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Penny Arcade's CGW Interview
1up is running an interview with the Penny Arcade guys, originally done for Computer Gaming World. They talk comics, the industry, Harlan Ellison, and (of course) games. From the article: "Jerry Holkins: My favorite quote comes from this one strip where I say 'Fetch it, and gaze upon your ruined world.' I'm not sure that anybody else really pays attention to that particular comic strip, but it's called 'They Hailed From Canadon,' and it's just this...it starts out in this weird, Penny Arcade way, but it has these spacefaring dogmen that for some reason really do it for me. I don't know why."
It's actually "Canidon" and here's a link to the comic: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/05/21
I don't usually air personal material on the 'net (well, not much) but I met Harlan Ellison at DragonCon two years ago and he IS a big fucking prick. One of my best friends not only had lunch with that cocksucker but used her own personal car to drive Harlan and his friends to lunch (at Harlan's own request) and THEN, later that day, he treated her like total shit when all she asked for was a picture of Harlan and his wife. Man, I'll be honest, if I had had a bat or other weapon of personal destruction I'd be in jail because I would have beat the shit out of that asshat. He treated my friend with THAT much disrespect, disdain, and total disregard for her as a human being. Harlan's wife on the other hand was super nice. She deserves an award for putting up with that little peckerwood all these years.
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
My questions are relating to the website - Why is it so slow, why did you switch to Rails, who wrote your search function such that it is incapable of locating a comic even if you type in a word in the comic title, and so on.
I want to know how much they paid for this terrible, worthless site redesign that they got, because if there's a market for shitty sites, I want to know what I should be charging.
Don't get me wrong, I love the comic, but ever since the new design came around, it's been almost completely impossible to find any of the old content.
Damn formatting:
... well ... foolscap.
MY SECOND, AND FINAL, WORDS ON THIS MATTER
What the surly teenager posted on his website as having happened, did NOT, in fact, transpire in that way. Like Mr. Tycho's "gut feeling" or "assumption" or "telepathic intuition" or whatever it was, everything the surly teenager posted was HIS perception of an interchange that lasted for less than two minutes. His assumptions and interpretations are his own, and he's entitled to them. Weird and sad and skewed as they may be.
But for him, for Mr. Tycho, and for all of you, I am telling you they are no more accurate than MY understanding of the matter. I don't expect the surly teenager to pause even a moment to consider that his interpretations are wonky, he's incapable, I suspect, of assuming responsibility for ANYTHING he does, like some mook standing in front of Judge Judy. And he certainly isn't going to cop to fronting someone who meant him no harm, not in front of his worshipful gamer-tots. But this is the bottom line:
I did not know them, I had no negative feelings toward them, and I was neither rude nor discourteous to them.
Never insulted them. Never wanted to insult them. Didn't do it consciously or reflexively. Just didn't do it. ALL insults and disparagement came from the surly teenager. Mr. Tycho shouldn't be defending his associate's bad behavior; after all, Mr. Tycho was standing right there beside me.
My assertion is demonstrably more accurate than what the surly teenager posted to arouse his adolescent admirers. As verified by the CHAIRMAN OF THE FOOLSCAP CONVENTION, Hank Graham, who has stated very clearly THERE WAS NO JESTER'S HAT FOR ME. If that is so, then all that follows in the surly teenager's memoir is equally as skewed, equally as misinterpreted, and equally as unfair to me.
We were in each other's company less than two minutes. We were all four--Gabe & Tycho, Hank Graham, myself--on the stage in a small room. They were making "gifts" to the Guests of Honor. The first was an orange peeler. I did the expected "take" and looked at this small plastic kitchen implement with mock humor and confusion. I then got a SECOND one, intended for Kathy Roche-Zujko (my ex-secretary, who now lives in Bellevue, with whom we hung during the weekend, and who had picked Susan and me up at Sea-Tac). It was a thankyou from the ConCommittee for her good offices. With TWO of these items, I continued to do the aversion shtick, edging backward toward the audience, past the surly teenager, with one of the orange peelers behind my back and, openly to the entire room, slipped it to someone in the audience. Everyone laughed.
I then returned to my place next to the surly teenager, as Hank Graham placed jester's caps (signifying "foolscap") on Mr. Tycho and the surly teenager. Mr. Graham then handed me a lined yellow tablet in a plastic sleeve--foolscap, in the classic meaning of the word--and said, "Here's YOUR foolscap." I am a writer. Getting foolscap was appropriate. I am neither a clown nor an asshole, as so many of the PA adolescents who have no idea of my fifty-plus years' work perceive. It was fitting and proper that I should get a pad of
The surly teenager then asked me, not very loudly, "Don't you want to wear your hat?"
As there WAS NO HAT for me, I pretty much let slide the gibe.
Well, two aspects of the moment that followed:
1) Someone in the audience said something to ME, DIRECTLY, that I now understand as not having been heard or linked properly, by the surly teenager. I can't remember what it was, but it was a remark made my someone I knew, in a jocular vein, and I tossed over my shoulder the pro forma fuckyou or gofuckyerself or whatever it was. It was no more serious or rude a fuckyou than a Bart Simpson bite me or eat my shorts.
But it wasn't addressed to the surly teenager, who had already made snotty remarks at me, not once, but twice.
If the surly teenager misheard and thought he was EV