Slashdot Mirror
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."
Hey, while we're on the subject of PA. Would someone please fix the PA Slashdot sidebar? Or is PAs feed screwed up?
Why are your forums always down, and why does it take until 2pm central time each day to get the image up for the comic?
It's actually "Canidon" and here's a link to the comic: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/05/21
Actually I thought that was hillarious. There's something about watching self-important fucks getting nuked on a public forum that brings a smile to my face.
That's why slashdot is such a great read as well come to think of it...
Jive Magazine got an interview (and a custom magazine cover) with the PA guys a few months ago that I submitted but was rejected. Has some interesting stuff on the origin of their names. Check near a third of the way down when they explain how Mike became Gabrial after being called Deadly Peach....
Here
http://www.tomandemily.com
Meh. He's a jackass, and he decided, in public, to try and get rough with two people who make their living by being smartasses. He got what he had coming.
Personally, I can't stand him. If he was half as good as he thinks he is, that attitude would be one thing, but as it stands it's pretty sorry.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
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~
Did you read what happened, though? Harlan started it, not them. Asking somebody if they even went to high school (with the obvious intent of implying that the other person is a moron) up on stage in front of a ton of people isn't exactly what I'd call 'nice.'
PA's humor is one of those things that carries quite a few prerequisites.
You have to be a fairly avid and experienced gamer to catch even half the allusions they make. You have to like sarcastic and satirical humor, as well as be able to understand and appreciate more juvenile humor (like the frequency of the word "wang" in their strips for a while).
There are a lot of PA strips that I don't laugh at, even when I see the humor. A few of them I just shrug my shoulders and move on to something more interesting. But they get out at least a couple a month that really make me laugh, and that's enough for me to spend a few minutes reading.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
No, I think they're quite aware that Harlan's angry public persona is nothing of the sort - it's his personality, not a persona. Harlan is (or was, in his day) a great and innovative author and editor. He deserves all of the props he receives for his writing. His also a flamming ahole, and he deserves all of the abuse he gets for his arrogance and his complete lack of common decency. I can respect and revere his work while still holding him in utter contempt as a person.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
"PA is about as funny as any other comic strip one would find in their newspaper. They just happen to concentrate on games."
..." Whole Family: "Wins!"
Marmaduke:
First panel- Kid: "Hey Marmaduke! I'm playing a video game!"
Second panel- Marmaduke sits in front of TV.
Third panel- Kid: "No fair! You beat my high score!"
Family Circus:
First- Boy: "I don't want to eat my corn flakes! I want to play video games!"
Second- Dad: "Well, pretend it is a video game!"
Third- Dad: "First one to finish their bowl
Yeah, PA's totally like the newspaper comics. Except it's not written by fucktards. They exclude the fucktards. Once you get over that, they're pretty cool.
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
And now you know why you don't get invited out to parties.
I have a lot of "geek friends" and, while I can normally deal with this, I can tell you that you're not turning off "ordinary folks" because *their* insecure. You're just coming off as an asshole.
It's fine to have beliefs but, right or wrong, you're going to annoy the hell out of 98% of the people out there if you feel the need to get all vigorous about jamming it down their throats. If you get off on this, fine. But don't think these "ordinary folks" are the ones with the defects...
(Sorry for being blunt with my belief system, but I've seen too many unhappy "smart people" with this problem.)
Spell cheek you've failed me four the last thyme!