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 WorksAs users type messages, each Comic Chat client automatically determines:Which characters to place in each panelGestures and facial expressions based on message contentCharacter placement and orientationWord balloon shape, outline, and layoutWhen to advance to a new panelZoom factor for each panelThe application connects to standard IRC servers and is fully interoperable with text-based IRC clients. Non-Comic Chat users are automatically assigned characters so the entire conversation is rendered graphically. Version 2.0 shipped with Internet Explorer 4.0 and Windows 98 in 1997 – 1998, adding multi-server support, OLE scripting, and the Comic Chat SDK for third-party bots and extensions. Both packages contain statically linked x86 executables, bundled comic art, documentation, the repository license, and build provenance.