Ask Gabe and Tycho of Penny Arcade

If you're a gamer or a fan of online comics, you've likely already heard of Penny Arcade. Mike "Gabe" Krahulik and Jerry "Tycho" Holkins have been writing and drawing their comic for almost exactly six years under the PA name and in that time they've grown into something of a representative voice for the gaming community. An honesty in dealing with the delays, hype, and frustrations of being a gamer has made their comic into a shared experience for dorks the world over. Recently they've been involved with their games-for-kids charity Child's Play, contract work for game-specific comics, and efforts to improve the grammar of forum posters. They've kindly agreed to answer our questions, so ask away. One question per comment, please. We'll send the best on to the gents and post their responses as soon as we have them.

Comments

Not so much a question as a thankyou

[bludstone]

For the lack of "OMG LOOK AT MY KIDDIE" posts.

For once in my life, someone had a child, and they are still the same person afterwards, or at least seem to be. :)

So, yeah, thank you for not plastering baby pics everywhere, and harping about how wonderful it is each time your baby takes a dump.

Re:Not so much a question as a thankyou

[Obiwan Kenobi]

Spoken like a true non-parent.

If I know parents (and being one, I tend to), he's had to supress this urge many, many times.

Re:Not so much a question as a thankyou

[Anonymous Coward]

Not all parents are irritating. Frankly, the worst ones tend to be the people who were really self-absorbed in the first place and therefore simply assume that we all want to hear about what their precious little monster is up to this week.

I'm at the age where your friends start getting married and kicking out kids and I've noticed that there's a really obvious dividing line that emerges between the people you're going to continue to hang out with and the people who are going to be otherwise occupied for the next 20 years.

I obviously don't mean to suggest that people ought to neglect their kids, but I also don't think you're doing anyone any favors when you decide to flush your individual identity in exchange for "Mom" or "Dad".

Re:Not so much a question as a thankyou

[Anonymous Coward]

No f--ckin' kidding. I have a buddy I've known since we were in high school. Went to the same college, settled in the same town, our wives are friends, we hung out on the weekends, etc.

He had a kid about two years ago, and he's just vanished off the face of the earth. I can understand being a little more busy, but he can't pry himself away from the house to save his life. I called him with football tickets just last week and he said he didn't feel like he could leave Junior for a few hours even though his wife was around and not doing anything.

I mean, this can't be healthy. They haven't even gone out together since the kid was born. He's two! You can get a babysitter!

Future Generations

[mykroft42]

Now that the first generation of gamers as we know them are starting to have children how do you think future generations will be affected by having "gamers" as parents?

For example will it be as simple as:
"Dad I thought the PS5 was a gift for me?!?"
or as strange as:
"Who would want to play video games? That's something my parents would want to do.

Re:Domesitification ...

[Skyshadow]

I was thinking about asking them something like this (except for the pathetic how-do-I-meet-women bit at the end), but then I realized that these guys do PA for a living. It's a lot easier to find a few hours to play games when you're not spending 8 hours a day filling out TPS reports. Trust me -- I tried it a few years back on a non-voluntary basis.

I'd be more interested to hear about how getting older has affected their views on the games themselves. I'm roughly the same age and frankly I find myself less and less tolerant of the BS that surrounds gaming, particularly in terms of online play.

I mean, there are always losers playing any online game, but the ubiquity of online gaming across both platforms and titles and innovations like the Xbox Live! headphone have lifted these guys out of their little troll caves and brought them out into the open to a degree where even a fairly unique and exciting online game like Pandora Tomorrow quickly became not worth my time. Listening to a stoned 15 year-old ramble on about his personal worldview or try to be shocking just to piss off his teammates just isn't my idea of fun anymore (hint to the 15 year olds out there: I've actually heard words like "cunt" and "jew" enough times and in enough variations that it's just not very interesting anymore. Sorry to pop your bubble).

So gaming has devolded into either being stuck playing one of the few basic offline games (Quake clones, Warcraft clones, Tekken clones, GTA clones, etc. Oh, and minesweeper) or dealing with the combined stupidity of the internet.

I know they've done comics about this sort of thing, but apparently they don't find it obnoxious enough to keep them offline for any real length of time.

Re:Best comic other than PA?

[fishmasta]

http://www.somethingpositive.net/ Best writing on the web.

What do you mean, other than PA?

[System.out.println()]

You seem to think everyone's favorite comic is PA.... which it's certainly not. I feel they've gotten lazier with their jokes (relying more on cliches and overdone punchlines) since they started making those pretty backgrounds. Sure they do funny strips sometimes, but only occasionally do I actually laugh at PA anymore.

IMO, the funniest strip today is Real Life, while artistically, I'd have to go for the likes of Mac Hall or Applegeeks.

Re:What do you mean, other than PA?

[John Courtland]

Um, it's a question he's asking the creators of PA...

Re:What do you mean, other than PA?

[XMyth]

Perhaps his favorite is PA and he understands there there is no universal "favorite" since that's subjective...

Re:What do you mean, other than PA?

[John Courtland]

Why is my comment flamebait? Again with the fucking moron moderation. I swear to god I could beat my dick against the keyboard and produce more useful moderation...

Re:Strawberry Shortcake

[Landaras]

Uhm, you are factually incorrect.

The Strawberry Shortcake pic was SATIRE, not PARODY. Parody is when you use someone's art to make fun of the original artist, while with satire you use someone's art to make fun of a third party.

Parody is strongly protected speech, while satire is less strongly protected. In the case you are referencing Strawberry Shortcake was being used to make fun of American McGee, who was a third party. Hence, it was not parody, but satire.

I believe there may have been a trademark issue as well (don't have time to research the case), but the pic was not as protected on free speech grounds as you claim it to be.

All that said, I do applaud PA for their work on that. It was without question art.

- Neil Wehneman

Re:They're representatives, all right.

[Dun Malg]

To say nothing of the juice machine community.

You gotta link the comics if you really want people to understand all about the Fruit Fucker:
1 2 3 4 5 6

Re:Ain't no party like an east coast party

[Quobobo]

Of course, nothing to do with them living on the west coast...

Business logic

[/ASCII]

You once mentioned in a news post that at some point you accidentally sold the rights to PA. Could you make up an amusing anecdote loosely based on this premise?