Comic Strips

Comic strips first began their appearance in newspapers around the mid 1800’s as satirical cartoons. The first comic strips were often characterized by brief cartoon panels featuring caricatures or cartoons in humorous scenes. The 1895 the comic strip Yellow Kid by Richard Outcault is sometimes referred to as the first comic strip and was the first to use speech balloons. By the mid-1900’s popular comics like everyone's favorite cat Garfield by Jim Davis and the ever nerdy Dilbert by Scott Adams began popping up in a surge of popularity.

Traditionally comic strips were published in newspapers or as compilations which typically required a publisher to work with. With the rise of the internet, artists had a new venue to publish their work while cutting out publishers and reaching the largest audience possible. Soon enough independent websites like Explosm.net, the home of the popular web comic Cyanide and Happiness, and RomanticallyApocalyptic.com exploded all over the web. Characters like Zee Captain from the number one web comic Romantically Apocalyptic and the began gathering cult followings because of their over the top personalities and witty remarks.

Along with the explosion of comic strips onto the internet, a heap of new art styles flooded the scene. Styles ranged from the extremely simplified characters of Cyanide and Happiness while Romantically Apocalyptic used stock photos and people that were digitally stylized to create a post apocalyptic world. 

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net