Penny Arcade

[Raimun]

Ok, I'm not seeing a thread about this so here goes.

Don't get me wrong, I've liked Penny Arcade for years. Their quirky humor strikes a chord and the drawing has usually been good and improved all the time. I also like to play video games so there's that too.

It's just that recently I've been somewhat annoyed of the new direction the art style has taken. I think it tries too hard to be wacky and off the wall. I mean look at this:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/10/21

Look at those teeth! There's too much of those of teeth there! I hate those teeth! No teeth! Yaaargh!

Ahem... better. So, those teeth have been kind of bugging me.

Also look at these:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/10/09

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/10/04

What's up with those red noses? Are all the characters in the comic (except Gabe and Tycho) now suffering from a cold or a recent broken nose.. or did they have too much booze? I don't get it.

Also, would it kill to have more strips about video games? Other stuff is usually great too but it seems they don't poke fun at video games as much as they used to.

I'm not saying I hate the whole comic strip but I don't like all the changes.

Writing is still brilliant, as always.

[BRC]

They experiment with art style a lot, just look at The Tithe or Automata. The latest strip is an extremly silly art style for an extremely silly subject.

[Domochevsky]

I'd already feel better if their mouths would stay in the center of their faces, not swim off to the sides and over the edge of the world. <_<

[Trazoi]

I don't keep up with Penny Arcade but every half year or so I head back to see how drastically different the art is. It's like a different webcomic every six months.

The current style makes Gabe and Tycho look like they're fourteen.

[Lord Raziere]

Meh.

I stopped reading them after they trashed Brandon Sanderson, which is one of my favorite authors. I never really valued Penny Arcade all that highly. Aside from the occasional strip where they point something out about the video-gaming community that I'm sure I would understand as insightful about it if I understood more about the video-gaming community, the humor never really grabbed me, wasn't funny to me.

so *shrug* not saying Penny Arcade is bad, I just have a lukewarm relationship with it to start with it, tainted by not doing one of my favorite authors justice. so yeah. not reading it anymore. whatever.

[Traab]

Yeah once every half dozen or so months I might archive trawl for a bit. I just never really got HOOKED by it.

[Domochevsky]

Right, there's that, too. Can't get into the humor of it.

(Plus, y'know, the artist apparently being a douche, as was on display again at last PAX. >_> )

[Traab]

Right, there's that, too. Can't get into the humor of it.

(Plus, y'know, the artist apparently being a douche, as was on display again at last PAX. >_> )

Oh? Please, tell me more?

[Trazoi]

I stopped reading them after they trashed Brandon Sanderson, which is one of my favorite authors. I never really valued Penny Arcade all that highly. Aside from the occasional strip where they point something out about the video-gaming community that I'm sure I would understand as insightful about it if I understood more about the video-gaming community, the humor never really grabbed me, wasn't funny to me.
I stopped following Penny Arcade a few years back when I realised that their humour was too cruel for my tastes. I like playful jabs towards targets the authors still obviously respect, and I like satirical swipes at the powerful that need to be taken down a peg, but it's more of a universal tone at PA (and also a lot of video game humour in general; it's a problem IMO).

[Tebryn]

Their universal brush stroke of spite is something I like about them. I don't keep up with it but like most have said I do a binge when I remember it updates a lot. I never really bother with their news articles either, because I don't find their opinions all that interesting or ones I hold but I enjoy the humor.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Their universal brush stroke of spite is something I like about them. I don't keep up with it but like most have said I do a binge when I remember it updates a lot. I never really bother with their news articles either, because I don't find their opinions all that interesting or ones I hold but I enjoy the humor.

I'm pretty close to this. Their brand of nasty-meanness is about as far as I go that way, but it's still in my Top 5 reads of the week. The art-style shift only occasionally grates on my nerves. Mostly it's fine.

My real problem with PA is the self-indulgence with their mini-comics. Outside of that one about the immortal cowboy (only the test-comic happened and I will fight anyone who says otherwise) and Automata, the rest are like concentrated...concentrated...

You ever realize you really need to swear to get your point across? :smalltongue: My point being, they are crap.

[Tebryn]

I think they know their own sense of self worth and like to poke fun at themselves with all the over blown "we're so awesome". Say what you want about Penny Arcade and it's creators but they created PAX, one of the greatest gaming conventions that highlights a lot of Indie companies and Child's Play, a charity that gives toys and games to children in hospitals around the world.

[runeghost]

Oh? Please, tell me more?

He publicly made some rather trans-phobic comments on twitter.
http://business.financialpost.com/2013/06/21/download-code-penny-arcade-needs-to-fix-its-krahulik-problem/?__lsa=83ea-88a4

[Darius123]

He publicly made some rather trans-phobic comments on twitter.
http://business.financialpost.com/2013/06/21/download-code-penny-arcade-needs-to-fix-its-krahulik-problem/?__lsa=83ea-88a4

Plus, there was the incident last month at PAX East (http://webcomicoverlook.com/2013/09/13/soooo-now-that-theres-some-distance-that-pax-east-thing/) where Gabe reignited the whole Dickwolves controversy by saying that he regretted removing the offensive merchandise from the PA store.

[Feytalist]

Yep, I follow it pretty closely.

Their "basic" comics have slightly lagged in quality over the years, but it's still mostly amusing. Their brand of antagonising humour is something I don't mind, and occasionally find hilarious. (I also don't care when they badmouth people I admire; that's really not something I generally take personally.)

Their other side projects, though, I think is mostly really good. Automata is great, the new Lookouts stuff is surprisingly moving, and Twisp & Catsby is one of my favourite things on the whole internet.

(I'm however also not entirely fond of the whole new red-nose art style.)


One other thing: Jerry Holkins is a literary savant. I read the news posts even when I don't care about the contents, simply because I enjoy his writing so much. I've never seen anyone who can mix high-brow and conversational language so ably, utilise a vocabulary like his and do all that without sounding pretentious at all (I'm willing to admit that it might just be my opinion, though). I wish I could write like him.


I can't really bring myself to care about their personal stances and views. They seem to be very up front about their opinions, and they seem to hate having to back down if they occasionally say controversial things. Fine. It's a common human failing. I can live with that.

[Raimun]

Hmm, I have not heard of this. That's not surprising since I don't usually have the interest to follow the public personas of anyone, even if I enjoy their work.

Either way, that's not cool.

[TheStranger]

Meh. If you start blacklisting things just because the creators have one or more opinions you find distasteful, you'll be stuck staring at the wall. Which I hope isn't painted white.

There isn't a person alive who's never said or done something dumb or hurtful, or held a viewpoint that seemed reasonable to them and misguided to other people. I try not to hold it against them, in the hope that they'll do me the same favor when it's my turn.

[Tebryn]

Plus, there was the incident last month at PAX East (http://webcomicoverlook.com/2013/09/13/soooo-now-that-theres-some-distance-that-pax-east-thing/) where Gabe reignited the whole Dickwolves controversy by saying that he regretted removing the offensive merchandise from the PA store.

You seemed to miss, or omit, how he said that doing the strip and the follow up were massive mistakes. How making merch for it was a massive mistake. That stuff all precedes the "I regret pulling them from the store" quote. But hey, why let someone tell you your omitting important information. Here's actually what he said.


So let me start by saying I like the !#@!wolves strip. I think it’s a strong comic and I still think the joke is funny. Would we make that strip today? Knowing what we know now and seeing how it hurt people, no. We wouldn’t. But at the time, it seemed pretty benign. With that said I absolutely regret everything we did after that comic. I regret the follow up strip, I regret making the merchandise, I regret pulling the merchandise and I regret being such an #!&*(@(! on twitter to people who were upset. I don’t think any of those things were good ideas. If we had just stopped with the strip and moved on, the !@#!wolf never would have become what it is today. Which is a joke at the expense of rape victims or a symbol of the dismissal of people who have suffered a sexual assault. the comic itself obviously points out the absurd morality of the average MMO where you are actually forced to help some people and ignore others in the same situation. Oddly enough, the first comic by itself is exactly the opposite of what this whole thing has turned into.

There are people who were offended by or hurt by the joke in the strip and rather than just let it go we decided to make a second strip. That was a mistake and I apologize to this day for that strip. It was a knee jerk reaction and rather than the precision strike back at our detractors that we intended, it was a massive AOE that hurt a lot of innocent people. We should have just stopped right then but we kept going and made the merchandise. Had we left it alone, the ongoing tension about the whole thing might have subsided but Robert made the call to pull the shirts. In hindsight all this did was open the wound back up and bring on a whole new wave of debate. Any action we took at the time just dug us deeper regardless of what it was. What we needed to do was stop. just stop. I apologized for it at the time and I will still apologize for it. Everything we did after that initial comic strip was a mistake and I regret all of it.

He made a mistake. People make mistakes. But we should probably hold him to the fire for it even though he's said he's sorry, he was wrong and won't do anything like it again. Seems fair.

[AstralFire]

I was actually over that a few weeks ago, upon seeing the full context of the quote which Tebryn posted just now.

The transphobic jokes on Twitter though? This thread just gave me a head's up to that.

Eh. I'm not gonna get fired up about it, but I've already been drifting from PA for multiple reasons, this is just one more to throw on the pile.

[Trazoi]

He made a mistake. People make mistakes. But we should probably hold him to the fire for it even though he's said he's sorry, he was wrong and won't do anything like it again. Seems fair.
Mike is still being held to the fire because he said he was sorry and wouldn't do it again the last time. And the time before that. And the one before that, etcetera. It's going to take time for the PR wounds to heal but it all depends on whether Mike can keep himself from putting his foot in his mouth.

Personally I wouldn't mind so much if it was just about Penny Arcade the webcomic, but all these PR disasters are affecting PAX , the extended Penny Arcade media and Child's Play by extension too.

[Tengu_temp]

Mike/Gabe is quite a bit of an insensitive jerk a lot of the time, but on the other hand Jerry/Tycho seems to be reasonable and a pretty cool guy. I wouldn't go all "harumph, I'm not going to read/watch/play this anymore" just because one of the people making it is a jerk. I would barely have any stuff to follow if I did that!

Penny Arcade is one of the few webcomics I still read whenever they update. It's not great, but it makes me laugh from time to time, and sometimes the rant points at interesting things for me.

[AstralFire]

The rant was usually what I read at PA to begin with. There was a period of maybe 2 years where I liked his art as it transitioned from "really angular" to "Normal Rockwell meets Doonesbury with wacky mouth placements", and that window has mostly passed. The comic jokes were rarely good.

[Trazoi]

The rant was usually what I read at PA to begin with. There was a period of maybe 2 years where I liked his art as it transitioned from "really angular" to "Normal Rockwell meets Doonesbury with wacky mouth placements", and that window has mostly passed. The comic jokes were rarely good.
I really liked the look PA had going when it was deep into the Danny Phantom inspired style.

I think the problem I have with the current exaggerated cartoony scribble style is that it doesn't work for a comic that is as wordy as PA. The words and the art tend to work in cross-purposes rather than in tandem.

[AstralFire]

I really liked the look PA had going when it was deep into the Danny Phantom inspired style.

I think the problem I have with the current exaggerated cartoony scribble style is that it doesn't work for a comic that is as wordy as PA. The words and the art tend to work in cross-purposes rather than in tandem.

Not just its verbosity, but its tone. The tone of the art is incredibly off against the usual irreverant, profane and vulgar subject-matter of the comics, and not in a way that suggests intentional subversion, as with Perry Bible Fellowship.

[Anteros]

He publicly made some rather trans-phobic comments on twitter.
http://business.financialpost.com/2013/06/21/download-code-penny-arcade-needs-to-fix-its-krahulik-problem/?__lsa=83ea-88a4

He basically said that he considers people with ladyparts to be women. Even if you disagree with him, I hardly consider it to be "transphobic". Especially considering it was basically the definition used by society for the last hundred thousand years or so. People just like to stir the pot and create controversy. He also printed a retraction, and apologized, which is more than most people would do in his situation.

As for the comic itself, I think it's decent when they're focusing on one off gags, or video games. Any time they attempt their little side projects, like the recent "Lookouts" strips the quality declines drastically. I generally ignore the art changes. The art isn't really the main draw of PA. It's just a vehicle to tell whatever the joke of the week happens to be.

[Darius123]

You seemed to miss, or omit, how he said that doing the strip and the follow up were massive mistakes. How making merch for it was a massive mistake. That stuff all precedes the "I regret pulling them from the store" quote. But hey, why let someone tell you your omitting important information. Here's actually what he said.

I didn't miss it at all; in fact, I posted that quote in full in the comments section of that same article I linked. I even bolded the same passage you did. :smalltongue:

But just to clarify, that was the statement Gabe made after the whole situation blew up. The initial comments he made, which you can see here (http://www.twitch.tv/pax/b/455394585?t=2h35m), only mentioned regretting pulling the offensive merchandise.

That said, I think you make a perfectly valid and reasonable point - Gabe did apologize for his screwup, and he does appear to be sincere in his apology, so maybe we shouldn't judge him too harshly. On the other hand, I can totally understand if some people feel otherwise.

[Astrella]

He basically said that he considers people with ladyparts to be women. Even if you disagree with him, I hardly consider it to be "transphobic". Especially considering it was basically the definition used by society for the last hundred thousand years or so. People just like to stir the pot and create controversy. He also printed a retraction, and apologized, which is more than most people would do in his situation.

As for the comic itself, I think it's decent when they're focusing on one off gags, or video games. Any time they attempt their little side projects, like the recent "Lookouts" strips the quality declines drastically. I generally ignore the art changes. The art isn't really the main draw of PA. It's just a vehicle to tell whatever the joke of the week happens to be.

He also equated being trans with thinking you're batman.

And denying trans people's identities is transphobic. The frustrating thing isn't his initial ignorance, it's how childishly he reacted to people correcting him. The guy runs a business, he should know better.

[Tebryn]

I didn't miss it at all; in fact, I posted that quote in full in the comments section of that same article I linked. I even bolded the same passage you did. :smalltongue:

But just to clarify, that was the statement Gabe made after the whole situation blew up. The initial comments he made, which you can see here (http://www.twitch.tv/pax/b/455394585?t=2h35m), only mentioned regretting pulling the offensive merchandise.

That said, I think you make a perfectly valid and reasonable point - Gabe did apologize for his screwup, and he does appear to be sincere in his apology, so maybe we shouldn't judge him too harshly. On the other hand, I can totally understand if some people feel otherwise.

Oh, so you did. I never assume people are the same people just because names are similar on the internet. :smalltongue:

There's a part that that quote was taken that also explains why he -didn't- say that during the interview. He wasn't given the time to give it. And certainly, if people want to be upset that he made some jokes that were a little insensitive...that's on them though.

[Eurus]

He basically said that he considers people with ladyparts to be women. Even if you disagree with him, I hardly consider it to be "transphobic". Especially considering it was basically the definition used by society for the last hundred thousand years or so. People just like to stir the pot and create controversy. He also printed a retraction, and apologized, which is more than most people would do in his situation.

As for the comic itself, I think it's decent when they're focusing on one off gags, or video games. Any time they attempt their little side projects, like the recent "Lookouts" strips the quality declines drastically. I generally ignore the art changes. The art isn't really the main draw of PA. It's just a vehicle to tell whatever the joke of the week happens to be.

It's... definitely kind of offensive, possibly even really offensive (I didn't see the actual quote and I'm not sure I want to dig it up). But he did apologize, and I'm mostly inclined to take an apology at face value.

He says a lot of dumb stuff, though. Or, more accurately, he says a pretty much normal amount of dumb stuff, but is a very public figure, so any dumb thing he says is more likely to hit a big audience and offend or hurt a lot of people. It's almost enough to make you feel bad for the guy, since the internet is most emphatically not a very reasonable or forgiving place about anything that triggers the social justice alarms, but man, he kind of brings it on himself. The guy really says some dumb stuff.

Back around the time of the most famous problem -- the aforementioned wolves -- he was also the kind of guy who got very defensive and confrontational when called out on things, and handled them extremely poorly and was just generally a kind of terrible person. I think he's learned from that? I mean he still says dumb things, and that'll probably never change. Most people say dumb things, things that they just didn't think about. I've made very crass and offensive comments that I almost immediately knew I shouldn't have in the past just because you don't always take a minute to stop and think about it. But I think he's gotten to the point where he'll generally apologize for it and retract it, which is pretty fair.

That being said, it's entirely within anyone's rights to decide that they don't want to put up with that kind of thing and want to avoid him, his work, and the stuff he says.

Personally, I find the comic occasionally funny, if a little hit-and-miss. Not a big fan of a lot of the side stories, but the Thornwatch and Eyrewood stuff in general has been pretty interesting. The art of some strips manages to enhance the humor, although only occasionally. But it never really actively bothers me.

[t209]

It's... definitely kind of offensive, possibly even really offensive (I didn't see the actual quote and I'm not sure I want to dig it up). But he did apologize, and I'm mostly inclined to take an apology at face value.

He says a lot of dumb stuff, though. Or, more accurately, he says a pretty much normal amount of dumb stuff, but is a very public figure, so any dumb thing he says is more likely to hit a big audience and offend or hurt a lot of people. It's almost enough to make you feel bad for the guy, since the internet is most emphatically not a very reasonable or forgiving place about anything that triggers the social justice alarms, but man, he kind of brings it on himself. The guy really says some dumb stuff.

Back around the time of the most famous problem -- the aforementioned wolves -- he was also the kind of guy who got very defensive and confrontational when called out on things, and handled them extremely poorly and was just generally a kind of terrible person. I think he's learned from that? I mean he still says dumb things, and that'll probably never change. Most people say dumb things, things that they just didn't think about. I've made very crass and offensive comments that I almost immediately knew I shouldn't have in the past just because you don't always take a minute to stop and think about it. But I think he's gotten to the point where he'll generally apologize for it and retract it, which is pretty fair.

That being said, it's entirely within anyone's rights to decide that they don't want to put up with that kind of thing and want to avoid him, his work, and the stuff he says.

Personally, I find the comic occasionally funny, if a little hit-and-miss. Not a big fan of a lot of the side stories, but the Thornwatch and Eyrewood stuff in general has been pretty interesting. The art of some strips manages to enhance the humor, although only occasionally. But it never really actively bothers me.
Judging by his tweet, I think he was calling out for it.