Microsoft open-sources Comic Chat, the 1996 IRC client that birthed Comic Sans

Microsoft has released the source code for Comic Chat, its 1996 IRC client that rendered text conversations as illustrated comic panels complete with characters, speech bubbles, and expressions. Conceived by DJ Kurlander in the Microsoft Research Virtual Worlds Group and built in Visual C++ 4.0 with MFC, the software shipped alongside Internet Explorer 3 and was later bundled with Windows 98 and localized into 24 languages. Its distinctive art came from independent cartoonist Jim Woodring, and it served as the first real showcase for Vincent Connare’s Comic Sans typeface.

The technical hook was that Comic Chat did more than skin IRC. It parsed conversational cues from typed text to pick appropriate poses, gestures, facial expressions, and panel layouts in real time — effectively making automated editorial decisions about how a chat should look as a comic. The team documented this approach as an experiment in automatic illustration and layout in a SIGGRAPH ‘96 paper by Kurlander, Tim Skelly, and David Salesin.

The release is aimed at historians, retro-computing enthusiasts, and developers rather than pitched as a polished product. Alongside original code snapshots, Microsoft included several AI-assisted modernization experiments showing the 1990s C++/MFC codebase building under current Visual Studio, connecting to modern IRC servers, and rendering legibly on high-DPI displays. These are described as rough worked examples, with the company inviting the community to port, extend, or reinvent the idea of visual chat.