Cyanide and Happiness Goes Berzerk

Dave McElfatrick of Cyanide and Happiness

By Karen Maeda
May 9, 2016

Sequential Tart was lucky enough to have one of the Cyanide and Happiness creators, Dave McElfatrick, spend some time answering some of our crazy interview questions. Cyanide and Happiness is an extremely off the beaten path web comic and animated YouTube show whose animators learned of exactly how popular it had become when it did a KickStarter earlier this year for the web comic and animated series' new game, Joking Hazard, and the donations went wild. They have a huge internet following which will only become larger after the game is released.

Sequential Tart: For those who may not be familiar, tell us a little about the original comic and how that played into becoming a card game.

Cyanide and Happiness: The original comic is a darkly-humorous, off-the-wall daily comic called started by three young boys in 2004 and is continued by three not very young men today. Cyanide & Happiness has since expanded into an animated series on both Youtube and Seeso, so the next natural step is of course a card game.

We developed a feature on our site that allowed users to generate their own comics randomly, aptly named the Random Comic Generator. This thing, this machine, became sentient and started producing much funnier comics than we, the creators, could ever hope to achieve. We thought, what if we bring that sense of random hilarity to the table top world, where people can have fun as a group? That's where the card game came from.

ST: What is your favorite card and card combination so far, and why?

CaH: Naturally this'll sound puerile, but anything with the fellatio card as the punchline generally does it for me. Sometimes it can be going innocently, then BAM. Fellatio. The entire spectrum of emotions are very wide ranging. There's turns where Blue and Green are absolute jerks to each other, there's turns where they're incredibly supportive. It's a roller coaster.

Click to enlarge.

ST: When you realized your Kickstarter for Joking Hazard was going to obliterate your original goal of $10,000, what was your strategy for stretch goals, and how did you adjust them as things continued to grow exponentially?

CaH: We had an inkling we'd go over the original goal, but certainly not to the degree that it has. It's been insane, like trying to keep grip on a car going 300mph. We wanted to gamify the stretch goals in a way that didn't simply involve monetary goals- that's no fun for the fans or the backers, and is only fun for us. We wanted to see people get up off their ass and do crazy things- things that the fans would enjoy doing. We had one where we had people write "FART" on their dad's forehead and take a pic to send to us. It was hilarious. Whole families were in on it- and of course, one guy got a huge Joking Hazard tattoo on his butt. Our fans are crazy!

We set the bar pretty low in the beginning to see how well people would take to achievements, but they blew through them so fast that we had to make 'em really hard to keep people working on them for a while. We've presented it like a videogame, where you have to complete seven achievements within each 'world' to progress, and there's even a final boss monster!

ST: For those who didn't donate to the Kickstarter, how do you obtain some cards?

CaH: We'll be selling through our own store later this year, and you'll hopefully find them in large retail stores at some point in the near future!

ST: What are you going to do now that you have discovered a good portion of the world is as messed up in the head as you guys are?

CAH: Pour a glass of Jameson and cheers the world for being so messed up. Cheers, you damn bedlamites!

ST: Since your Kickstarter did so well, what else do you think you may do with the Kickstart funds? Additional Merchandise? Make your random comic generator into a phone app? Take over a small country? Start a small country?

CaH: I think we'll maybe buy Chad.

ST: Has your comic ever gotten you in trouble in a NSFW situation?

CAH: Not safe for MY work, since it IS my work! We've toed the line in our earlier years, but I don't think people care as much now. People just expect it of us, now. We've all gotten angry e-mails from people over the years. One guy threatened to come to San Diego Comic Con and kill us in 2007! I don't think he achieved his goal, however.

ST: And if so, did you admit it was yours?

CaH: I'll admit when it's mine, but never apologise [grin]

ST: How long did it take before you found your niche? Were you worried it wasn't going to happen?

CaH: We never thought about it, really. We started the comic over a decade ago as something fun and creative to do when we were still in school or college. We just wrote to make each other laugh, which we still do really. It wasn't until that San Diego Comic Con in 2007 that I realised we were much bigger than I'd ever thought. There I met real fans, people who loved the comic. It blew my mind.

ST: What's your next public appearance? Any conventions (I see some on your website, but hey, any others?)

CaH: I'll be in Calgary with Kris this year, and at Megacon in Orlando! Come say hello! I'll draw you something really stupid.

Cyanide and Happiness Comic — Links to the Cyanide and Happiness Comic Website
Random Comic Generator — Link to the Random Comic Generator of Awesome
Joking Hazard Kickstarter — The Cyanide and Happiness Kickstater