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"But I have to tell a story. I'm not making these, oddly enough, to be giant, successful blockbusters. I'm making them because I'm telling a story, and I have to tell the story I intended."

you don't die

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2001-05 -11&res=l

"Here's where you're allowed to go and here's where you're not allowed."
"Huh? Where's that then?"
"Trust me; it's there."

It's a friggin' dispenser. Nothing on this contraption actually squeezes the juice out of fresh fruit, veggies, or anything. All this thing does is measure and pour liquid from three jugs.

Now THIS is a juicer!

The Fruit Fucker 2000 is here!

The Fruit Fucker 2000 is here!

The Fruit Fucker 2000 is here!

The Fruit Fucker 2000 is here!

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2002/20020211h. gif

So, is it like this thing?

And he looks like this.

...civility costs nothing, and it helps generate the impression that you are a thinking human being.

"No, nothing here makes apple evil. Nobody said they are."

So the "quarter from the limo" line was really a compliment then? That sounded like a standard corporation bashing cliche to me, and I honestly don't think it was warranted under the circumstances given that the dev's gripe isn't with Apple as such.

"The point is that the KDE guys want morons to stop claiming that apple is wonderful and open source friendly..."

I for one made no such claim (that's one), and thank you, I did RTFBlog. However, I wasn't responding directly to the blog: the point that I was making is that if noisy members of the OSS community are going to respond with sarcastic rants (as the AC I was responding to did) when a company does meet it's obligations under the LGPL, then all OSS supporters are going to be tarred with the same lunatic brush and ignored. Frankly, I don't see irrational over-reactions being in any way productive or helpful to the wider acceptance of OSS; they certainly doesn't reflect well on the intellect or maturity of the person making the comments.

If you had read past my first paragraph rather than irrationally over-reacting, you'd find I actually agree with Rusin: that's what I meant when I (mis)typed "meaningful reciprocity". Apologies if my polysyllabism resulted in a lack of comprehension on your part, or my verbosity exceeded your capacity for concentration (I don't wish to cause offence, hence the need for obscurity).

"They don't want anything from apple..."

I never said they did (that's two. Who needs to learn to read, and who's a what now?). The AC's implication was that Apple have added nothing of value to KHTML beyond "a handful of press releases", or should be doing more than they're obliged to under the LGPL. Considering Apple's reputation for being industry leaders (deserved or not), I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss the benefit to the credibility in business for KHTML (and OSS in general) of being chosen as their code base. You may not think credibility is as important as technical superiority (I don't), but a world of Windows users obviously disagree; when a multi-billion dollar company adopts a piece of software not just for internal use but as the basis of a highly publicized product, other companies tend to sit up and take notice. I'm not claiming Apple are the first to adopt OSS (far from it), I'm just saying they are the most visible consumer machine supplier, and as such really are a showcase of ways of using OSS in a multitude of business roles.

"...they want morons to stop spreading lies."

The difference between a moron and a liar is that the moron is genuinely misinformed, while being a liar takes real cunning. Choose one.

BTW, did you know your subject line helped proved a theory? http://penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2004-03-19

I'm really trying to figure out a reason that a web comic dedicated to video games would be mocking American Greetings. In any style.

Went through the archives and found this:

Seeing the new McFarlane "Twisted Land of Oz" toys got us thinking about American McGee's Oz, about which fairly little is known. We do, however, have some insights on his next project.

I'd completely forgotten about Oz being the purpose of the satire. But there you go. From the context of the news article, I think it's fairly clear who PA was mocking.

You can even scroll further down the page to see what the other half of PA has to say about the subject--again, he mentions McGee, not American Greetings.

Making something gross or sexual or both is probably the easiest thing in the world to do. Just look at the margins of any 7th graders homework. You will find plenty of doodles on par with anything McGee has produced. American has said that his new game OZ will stay fairly true to the books but it will be "darker". It's sad that is the best he can come up with. American has the opportunity to take these well known and loved stories and re-imagine them for the world of video games, a medium with unlimited possibilities. When he made Alice I gave him credit for taking the story in a new direction even if it wasn't a terribly interesting one. Now with OZ he's doing the same thing and it shows that Alice was not some creative masterpiece. This guy is just a pervert and this is all he knows how to do. It's like he has some kind of huge fucking machine. Beloved stories and characters go in one side and junior high quality goth crap comes out the other.Yeah, Yeah McGee, we all know you are very angry. You should save yourself some fucking time and just wear a T-shirt that says "I am dark and brooding".

If that isn't a clear cut explanation that they were Satirizing McGee using American Greetings, I don't know what is. McGee took Alice, turned it dark. McGee then too Oz, made it dark and sexual (or at least added a BDSM-style element). In my mind, PA looked for the most childish thing they could, found Strawberry Shortcake, and made fun of McGee by turning it into a dark, sexual comic.

To this day, I'm annoyed that this movie didn't get more coverage than it did. When it was released, I'd never heard anything about it and my aunt of all people had to drag me to see it. Well, needless to say I was completely blown away. This Penny Arcade comic pretty much captures my state of being after watching Equilibrium. :)

http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?date=2003-04 -21 A little more than half way down the page.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2003-04 -14&res=l

Better shut this down, too.

Old skool Penny Arcade comic

-gandalf23@work

It really is as neat as they say, as long as you're a little open-minded. And the graphics aren't crap. They're simple and stylized, and they break down as the katamari grows, but they do their job well.

Battle mode bit, so any improvement there will be welcome, especially since my kids like to play too.

GTRacer
- B & B missed a golden opportunity to review the sticky balls game

So really, it's our own damn fault the army is too stupid to airlift in supplies to the right places with unmanned aircraft.

Your argument reminds me of a really great comic.

But seriously. What I think we need to do is use our teleporter system to snag up all the warlords and beam them into the sun. It's our own stupid fault for not doing that. I mean, geez, it was so obvious!

Come on, you know they shipped it early to avoid Microsoft stealing their thunder. Rumor has it they were going to announce Xbox 2 on April 28...

It could be worse :-)

and too bad it was never used in hl2 to enable creativity in the player. never, not once. every time the player just has to do something envisioned before.

Really?

Ah, here we go:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2000-10 -23&res=l
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2001-10 -08&res=l

Ah, here we go:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2000-10 -23&res=l
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2001-10 -08&res=l

You're right.

Those frigging youngsters seem to have played them all. They have no idea how priveleged they are...

Are you doing this comic by yourself? People who can draw aren't necessarily funny/entertaining/interesting, and people who are can't necessarily draw. You need to find someone to team up w/. (Note that Scott Kurtz has a wife, and w/out her, he'd just be another worthless fat man...)

Great webcomickers who are solo acts are the exception, not the rule.

If I'm reading your site right, you have all of twenty-one comics online.

Compare the twenty-first Sluggy Freelance with the most recent one (note the current Saturday is another artist), or the the twenty-first Penny Arcade with the latest one.

You've barely begun. You've barely begun to refine your style, you've barely begun to find your voice... and you're in direct competition with the comics I just listed, along with a lot of others.

If you're honestly offended that the world isn't beating a path to your door after 21 comics, either get out, or stop caring about your audience numbers, right now. It doesn't work that way. Comics are an opportunity to fame and some modest fortune, but it is hardly a guarantee.

Everybody starts out slow. Frankly and honestly, having seen your site, I'm in no hurry to go back. Your comics aren't that good yet, and your drawing style needs some refinement; right now you're giving me that "ouch, that looks like it hurts" feeling on a lot of your humans as their arms bend in wierd ways and their proportions are off; everything is off model. But... like I said, everybody starts out slow. Sluggy freelance is horribly off-model by the modern standards and the Penny Arcade comic almost seems to be two completely different people than the modern main characters, with only their clothing to indicate continuity. This should be both an encouragement and a challenge.

If the fact that you're going to need to put years into this before seeing any kind of payoff bothers you, you need to quit now and try something else. If this doesn't bother you, ideally because it is something you want to do anyhow, then keep going. If you simply reject this criticism, or it really ruins your day, comic drawing probably isn't for you, either.

One last thing: This needn't be your last comic ever; this can be a "practice" series and nobody need ever know. If you get a better idea, drop this one and start a new one. In particular, I'm not sure you've got the humor chops to pull off single-shot jokes; those are probably the hardest comics to create, and even the masters like Larson did an awful lot of repeating themselves and got in a rut pretty quickly. Consider a more, although perhaps not entirely, character-based comic, with one-shot jokes as you come up with them.

Give yourself 5 years, which seems to be how long it really takes to get going with comics, with continued improvement up to around the 10 year mark where you level off. (This closely parallels the development of any skill; programming works almost identically to this.) Re-assess your progress honestly. I for one would most likely be forced to rationally concede at about year two that I'm not going to make it; only you can decide where you stand.

(Note to people offended about the percieved negativity in this message: Committing to a comic is a serious undertaking... despite what they may have told you in school, which strives to be a Happy Fun Place, not everybody can do everything, and encouraging somebody to do something they shouldn't, which results in a major waste of time (the only non-replenishable resource we have) is evil, not nice. I don't give a flying fuck about "nice", I care about good, and being good here requires some feedback to the poster that isn't all ooshy-gooshy and nice. If he can power through this, then maybe he has what it takes, and he can gain strength from this. If this is enough to de-rail him, that is a strong net good. Don't mindlessly encourage, you think you're being nice but you're really being evil.)

If I'm reading your site right, you have all of twenty-one comics online.

Compare the twenty-first Sluggy Freelance with the most recent one (note the current Saturday is another artist), or the the twenty-first Penny Arcade with the latest one.

You've barely begun. You've barely begun to refine your style, you've barely begun to find your voice... and you're in direct competition with the comics I just listed, along with a lot of others.

If you're honestly offended that the world isn't beating a path to your door after 21 comics, either get out, or stop caring about your audience numbers, right now. It doesn't work that way. Comics are an opportunity to fame and some modest fortune, but it is hardly a guarantee.

Everybody starts out slow. Frankly and honestly, having seen your site, I'm in no hurry to go back. Your comics aren't that good yet, and your drawing style needs some refinement; right now you're giving me that "ouch, that looks like it hurts" feeling on a lot of your humans as their arms bend in wierd ways and their proportions are off; everything is off model. But... like I said, everybody starts out slow. Sluggy freelance is horribly off-model by the modern standards and the Penny Arcade comic almost seems to be two completely different people than the modern main characters, with only their clothing to indicate continuity. This should be both an encouragement and a challenge.

If the fact that you're going to need to put years into this before seeing any kind of payoff bothers you, you need to quit now and try something else. If this doesn't bother you, ideally because it is something you want to do anyhow, then keep going. If you simply reject this criticism, or it really ruins your day, comic drawing probably isn't for you, either.

One last thing: This needn't be your last comic ever; this can be a "practice" series and nobody need ever know. If you get a better idea, drop this one and start a new one. In particular, I'm not sure you've got the humor chops to pull off single-shot jokes; those are probably the hardest comics to create, and even the masters like Larson did an awful lot of repeating themselves and got in a rut pretty quickly. Consider a more, although perhaps not entirely, character-based comic, with one-shot jokes as you come up with them.

Give yourself 5 years, which seems to be how long it really takes to get going with comics, with continued improvement up to around the 10 year mark where you level off. (This closely parallels the development of any skill; programming works almost identically to this.) Re-assess your progress honestly. I for one would most likely be forced to rationally concede at about year two that I'm not going to make it; only you can decide where you stand.

(Note to people offended about the percieved negativity in this message: Committing to a comic is a serious undertaking... despite what they may have told you in school, which strives to be a Happy Fun Place, not everybody can do everything, and encouraging somebody to do something they shouldn't, which results in a major waste of time (the only non-replenishable resource we have) is evil, not nice. I don't give a flying fuck about "nice", I care about good, and being good here requires some feedback to the poster that isn't all ooshy-gooshy and nice. If he can power through this, then maybe he has what it takes, and he can gain strength from this. If this is enough to de-rail him, that is a strong net good. Don't mindlessly encourage, you think you're being nice but you're really being evil.)

It's not just about production costs to the studio. It's about a shitty show that ruins the image of the studio, and destroys 30 years of "Star Trek" branding.

I don't think they're too concerned about that.

Right now my filter has entries like:

http://*.ru4.*/*
http://*.2o7.net/*
http://*.dou bleclick.net/*

I've never actually visited those sites--I don't see why I have to receive images from them, especially if they are offensive. (That's offensive as in "Of, relating to, or designed for attack." I still see Google Ads, I still see the ads on Penny Arcade. They aren't presented in a manner that obtrudes. That's what matters.

It is a natural thing to assume that a video game culture exists. Video games have been amazingly popular since the 80's, and have only grown in popularity since then. What companies haven't figured out is how to penetrate the market.

Want to know why? Companies have no idea what the typical gamer is like. The stereotype has changed so much, it's impossible to get everyone and their dog to like exactly the same thing. Gamers are everything from sweaty perverted nerds (as seen in Dead or Alive 3 commercials), people desperate to be cool (as seen by this link), a bunch of lazy kids (as seen in any commercial you can think of where kid X doesn't want to do homework then suddenly pigs out on pizza product Y), and... well... you get the picture.

What the corporate world doesn't realize is that everyone plays games. You can't get the attention of the 13-year-old sex depraved "gamer" without shunning a few "grrl gamers" and serious adults. Likewise, you're not going to get much love from the adult/retro crowd without sacrificing the interests of "Hal0-Xb0x-R0xx0rz3000" and his buddies in Junior High. Sony and Blockbuster and anybody else that can jump on the bandwagon are trying as hard as they can to fit the "gamer" peg into the square hole, but they don't realize that the "gamer" peg is only one of the pieces out there. And that is why there are so many loyalties and fanboys for every product you can imagine.

Who watches the watchers watching the watchers?

Mall security, apparently...

And you, and I'm watching you watching them watching us... ad infinitum.

Ham!

To the grandparent post, that PA link is relevant.

To the topic in general, this one is more relevant. The news post too.

Anyway, this is nothing new. I remember playing TMNT2 with all the Pizza Hut ads 15 years ago.

This is exactly the reason I can't get myself to accept the Xbox. They are catering to, as Penny Arcade put it nicely, the Generic Frat Fuck. http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2004-11 -08&res=l

Rip peoples arms out of their sockets when they loose. Wookies are known to do that...

And beat you to death with their their schlong.

"Pepsi Cola - Neo's beverage of choice! Try one today!"

Technically, that's Powerade.

Don't get me started on Enter The Matrix (too late). 70 hallways of bland gray walls pierced only with giant blue Powerade vending machines. That's video game product placement gone wrong.

Fear not, I'm no Linux zealot, I'm an elitist asshole. The best way to tell us apart is that we have funny looking computers and a sex life.

I think maybe you read too much into my post, though. I was talking about rescuing people's stuff after Windows has screwed them. When that happens and you keep on using Windows, yes, that's foolish. There is, however, a difference between taking note of foolish behavior and calling someone a fool.

... From everyone's favorite website.

Linky

• Turn It In
• Penny Arcade

I see the developers were reading up on their Penny Arcade.

Seriously though, as long as they're able to avoid television commercial-like breaks in the gameplay, I have no problem with this. My biggest gripe with MMO gaming is having to a pay a monthly fee - so much so that I even gave Project Entropia a try (helpful hint: do not play Project Entropia). Since AO got some pretty good reviews, and since it's being offered for the low, low price of free, I'm certainly going to give this one a try.

Rebuttal! 2 + 3 = Cats!

Can we get Bruckheimer in it, too? I totally loved that Tetris movie he did.

Obligatory Penny-Arcade Comic.

Can you please explain that Penny Arcade? I wasn't a reader until yesterday, as a matter of fact; is that a true story, who is Kara, etc.?

Yes, AFAIK it's true. Kara is now Gabe's wife, and shows up in the strips from time to time. Although she's not quite so slim in real life :-) I thought there were pictures of the real her on the childsplaycharity.org site but I can't see them now.

In case you missed it, Taco did the sort of thing here - he proposed on the slashdot front page.

eleven diehard Star Wars fans (i.e. lifelong virgins)

I'd agree, except they've a spokeswoman called Sarah (who could get it with the rest at the drop of a hat) and there's a precedent for Star Wars lines.