This is Fine: Maximum Cope will open Kickstarter funding next week.

It's rough out there. I'll admit it, I was going to blithely rattle of all the things wrong in the world right now, but just the thought made me want to have a nap. While my generation is sloughing away the existential dread by their skibidis, and fanum tax, my generation in the 2010s was briefly encapsulated in a single webcomic created by cartoonist KC Green: This Is Fine.

The comic, which was published in 2013, shows a dog taking a sip of coffee while their house is on fire. In an interview with NPR, the creator KC Green explained that the comic was meant to be vague but related to the author's struggles to find the right dosage of antidepressants.

"I was just like: Is this OK? Am I doing well?" Am I supposed ignore everything else? It's almost like you have to ignore everything around you, like a burning building. After that, the comic wrote itself."

If you doubt the impact of this comic on the culture, check out a US Senator referencing it directly in 2018. Even before that, in 2016, the Republican Party used a Tweet to poke fun at the Clinton campaign. The Nib had KC Green redraw it with the GOP elephant as revenge.

Anyway, KC Green is now making a videogame based on the comic, in partnership Numskull Games.

The project is still in its infancy and will be raising funds via Kickstarter. It promises to be a "classic, old-school platformer game in which Question Hound goes deep into his subconscious and fights the monsters and demonics that we all have running around in our brain." The kind of creatures who feed off the fear and anxiety that everyday living brings! It's appropriately named This is Fine: Maximum Cope.

You might wonder why a game that is based on a comic of a dog sitting still and dying to death, is being marketed as a platformer. I'm a little buried in internet lore regarding this comic, but I'd like you to know that the dog who is burning had some character development following the meme.

In 2016, KC Green released a sequel called "This Is Not Fine", in which the same Question Hound realizes how screwed up he is, grabs a Fire Extinguisher and screams, "What the hell am I doing wrong?! Oh my god jesus f*ck!" There was no reason for it to last this long or get this bad!

In an interview with Salon KC Green stated: "It was a response to the weird and bad feelings 2016 made me and many others feel." There's an important breaking point in our culture that is tested almost constantly. The pitch for this game, which is to run around your mind and fight your inner anxieties almost reads like a prequel.

It's a little surreal to sit here and look at the existential dread a artist felt in 2016. Then, to look at the historical arc over the past eight years and think, Wow, the room is still on fire. The Kickstarter for Maximum Cope opens its doors on September 26.