Polandball

This Article is Under Construction.

"Wörk, wörk, wörk." — Germany

There may be lots of WIPs, bad formatting, and/or unedited material from other sources on this page. Consider helping out!

This page is about the internet phenomenon. For the country, see Poland.

Polandball, also known as Countryballs, is a geopolitical satirical art style, genre, and internet meme, in which countries or political entities are personified as anthropomorphic balls with hollow white eyes, decorated with their national flags (or logos or any symbols if flags aren't available).

Countryballs have been adapted in a lot of forms of art and genres like standalone-art, animations, video games, etc. However, the most common countryball art from are online comics strips, which feature the characters in various scenarios, mostly poking fun at national stereotypes, international relations, and historical events. Other common features in Countryball strips include non- English countries speaking in broken English with vocabularies of their national languages included. Many comics include political incorrectness and black comedy. Strips are generally created using Microsoft Paint or more advanced graphic art software, somtimes made to intentionally look crudely-drawn.

History

Pre-Comic Origins

Countries being depicted as balls and circles was not an idea that Polandball's creators invented. As such, Polandball has had several spiritual predecessors. One of the earliest examples of this is the cartoon "Italy vs Europe" made by Bruno Bozzetto in 1999, where Italy and European Union are represented as circles.

The roots of Polandball could be traced back to an event dubbed a 'cyber-war' among Polish internet users on a website called drawball.com, which occurred in August 2009. The idea of ​drawing the Polish flag on the entire canvas of Ball 2 rallied thousands of Polish internet users together, and they were able to paint the entire canvas with a red top and white below, with the word "POLSKA" written in the middle. This coordination devolved into drawball's familiar chaos soon afterward when it was raided by 4chan to cover it with a giant swastika.

The First Comics

WIP

Rules

There are several rules when drawing Polandball, and some of them are more widespread/enforced than others.

• No lines between the colours of flags. It just looks ugly, despite the first comics breaking this rule.
• No limbs, pupils, mouths or facial hair. If they do have hair it must be with a price tag to indicate that it's a wig. If arms are really needed they could be added via an "arm pole", a stick with a white glove attached to it.
• Poland must be drawn with his flag upside down. The first comics have Poland drawn upside down, it's unknown whether intentional or not. Nevertheless, this tradition has been kept.
• More WIP

Comics & Art

Art and comics are the main content of the Polandball genre. Lines are often used to indication the characters' communication instead of the speech bubbles. The panels are created often by horizontal lines instead of square boxes. These factors generate a since of non-seriousness and simplicity.

Relationships

Friends

• r/Polandball - Mine main hub nowadays with lots of high quality content. But you persecute creators outside of your rules too much…
• Polandball Wiki - Lots of content, sometimes low quality but mostly fine. Information hub for artists too.

Frenemies

• Countryhumans - Yuo of mine descendent, but is kind of cringe…

Enemies

• Fandom - SCREW YUO FOR BANNINGS ME!!

How to draw

Upside-down Polish flag

Polandball has a drawing rating of trivial.

1. Draw a ball.
2. Fill the top half of the ball with red.
3. Fill the bottom half of the ball with white.
4. Add eyes and finish.

Color Name		HEX
	Red	#DC143C
	White	#FFFFFF