What are countryballs?

Countryballs are cartoon countries. Each one is a ball painted with its national flag, with two white eyes and a personality built from everything its country is famous for. They argue, sulk, show off and help each other out, usually in very broken English. The style is also called Polandball, after the country that started it all.

A countryball usually has:

• A round body painted with its flag, drawn so you can recognise the country at a glance.
• Two white eyes with no pupils. No mouth, no eyebrows, no arms, no legs.
• Broken English, like “Poland can into space!”, for countries outside the English-speaking world.
• A reputation it carries everywhere: its food, its sports, its weather, its famous habits.

Countryballs grew out of a single online joke. Around September 2009, on the international board of a German imageboard called Krautchan, a British user known as Falco drew Poland as a ball to tease a Polish user nicknamed Wojak. Those first comics painted Poland’s flag upside down, red over white, and the mistake stuck so well that it became part of the style.

• 2009Polandball is born on Krautchan.
• 11 November 2009A Facebook page named POLANDBALL is created and starts spreading the comics.
• May 2011The r/polandball subreddit opens. It becomes the main hub for the comics, with famously strict rules.
• Since thenComics, fan animations with hundreds of thousands of followers, and countryball games.

Countryball artists, especially on r/polandball, follow a set of unwritten (and some very written) rules. The big ones:

• Draw it by hand. Classic comics avoid computer helpers like the circle, line and rectangle tools, and even polished art is often made to look a little wobbly on purpose.
• The flag is the body. Paint it carefully. The flag is how readers know who is talking.
• Eyes only. No pupils, no mouths, no limbs. Feelings come from the eye shapes and the words.
• Mind the English. Countries from outside the English-speaking world speak broken English: “can into”, “cannot into” and extra “-ings” on verbs.
• Props are allowed. The UK wears a top hat and monocle; the USA wears sunglasses.

A few countries famously break the “ball” rule. Kazakhstan is drawn as a brick. Singapore is a triangle. Nepal, whose flag is not a rectangle, is drawn as a sort of monster. Rules, it turns out, are more like guidelines. (In Countryball Defenders, Singapore really is a triangle. It insisted.)

You need four steps and zero talent. We drew Japan, because it holds very still (it is a ninja).

1. Draw a circle by handA little wobble is good. Classic comics skip the circle tool.
2. Paint the flag insideEdge to edge. The flag is the whole costume.
3. Give it a thick outlineDark and chunky, so it reads at any size.
4. Add two white eyesNo pupils, no mouth. Done: hello, Japan.

Want it to feel like a real countryball? Give it something its country is famous for. In Countryball Defenders every ball carries its own weapon: Brazil a football, the UK a cup of hot tea, Canada a bottle of maple syrup, Japan a shuriken.

• “Poland cannot into space.” The most famous one. Poland dreams of space and never gets there. (In our game it finally builds a rocket. From a fridge.)
• Upside-down Poland. Early comics painted Poland red over white, which made it look a lot like Monaco and Indonesia. The mistake became tradition.
• “Can into.” Countryball grammar for “can do” or “can go”. Very flexible. Very stronk.
• Top hat and monocle. The UK’s classic look. Our UK’s own legendary skin, the Gentleman, is a nod to it.
• Odd shapes. A brick for Kazakhstan, a triangle for Singapore, a monster for Nepal. Geometry is a suggestion.

Countryball comics are satire, and satire about countries can slide into stereotypes about the people who live there. Some comics go too far. We think the style is at its best when it laughs with countries: at the food they love, the sports they shout about, the landmarks they show off and the habits everyone teases them for.

• Polandball gamesThe meme that started it, and games it inspired.
• All 205 ballsWeapons, skills and champions.
• Countryball tower defenseHow the genre works, with tips.
• Beginner’s guideLearn Countryball Defenders fast.