Zalgo is life. Zalgo is death. Zalgo is a corruption, an unholy blight. Zalgo is the tool who waits behind the wall. Zalgo is the creation of internet artist and animator Shmorky, best known for their work on Something Awful, but this particular invention is a million types more terrifying than anything else they've ever done. First appearing in defaced Sunday comic strips Shmorky produced in 2004, Zalgo spread to become an internet phenomenon that "infected" everything from web comics to YouTube videos to t̥̱̹͠h̢̳̪̩̩e ̹̮̣̩t̲̪e̬̬xt̹ ̤o̬f̷̭ ̫̯̼a̡̲r͢ṱ̳̺i̺c̩̯̻l̴es̩̭. Similar again to a bit of old Lovecraft dark magic, Zalgo has a lot in common with the creeping horror Cthulhu, an ancient and cult-like evil that's slowly consuming humanity from the inside. In Zalgo's case he corrupts perfectly innocent things and ideas, such as comics, stories or memes. In the tradition of internet folklore anonymous users took this basis and ran with it, applying the character to everything from old books from the 1600s to webpages, suggesting an ultimate evil trying to break into our world through the internet. Spooky.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
