"Inspector Dangerfuck", ANSI art comic from 1994

Summary

This is the third part of a multi-part series. “I’ve always been kind of restless,” says Eerie, the ANSI artist who created the character “Inspector Dangerfuck” in 1994. Today, Eerie is a musician and author, with a deep knowledge of cartoons and comics. But back then, he was a teenager in Quebec trying to make a name for himself in the fast-growing underground ANSI art scene. “It was a period where I was in quite a lonely place,” he says. “I had far too much free time, living at my parents’, in a limbo of sorts.” He looks back at the ANSI art scene as a “fun secret underworld to be in for a while,” where he witnessed “awesome displays of creativity” interspersed with “ridiculous boasts” and “absurd beefs.” That underworld would later attract an outsized claim. Cover of “A History of Webcomics” by T Campbell In his 2006 book “A History of Webcomics“, author T Campbell asserted that Eerie’s “Inspector Dangerfuck” — was “the first known comic on the Internet.” Campbell offered no dates, no details, and no sources. To be clear, the assertion was wrong, as discussed in Part 1 of this series. Even so, it didn’t deter later editors, bloggers, and content creators from repeating versions of this statement, without unearthing anything new. Eerie agreed to answer my questions about that “godawful ANSI” — “Inspector Dangerfuck” — but asked that I not use his real name in this story. “I find it hilarious that it’s referenced in some books and evidently nobody has bothered to seek it out,” Eerie says. So, since nobody else “bothered to seek it out,” I did. Eerie’s story is worth telling, and it’s worth considering where his ANSI art might fit in the history of webcomics. Do you enjoy my retrocomputing histories on Break Into Chat? Please join my email list and stay in touch. 📬 Imagination, talent, and skill For Eerie, as for many teenagers then, calling bulletin board systems began as a novelty, and quickly became a social balm. When Eerie was in high school, his father, a comp...