Microsoft just open-sourced the app that made Comic Sans famous

Instead of plain text, users communicated through cartoon avatars with messages displayed in speech bubbles inside dynamically composed comic panels. The application used an expert system to determine character placement, gestures, facial expressions, balloon shape, and panel layout in real time. It shipped as part of Internet Explorer 3.0 and was later bundled with Windows 98 and MSN before being discontinued in the early 2000s.

In July 2026, Microsoft released Comic Chat's source code under the MIT License, allowing developers to study, preserve, and modify one of the company's most unusual software projects.

How Comic Chat Works

As users type messages, each Comic Chat client automatically determines:

Which characters to place in each panel

Gestures and facial expressions based on message content

Character placement and orientation

Word balloon shape, outline, and layout

When to advance to a new panel

Zoom factor for each panel

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