United States
Explosm is the creative studio behind Cyanide & Happiness, a long-running dark comedy franchise that began as a webcomic on explosm.net in the mid-2000s before expanding into animated video shorts.
Total Followers +0.0%
1.2M
Across TikTok
Primary Platform
YouTube
1.2M followers · 100% of audience
Engagement
6.1%
vs. 1.5% category median
Sponsorship Tier
Macro
Explosm Studios partnered with Animation+ to debut an original cryptid-themed comedy series premiering on Tubi on October 14, 2026, created by Rob DenBleyker, Kris Wilson, Connor Murphy, and Adam Nusrallah.
All episodes of the adult animated series became available to stream on Tubi, expanding the show's reach after its original VRV run ended in 2019.
McElfatrick announced his departure on Facebook on August 13, 2025, with his final strip published July 12, 2025. He is now pursuing an independent webcomic called Boids.
The flagship C&H tabletop game, which raised over $3.2M on Kickstarter, became available as a mobile app for the first time in April 2025.
| Platform | Followers | 30d Growth | Engagement | Posts / wk | Last upload |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TikTok | 1,200,000 | +0 | 6.1% | 1.6 | 11 days ago |
| Window | TikTok | Combined | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Last 7 days | +0 +0.0% | +0 +0.0% | +0 +0.0% | +0 |
| Last 30 days | +0 +0.0% | +0 +0.0% | +0 +0.0% | +0 |
| Last 90 days | +0 +0.0% | +0 +0.0% | +0 +0.0% | +0 |
| Last 365 days | +0 +0.0% | +0 +0.0% | +0 +0.0% | +0 |
Daily follower snapshots from CreatorDB's longitudinal index.
Explosm is the creative studio behind Cyanide & Happiness, a long-running dark comedy franchise that began as a webcomic on explosm.net in the mid-2000s before expanding into animated video shorts. Founded by a small team of cartoonists — Rob DenBleyker, Kris Wilson, Dave McElfatrick, and Matt Melvin — the project built an early internet cult following through its deliberately crude stick-figure art style paired with pitch-black, absurdist punchlines. That formula translated well to YouTube, where the studio accumulated a substantial subscriber base through short animated clips and eventually a full anthology series. The Cyanide & Happiness Show later aired on streaming platforms, cementing the property's transition from webcomic to a multi-format comedy brand with a recognizable visual identity.
On TikTok, Explosm repurposes its animated catalog into bite-sized clips, leaning into the platform's short-form rhythm with content that mirrors the strip's original joke structure — quick setup, dark or absurdist payoff. The account draws a predominantly young adult audience, with the 18–34 bracket making up the clear majority of viewers, and a female skew that somewhat defies the stereotypical dark-humor demographic profile. Engagement runs well above platform norms for the category, suggesting strong affinity among returning fans rather than casual discovery. With the Cyanide & Happiness IP now spanning comics, animation, and merchandise, the TikTok presence functions less as a standalone growth vehicle and more as a brand touchpoint — keeping a decades-old franchise legible to younger audiences who may encounter it first through a short clip rather than the original webcomic.
Explosm reaches an audience concentrated in United States primarily through YouTube, and is best activated via TikTok branded content. As an animation creator they map naturally to brands targeting that space. With no brand deals logged yet, they read as an available, category-aligned partner for advertisers building early presence in the space. Engagement on YouTube runs around 6.1%, which points to an audience better suited to category-relevant, mid-funnel campaigns than to pure-reach buys. Their YouTube-first format lends itself to integrations that sit inside the creator's usual content rather than running as standalone ads. Because the audience follows animation content rather than arriving through untargeted reach, sponsorships that match the channel's subject matter tend to convert more efficiently than broad placements. A consistent, on-topic posting focus gives sponsors a predictable, brand-safe environment, lowering placement risk compared with broad, general-interest channels. Campaigns here are best measured on qualified engagement and consideration within the niche rather than on raw impression volume. For United States-focused brands in animation and related categories, Explosm offers a defined, creative-fit audience rather than broad, low-intent impressions.
Benchmark estimates for a creator at Explosm's tier (Macro, 1.2M combined followers, United States). Pulled from CreatorDB's category benchmarks.
The CreatorDB Agency runs end-to-end influencer campaigns globally — shortlisting, outreach, contracting, and performance reporting. Talk to our team about building a campaign around creators in this niche.
Cyanide & Happiness was created by Rob DenBleyker, Kris Wilson, Matt Melvin, and Dave McElfatrick, who launched the webcomic together in 2005. The team built Explosm.net as their central hub and grew the brand from a simple stick-figure strip into animated shorts, merchandise, games, and more.
Cyanide & Happiness has been running since 2005, making it one of the longest-lived dark humor webcomics on the internet. Over two decades, the brand expanded well beyond its original webcomic roots into animated YouTube series, a hit card game, and even a video game.
Joking Hazard is a party card game made by the Explosm team where players compete to finish a three-panel comic strip in the darkest or most absurd way possible. It launched via Kickstarter and became one of the most successfully funded tabletop game campaigns in Kickstarter history at the time, raising millions from fans of the webcomic.
Yes — Explosm released Cyanide & Happiness: Freakpocalypse, a point-and-click adventure game set inside the show's universe. It carries the same darkly absurdist humor as the webcomic and animated shorts, putting players directly into the world of the stick figures.
Explosm.net is the official home of Cyanide & Happiness, where the creators have been publishing new comic strips since 2005. The site serves as the franchise's central hub, hosting the full webcomic archive alongside the animated series, the shop, and updates on new projects.
Cyanide & Happiness built its reputation on deliberately shocking punchlines that tackle death, violence, and taboo subjects wrapped in deliberately crude stick-figure art. The contrast between the simple, almost childlike visuals and the extremely dark subject matter is the core of the brand's entire comedic identity.
The main library of Cyanide & Happiness animated shorts lives on the Explosm YouTube channel, which has been building its catalog for well over a decade. The team also posts short-form clips adapted for vertical video on TikTok under @explosm.
The Joking Hazard Kickstarter campaign blew past its funding goal by an enormous margin and ranked among the highest-funded card game campaigns in Kickstarter history when it launched. It demonstrated just how large and financially engaged the Cyanide & Happiness fanbase had grown more than a decade after the webcomic first appeared.
The main recurring characters in Cyanide & Happiness are most commonly identified by their shirt color rather than consistent first names used across the whole webcomic. Some animated shorts and story arcs do give characters names, but the strip's format typically treats them as generic stand-ins for everyday people and situations.
Explosm's short, punchy animation style translates naturally to TikTok's quick-scroll format, letting even first-time viewers instantly land the joke without any context. The brand's TikTok audience skews heavily toward viewers aged 18 to 34, showing that dark and absurdist humor keeps finding new fans through short-form video long after the webcomic first launched.
Stats (followers, engagement, audience demographics, growth) are pulled live from the CreatorDB API covering YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. Bio and FAQ content is AI-assisted; news items are sourced from cited public press at generation time. Read the full methodology →
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