Week+6

Using At Least Three Concepts From The Supplement On Web Comics From McCloud, Explain How The Comic You Choose Makes Use Of The Technique.

Group: Neeta Ramsaroop, Jiten Mistry, Akashdeep Sekhon

The comic we chose is Cyanide and Happiness, a daily web comic which can be found at: http://www.explosm.net/comics/1830/. The web site has a “few buttons for readers to move through [the] archives” (McCloud, 5) allowing the audience to enjoy past comics, through an easy user-friendly interface.

The comic strip is short, simply drawn and uses simple web safe colours for clothing. Essentially the characters are stick figures, wearing different coloured clothing to differentiate them from one-another. The cartoon imagery moves away from realistic resemblance by taking away the details, abstraction, making them more relatable to the reader, the image “still manages to convey that basic meaning”.

The comic sometimes exaggerates the characters features to emphasize the point of the comic, and, for the ease in understanding. The demographic for Cyanide and Happiness is older teen and young adults (ages 18-35) for its content. It uses adult innuendos and wit in order to show situations in a humorous light, lessening the seriousness of situations. It occasionally can be taken offensively, because of the sadistic satire. The material is sometimes controversial; being on the web allows for the material to be embraced by those who will enjoy it without a fear of being shunned by publishers. Taking out the middle man and using the web allows for “unlimited shelf space” (McCloud, 10), even though this sounds fantastic it has its downfalls, the reader can jump to another page in a click and is not as indulged in the comic as print versions. The distraction of all the sites on the web does not allow for commitment to the web comic.

Web comics, like print, utilize the two most regularly used formats: pages and strips. Many web comics use newer interfaces called “infinite canvas webcomics” (McCloud, 8) Cyanide and Happiness’s webpage uses the basic two formats, page and strip, which allows for the comic to fill the viewers screen with little or no scrolling, this allows the “readers [to] navigate [the] story from beginning to end without ever having to take their eyes off the page” (McCloud, 7).

The comic uses very basic drawing, almost childlike, skills- many of times it doesn’t use backgrounds because it takes away from the fast paced joke or idea. Cyanide and Happiness use backgrounds when they have significance to the situation presented in the comic. Word bubbles are not used rather short slashes directing the words to who is saying them.

Even though it is a mature humored comic, it uses very simple childish skills to get the ideas across. The short format allows for viewers to be engaged and quickly understand the point without the distraction of the World Wide Web. This is why Cyanide and Happiness has been and always will be a successful web comic.

Citation: McCloud, Scott. "Making Comics – Chapter 5 1/2." Scott McCloud | Journal. Web. 20 Oct. 2009. .