleyker, Matt Melvin, and Dave McElfatrick1. Alongside the daily strip, the Explosm team produces short animated videos posted to their YouTube channel5, which cover the same nihilistic gag-comic territory as the print strips.

Origin & Background

Platform
Explosm.net
Key People
Kris Wilson, Rob DenBleyker, Matt Melvin, Dave McElfatrick
Date
2004

Kris Wilson started drawing comics by hand at age 16 while he was home sick, later moving to digital versions that he uploaded to his personal site Comicazi2. On December 9, 2004, Matt Melvin, Rob DenBleyker, and Dave McElfatrick launched Explosm and asked Wilson to publish his work on the new site1. The name Cyanide and Happiness came from an early strip in which a character describes his cotton candy as being made of "Cyanide & Happyness" [sic]3.

How It Spread

By November 2006, Explosm was pulling in over a million daily visitors2. The team expanded into print with a self-titled book collection released on January 19, 2010, followed by Ice Cream & Sadness on October 5, 20103. An official Cyanide and Happiness iPhone app landed on the App Store on October 28, 20111.

On February 13, 2013, the Explosm crew launched a Kickstarter to fund a full Cyanide and Happiness animated show, asking for $250,0004. The campaign closed with $770,309 pledged by 14,242 backers, unlocking stretch goals for a year of weekly animations and ten longer episodes4.

Matt Melvin left the project on August 12, 2014, citing differing views on where the comic should go3. Wilson, DenBleyker, and McElfatrick kept the site running with new strips and pushed more animated work through the Explosm YouTube channel5.

Frequently Asked Questions