9/05/06
Penny Arcade
Well, it has been a good long while since I have written a Bottom Line column. For a while I was focusing solely on cranking out Versus movie reviews and my last column was a play-by-play of my day in Hell. OK, it was actually the San Diego ComicCon, but between the jungle-like heat wave and the record-breaking crowd, it felt like what I would imagine Hell to be. Anyhow, now that I have taken a well-deserved rest it's time to get back to business.
If you are any kind of gamer at all, the odds are good that you have made at least one visit to a little website called Penny Arcade. For those of you that haven't, this website features a web comic that is devoted mainly to the video game industry, although it certainly doesn't limit itself to that genre. Writer Jerry Holkins and artist Mike Krahulik use their in-comic avatars Tycho & Gabe to provide commentary on subject matter ranging from video games to movies and other aspects of pop culture in a brutally honest and refreshingly vulgar fashion. Quite often they poke fun at one another through the strip as well.
The Penny Arcade website has developed quite a large following over the years, and both Holkins and Krahulik have branched out beyond the thrice-weekly webcomic. They have produced promotional cartoons and artwork for properties such as World of Warcraft (they produced the hilarious comic strips found inside the official Brady Games strategy guide) and Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell. At the time this article was written, they announced on their site that a Penny Arcade video game with Hothead Games called Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness.
Now, thanks to Dark Horse Books, fans and casual readers alike have the chance to check out Penny Arcade's baby steps. They have released not one, but two, books collecting their earliest comic strips. The first book is entitled Attack of the Bacon Robots, which collects their strips from 1999 & 2000, and the second book is called Epic Legends of the Magic Sword Kings, which collects all of their 2001 strips as well as promotional artwork and early story projects outside of Penny Arcade.
Fans of the site that have never seen these early strips will be amazed at just how much the art style has changed over the years. In fact, the cover artwork of both books and the strip artwork inside are quite different. You can tell it's the same two characters, Tycho and Gabe, but the way they are drawn now is so much more aggressive (which, knowing Tycho and Gabe, is quite fitting) compared to "back in the day". One thing that has not changed is the endearing lack of tact they use in commenting on what is going on in the video game industry and beyond. Here are some of the highlights you can look forward to in the books:
- The boys spend multiple strips in both books capping on Doom programmer John Romero via a disturbing man-crush ("Just gonna check out my secret Romero love-lair!")
- Jesus Christ indulges in the guilty pleasure of "type killing" while playing the first-person shooter Quake 3 ("Chatty bitch should get on IRC if he wants to talk.")
- Machines behaving badly - Obsolete video player Divx and the now-obsolete game system Sega Dreamcast are portrayed as irritable, alcoholic malcontents, to the delight of everyone except for Tycho and Gabe.
- Gabe's obsession with Namco in general and Pac-Man in particular, which both come to a head during repeated visits to the Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3). Be afraid, Pac-Man, be very afraid.
Also provided within both books are "director's commentary" by writer Jerry Holkins, which attempt to place the more obscure references in the early strips in a modern context. After all, while the antics of Divx the character are entertaining, few people would remember his initial real-life incarnation as the Beta to DVD's VHS. He also owns up to his own mistakes on a fairly regular basis, basically saying "What was I thinking with this stuff?" on a few strips.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is this: If you are not a fan of video games, you will not get a lot of the humor in these books, even with the writer explaining it in each strip. The creators know exactly who their audience is, and they know the futility of trying to reach too far beyond it. If you do like video games, these books are definitely something you will want to check out. And if you like the books, you'll love the website, which has a pretty comprehensive archive of strips from the last 4-5 years. The web address is www.penny-arcade.com. Don't forget the dash in the URL, otherwise you will be taken to the wrong site.
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