A drunken (allegedly) evening after a fan convention led to the conception of this year’s “copied” comic April Fools’ Day prank, which saw seemingly every webcomic artist create the exact same cartoon and then claim ownership.
Rock, Paper, Cynic creator Peter Chiylowski outed himself and two other artists as the joke’s masterminds in a post on his blog:
“No one stole my comic! A huge group of webcomic artists started planning this 2-3 weeks ago. Actually, at Fan Expo last year I am ARG and I found out we’d both been independently scheming to do something like this for years. The plan came together when Dorris McComics suggested the idea to a webcomics group and pitched this script, which was just PERFECT for the prank.
“To those who genuinely stood up for me: thank you, and I’m sorry that I abused trust for this joke. You are kind and supportive and the world needs more of you.”
Those supporters would have had a very hard time – you can find an enormous list of just some of the webcomic “copies” here.
Adding to the story, someone claiming to be ARG! creator Andrew Gregoire’s wife left this comment at willpjk.com:
“Having been in attendance at the drunken evening where my husband, creator of Arg! and Peter of Rock Paper Cynic planned this prank, I can confirm the origin.”
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Here is Dorris McComics’ original sketch:
OR MAYBE YOU ARE
Posted by Dorris McComics on Thursday, 31 March 2016
Exactly how many people were in on the joke is still yet to be unveiled, and the chief schemers are keeping mum on Twitter:
@WillPJK @IamArg @dorrismccomics I wouldn’t say we were behind it, but it was an idea that we had all been toying with and…
— Peter Chiykowski (@rockpapercynic) April 1, 2016
@WillPJK @IamArg @dorrismccomics …the group organically got behind it and everyone did their own thing with it.
— Peter Chiykowski (@rockpapercynic) April 1, 2016
@WillPJK @IamArg But @dorrismccomics definitely provided the base comic we all worked from.
— Peter Chiykowski (@rockpapercynic) April 1, 2016
@rockpapercynic @WillPJK @dorrismccomics yeah it would have been nothing without everybody executing flawlessly.
— Andrew Gregoire (@IamArg) April 1, 2016
@IamArg @rockpapercynic @dorrismccomics So how many were in the original group?
— William PJ Kulich (@WillPJK) April 1, 2016
@IamArg @rockpapercynic @dorrismccomics By which I mean the people who didn’t see the copies and then make their own.
— William PJ Kulich (@WillPJK) April 1, 2016
@WillPJK @rockpapercynic @dorrismccomics whose to say that those that jumped on afterwards weren’t apart of the whole goof too?
— Andrew Gregoire (@IamArg) April 1, 2016
@IamArg @rockpapercynic @dorrismccomics You :p
— William PJ Kulich (@WillPJK) April 1, 2016
This post will be updated if I get a reply to that. Be sure to subscribe via Facebook or Twitter.
.@rockpapercynic @IamArg Congratulations, @dorrismccomics, on the birth of your 25,000 children.
— William PJ Kulich (@WillPJK) April 1, 2016
Image: the Twitter profile pictures of Rock, Paper, Cynic, Dorris McComics, and ARG!
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