Microsoft Comic Chat

The IRC client that drew your conversation as a comic strip, shipped with Internet Explorer 3 in 1996 and open-sourced thirty years later

Shut down
19902026

Microsoft Comic Chat, later Microsoft Chat, was an IRC client that rendered a chat room as a comic strip, with characters, gestures and speech balloons chosen automatically from what people typed. Conceived by David Kurlander at Microsoft Research in 1995, drawn by comic artist Jim Woodring and lettered in Comic Sans, it shipped with the full download of Internet Explorer 3 on 13 August 1996 and later with Windows 98, IE4 and IE5, and became MSN's official chat client. Version 2.5 was the last; IE6 dropped it in August 2001. Microsoft open-sourced it on 16 July 2026.

Timeline [edit]

  1. 1995
  2. 1995 other
    Comic Chat conceived at Microsoft Research

    David Kurlander's idea and first code.

  3. 1996
  4. 13 August 1996 Launch
    Ships with Internet Explorer 3

    Jim Woodring's characters, Comic Sans balloons.

  5. 1997
  6. October 1997 Rebrand
    Renamed Microsoft Chat with version 2.0
  7. 1999
  8. 18 March 1999 Version
    Microsoft Chat 2.5 with Internet Explorer 5

    The last version.

  9. 2001
  10. 27 August 2001 Shutdown
    Internet Explorer 6 drops Comic Chat
  11. 2026
  12. 16 July 2026 Revival
    Source released under the MIT licence

The site through time

Browse microsoft.com/ie/chat as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:

1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 Full archive →

Ownership [edit]

Microsoft 1996–2001 Founded From Microsoft Research's Virtual Worlds Group; open-sourced 16 July 2026

Why it shut down [edit]

Official line: Microsoft Chat 2.5, shipped with Internet Explorer 5 in 1999, was the last version, and Internet Explorer 6 in August 2001 no longer included it. The comic servers on MSN went with MSN's retreat from chat in the early 2000s, and the program was left as a curiosity that still works against ordinary IRC servers. Microsoft released the source under the MIT licence on 16 July 2026.

Our analysis: Comic Chat was a research idea that escaped into a product because Internet Explorer 3 needed things to bundle: turn IRC text into panels, choose poses and expressions from the words, and let Jim Woodring's characters carry the conversation. Millions tried it, in 24 languages, and most went back to text, because the joke wore off and because chat was moving to buddy lists and instant messaging. Its lasting contribution was accidental: it was the first home of Comic Sans.

History [edit]

Chat as comics

David Kurlander of Microsoft Research's Virtual Worlds Group proposed in 1995 that a chat history could be a comic strip rather than a scrolling wall of text, and wrote the first code himself. The program joined an IRC channel like any other client, but drew each message as a panel: your chosen character, a background, a balloon, and a pose and expression picked by rules from the words you typed, so that "I like that" pointed to itself and an angry sentence crossed its arms. The characters and backgrounds were the work of Jim Woodring, the independent comic artist, whom Microsoft first asked to illustrate real chat transcripts to see whether the idea held up; the balloons were set in Comic Sans, which Vincent Connare had drawn in 1994 for a different project and which found its first real home here.

Comic Chat was included in the full download of Internet Explorer 3 on 13 August 1996, was renamed Microsoft Chat with version 2.0 alongside Outlook Express in IE4, shipped in Windows 98 and Windows 2000, was localised into 24 languages, became the official chat client of MSN and had millions of users. Its ability to work as a plain text client meant many people used it without ever seeing a comic. Kurlander, Tim Skelly and David Salesin published the technique at SIGGRAPH.

Fading out, then GitHub

Version 2.5, with Internet Explorer 5 in 1999, was the last release, and Internet Explorer 6 in August 2001 no longer carried it. MSN's comic servers went as MSN wound down its chat business, and the program survived on fan sites, still able to connect to any IRC network. On 16 July 2026 Microsoft published the Visual C++ source of Comic Chat on GitHub under the MIT licence, with Scott Hanselman and Robert Standefer noting that it was "the chat client that brought Comic Sans to the world".

The domain today

The Comic Chat pages on microsoft.com are gone; the code is at github.com/microsoft/ComicChat.

Similar projects

ICQ The messenger that gave you a number 1996–2024 Skype The app that made calling the world free 2003–2025 MSN Messenger The sound of nudges after school 1999–2014 Google Hangouts One messenger to rule them all, briefly 2013–2022 Google Talk Gchat, the messenger inside your inbox 2005–2017 Meebo Every messenger, in one browser tab 2005–2012

Sources [edit]

  1. Microsoft launches Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 with exclusive, free content offers from top web sites Microsoft 13 August 1996 [archived]
  2. Comic Chat: project resources David Kurlander 1 January 2010
  3. Microsoft Chat (Comic Chat) summary Mermaid Elizabeth's Comic Chat resources 1 January 2005 [archived]
  4. Microsoft Comic Chat is now open source Microsoft Open Source Blog 16 July 2026 [archived]
  5. Microsoft open-sources Comic Chat, its cartoon IRC curiosity The Register 16 July 2026 [archived]

Last verified: 18 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).