Webcomic Artist Gets Visa to Work in America, Thanks to His Fans

Dave McElfatrick is one of the four coauthors behind überpopular webcomic Cyanide & Happiness; unlike his three U.S.-based colleagues, however, Dave lives in Ireland, which prevented him from getting the necessary time to get together with them to work on new projects, namely animated C&H cartoons. When Dave applied for an 0-1 Visa, which is granted to extraordinarily accomplished artists in their respective fields, the U.S. government initially denied his application, despite the fact that he’s one of the driving forces behind a comic that reaches close to 2 million people each month, according to Quantcast.

So McElfatrick turned his Internet celebrity to his advantage: He asked his fans to sign a petition to show the government that “his work and the comic he’s a part of have a huge global audience.” More than 146,000 signatures later, the US Immigration Office has reversed its initial judgment: Today, McElfatrick announced that he’s been approved for the visa.

From the C&H forums:

Bit of news for you…

I GOT THE VISA!!!

That’s right! The gents over in the US Immigration Office have decided that I am fit for a visa and it’s all thanks to YOU GUYS!! I suspect it might have something to do with 4,000 pages worth of signatures from C&H delivered right to their door. Pat yourselves on the back!

I suppose this means that we have to reward you guys in some form or another… how does a ton of fucking great new Cyanide & Happiness animations sound? We’ve got a LOAD of new cartoons coming your way this fall thanks to all this! You really deserve only the best from us now!

Thanks again!!

-Dave

While a ton of Cyanide & Happiness animations threaten to kill our productivity even further dead, we’re quite happy to hear it.

(via C&H)