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How do you feel about Penny Arcade?

-tetsuo-

-tetsuo-

Unlimited Capacity
The one where gabe had the dream in which spider man caught him falling from a building and the follow up is probably my favorite.
 
W

Wiseblood

Member
EricDiesel said:
It was much less the comic itself and more their reaction to the criticism. They made the situation way worse than it ever needed to be by selling t-shirts about it and making fun of victims.
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Exactly. One person took issue with it on her blog and if they knew how to pick their battles it would have been nothing. Instead in their attempt to have the last word they made a terrible and unnecessary follow up comic.
 
Z

Zuhzuhzombie!!

Member
Wiseblood said:
Exactly. One person took issue with it on her blog and if they knew how to pick their battles it would have been nothing. Instead in their attempt to have the last word they made a terrible and unnecessary follow up comic.
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"Actually the comic is about how awful, careless, and self centered these static worlds can come across. Even when people are being horribly assaulted the player character no longer cares about the victims after fulfilling a certain deed that allows the character to move on."

But instead yeah, they made up those dumb t shirts in an attempt to rub it in people's faces.
 
cj_iwakura

cj_iwakura

Member
215489022_G22mx-1050x10000.jpg
 
M

MattKeil

BIGTIME TV MOGUL #2
WickedLaharl said:
300269380_CmABy-1050x10000.jpg
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Probably my all-time favorite.

This one is up there, though. It was a bit of a sensation in the Extended Play offices, and to this day, Adam Sessler and I will respond with "I'll ____ YOU yesterday!" to one another's statements whether it makes sense or not.

215156346_cw3Pc-1050x10000.jpg
 
S

Savitar

Member
superNESjoe said:
Ok, so for people talking about the art, and I'm one of them, the latest strip is a lot better. Namely, Gabe is making facial expressions in this one that look like Gabe. These are expressions that match the personality of his character. I love everything else about Mike's current art, the only part I hated was this odd childish imp/squirrel approach to faces, and mostly how the expressions didn't portray Gabe correctly.

i-jKWgmKW-1050x10000.jpg
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Holy shit it's gotten even worse.

What is that shit.
 
S

SimonM7

Member
IndieJones said:
I thought they were just amusing enough to visit for several years on a sporadic basis, until they fucked with Jesse Thorn.

No one fucks with Jesse Thorn.
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This. Their handling of the situation vs how Jesse Thorn and Jordan Morris handled it showed what both duos were really made of, and it turned me off Penny Arcade forever.
 
Q

Quadraphonic

Member
CeruleanSilver said:
The dickwolves comic never bothered me. I'm sure it's been talked about to death, but Penny Arcade always had comics whose humor was dark or inappropriate. It seems weird that this one in particular was singled out when they've had plenty of other off-kilter comics, eg: fruit fucker, giraffe porn, etc.

They're obviously not condoning rape, so why are people incensed by it? I guess I can answer that myself, in that PA reached a much wider audience as initiatives like PAX and Child's Play grew. I understand that average people don't laugh at rape jokes, no matter how innocuous they are. That's sensible, but I don't see why it has to become a big crusade of outrage against PA.
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It was because after being called out on it, Gabe went of his way to insult rape survivors, selling shirts designed to show to the world you condone it.

Then after apologizing, he took back the apology, before taking it back AGAIN.

His behavior was appalling. Inexcusable.

There's an infinitely long list of douchey things they do.
 
SolVanderlyn

SolVanderlyn

Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
SolicitorPirate said:
Jesus Christ, I never really followed PA and only knew vague details about Dickwolves.

Reading the details here...holy shit, fuck those guys.
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Did you read the apologies, though? They've long since moved past that.
 
CharminUltra

CharminUltra

Member
Are they even still relevant? I work with a ton of gamers and I don't think any of my coworkers have shared a PA comic in at least three years.

I used to like them back in the day, but I've moved on.
 
S

SolicitorPirate

Member
SolVanderlyn said:
Did you read the apologies, though? They've long since moved past that.
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Ok, obviously I am missing context here. Poster above me said they retracted the apology? So what actually happened?

And most importantly, what did they do to make amends? A mere apology really doesn't hold weight if your crime is insulting rape victims and rubbing it in their faces.
 
F

feel

Member
Tycho or Gabe's adventures, opinions or shenaningans are ok nothing too great, but I love it when they do strips like the Ninja Gaiden enemy closet one or the Uncharted mass murderer, where it's fun comentary on the videogames' quirks just using the games' actual characters without involving tycho and gabe.

Damn, that new art is bad, what the hell it looked so good a few years ago, first time I'm seeing it actually decrease in quality.

That these two nerdy guys with a webcomic managed to go from just that to being in charge of their own major videogame conventions blows my mind a bit, huge respect.
 
M

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
The dick wolves comic was not offensive.

Their response to the criticism, however, was. Rather obnoxiously so, even.

I fail to see how that can be so difficult to understand.
 
T

Tinfoilhatsron

Banned
CrashPrime said:
How do I feel about them? I feel that they're totally irresponsible and careless/heartless.

Penny Arcade turning discomfort over a rape joke into profit by making and selling “Team Dickwolves” shirts and pennants was gross. They mocked their critics -- some of which were rape victims themselves -- and offered non-apologies. It was just really socially irresponsible and turned me off to them years ago.

These guys suck and they don't deserve praise.

I understand not everyone was offended, and that people have fond memories and praise of their work. It's just hard to appreciate it on my side of the fence.
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We need to make a distinction here. Are you upset that they specifically targeted the rape victims themselves? Or are you angry that some of the critics that this person uh I guess flipped off were rape victims? Cause one kinda sounds patronizing and the other is legit reason to hate on them.
 
B

Beartruck

Member
SimonM7 said:
This. Their handling of the situation vs how Jesse Thorn and Jordan Morris handled it showed what both duos were really made of, and it turned me off Penny Arcade forever.
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Someone explain what the big deal with this is. It just seems like they didn't gel all that well. The comic depicting Jesse as a killer seems a bit much, although that seems to mainly stem from them being socially awkward and nervous about visiting a stranger's house.
 
G

Gentleman Jack

Member
Hyperzephyrian said:
It didn't have to be. They got the attention of a group of Internet sociopaths who want a monopoly on all discussion of human sexuality.
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That's one interpretation.

The other is that Krahulik's particularly venomous reaction to criticism emboldened a horde of bullies to come after anybody who dared voice an objection, a reaction Krahulik now recognizes he worsened with his continual doubling down and misinterpreting of events.
 
S

SimonM7

Member
Beartruck said:
Someone explain what the big deal with this is. It just seems like they didn't gel all that well. The comic depicting Jesse as a killer seems a bit much, although that seems to mainly stem from them being socially awkward and nervous about visiting a stranger's house.
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I don't think there's anything to explain. They went into a podcast that they had ample time to prepare for and research beforehand, had some sort of jerk meltdown, then used their medium - their posts and their comic - to make its nothing but incredibly gracious and friendly host out to be a gross insane person.

It takes a particular kind of arrogance to plan, draft, draw, ink, colour and publish your irrational hate for a person. I don't think they realised how big MaxFun and Jesse were getting, either, and just thought they were bullying somebody nobody would've even head of.
 
A

Android18a

Member
I used to love PA, and there's certain strips that I think are absolutely timeless (like the BMX XXX one). But I don't read it anymore, I stopped looking at webcomics about 5/6 years ago on any regular basis.
 
E

Einchy

semen stains the mountaintops
DR9zox5.jpg


This one is very pretty.

Squirrel faces are a tad over the top but I tend to really enjoy the strips where he experiments with colors and backgrounds.

[edit]

I quite like this one.

kDh8mJa.jpg
 
P

partyphone

Banned
even ignoring all of the awful shit they pull outside of the comic the actual product itself has been garbage for almost a decade. they almost always go with the easiest joke, the art has been a red-nosed mess and seriously no one cares about your dumb kids.
 
S

Savitar

Member
Lethe82 said:
He messes around with the style a lot, it's not like he has become a worse artist (far from it), it's just to keep things fresh (trying new things).
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In this case keeping things fresh is like smearing your shit all over the wall and calling it painted huh.
 
P

Prosopon

Member
I always felt that Penny Arcade went from being a webcomic about video games to a webcomic about people who play video games. I think this is a good thing.
 
B

Beartruck

Member
SimonM7 said:
I don't think there's anything to explain. They went into a podcast that they had ample time to prepare for and research beforehand, had some sort of jerk meltdown, then used their medium - their posts and their comic - to make its nothing but incredibly gracious and friendly host out to be a gross insane person.

It takes a particular kind of arrogance to plan, draft, draw, ink, colour and publish your irrational hate for a person. I don't think they realised how big MaxFun and Jesse were getting, either, and just thought they were bullying somebody nobody would've even head of.
Click to expand...

Isn't this is the same podcast where the host admitted he screwed up the time to meet and then the co-host was almost an hour late? It doesn't seem like they were very well prepared either.

To stay on track, I agree they're definitely on a downward slope, but I wouldn't call this particular instance the shark jumping moment when there are much fatter and larger sharks to point out.
 
P

partyboy

Member
They were never funny. The best 90's shit is Seanbaby, Old Man Murray, Space Moose. Penny Arcade is just that bland, uncreative dork humor you'd see on reddit with 900 upvotes for some inexplicable reason.
 
N

npa189

Member
I've laughed at some of the strips, they honestly can be funny. As people and as a business I find them gross, I was at the panel with the dickwolves response. (a friend thought it was the Gabe you actually want to see) Tycho seems like a funny and genuinely nice guy, but Gabe, I just don't know. When you run the largest gaming conventions in the country you just need to let stuff like that go, you can't alienate anyone like that.
 
F

FyreWulff

Member
Gentleman Jack said:
Not asked: Hey, why don't you open ticket sales when people aren't at work in the region where the convention happens? Why do Prime tickets always go on sale at like 3pm pacific time on a wednesday?
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They pretty much allow the tickets to be botted and scalped because once they sell through their tickets, that 'risk' is gone. Doesn't matter if scalpers are standing outside the convention center with a stack of 100 of them, all those 100 passes are paid for and the risk passed on to the scalpers.

That's the sad unfortunate reality of why most conventions don't give a rat's ass about scalping tickets.
 
L

Lethe82

Banned
Savitar said:
In this case keeping things fresh is like smearing your shit all over the wall and calling it painted huh.
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Bhwaawawaw, ok pretend badass.

Corronchilejano said:
Some of their opinions and past mistakes may make them unpopular (and backwards thinking) but calling them bigots seems a bit too much.
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Keep in mind that people will always live in the past as long as it keeps them feeling superior and provides a convenient 'other'.
 
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