| Penny Arcade (comic) |
Article Index for Penny Arcade |
Website Links For Penny |
Information AboutPenny Arcade (comic) |
''Penny Arcade'' is a Webcomic written by Jerry Holkins and illustrated by Mike Krahulik . It is among the most popular webcomics currently online. It debuted on November 18 1998 , making it one of the oldest webcomics still receiving regular updates ( Kevin And Kell currently holds this distinction). New Comic Strip s are currently posted every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The strip regularly features the two authors' cartoon alter egos, Tycho Brahe and Johnathan Gabriel ("Gabe"), who represent Holkins and Krahulik respectively. Holkins and Krahulik have admitted before that the characters were not originally meant to represent them, thus they are abstract representations and not caricatures. The decision to have the characters represent the authors was made very shortly after the series began, and the fact that they didn't at all resemble them had never been considered an issue. The two characters spend much of their time playing and commenting on computer and video games, forming the basis of the humor in the strip. Another theme, albeit less common, is the use of conflicts between the two in real life. The strip also sometimes refers to other Internet subcultures, and sometimes features in-jokes that are explained by the news posts accompanying each comic, usually written by Holkins. Both Krahulik and Holkins make a living from ''Penny Arcade'', placing them in a very small group of web comic artists devoted to their creations full-time. Donations were once accepted, but the site now operates on implementations on the web. ATTRIBUTES OF THE COMIC STRIP the He-Man article. This comic was drawn soon after Tycho was accused of being a "psuedo-intellectual on Wikipedia ."]] As a (primarily) topical video gaming news comic, there is little s, a talking DIVX player, a living juicer that has sex with fruit, and Jesus , among others, are known to drop in often and for petty reasons. Other such occurrences are implied if not shown, such as mentioning Dante from '' Devil May Cry '' living in the building next door {Link without Title} . Some of the strips are drawn from the perspective of fictional characters within a game or movie. Occasionally, Gabe and Tycho are featured as they would be as characters or players in the game themselves, often having some sarcastic remark to make about some feature or Bug in the game. ''Penny Arcade'' is well-known for Krahulik's signature drawing and "inking" style, which uses bold lines and vivid facial expressions. Krahulik has said that his biggest influence was Stephen Silver .1 Jerry Holkins' news posts which accompany each strip often detail the background and context for the strip. RECURRING CHARACTERS Major characters ; Johnathan Gabriel : tendencies {Link without Title} {Link without Title} {Link without Title} {Link without Title} . : Krahulik eventually named his son "Gabriel", in honor of the character {Link without Title} . ; Tycho Brahe : Jerry Holkins ' comic alter ego (named after the Astronomer Tycho Brahe ) is bitter and sarcastic. Nearly invariably clad in a blue-striped shirt, Tycho enjoys books, RPGs , unnecessarily large words and deflating Gabe's ego. He is a rabid fan of Harry Potter . He also often plays Dungeons & Dragons (the website's banner illustrates him holding a D20 Die ). Though extremely intelligent, he has on several occasions made reference to his scarring childhood in which his mother blamed him for his father's leaving due to his "body's swelling with evil" (in fact, puberty) and beating him with an extension cord {Link without Title} . Tycho also has a drinking problem. Minor characters ; Annarchy : Tycho's 11-year-old niece, shares her uncle's love for hardcore gaming and, remarkably, his extensive vocabulary. Claims to have played '' Final Fantasy '' on the Famicom , in the original Japanese. Sneaks into E3 2005 in Tycho's baggage. Ann won a Poll held to determine a new story arc, beating out such fan favorites as Cardboard Tube Samurai, DivX, Fruit Fucker and Twisp and Catsby. The story arc's plotline consists of Ann wishing to attend the "1000 Man LAN", but her parents will not allow her to attend because she is forbidden from dating boys. Enlisting the help of her uncle Tycho, she breaks free and is able to attend. Due to her pony & rainbow Case Mod , she is mocked by other attendees, but becomes enamoured when one, going by the handle Galahad, comes to her defence. She later beats him in the final round of a tournament, and, much to her uncle's chagrin, she kisses the boy. Uncle Tycho once allowed her near Gabe (not a particularly wise choice), who in turn gave the young one advice about World of Warcraft. Recently she went shopping with uncle Tycho, for a Valentines Day gift for Galahad. Tycho suggests custom embroidery, and presented Annarchy with a shirt that reads "Stay the fuck away from my niece!" Annarchy suggests he's trying to sabotage their relationship, and Tycho tells her to dismiss it. ; Brenna : Tycho's wife, with red hair and glasses. Unlike Kara, she doesn't really understand her husband's obsession with computer games and consoles. Tycho accidentally killed her demonstrating a move from Splinter Cell , which he then used as an excuse to sue France in the storyline "Ripped from Today's Headlines". It was nearly a year before she returned, spotlighting Tycho's bizarre sexual preferences. ; Cardboard Tube Samurai : An alter ego of Gabe, who uses a '' which replaces character Kain's sword with a cardboard tube. This was likely a response to Penny Arcade's fond references to the Legacy of Kain series in the past. The Tube is also referenced in Eidos/IO Interactive's Hitman: Contracts with a Tube-Wielding protagonist. The link here is more explicit as the cheat code used to acquire the tube is IOIPENNY, with accompanying text referencing "The Wandering Age". ; Charles : A somewhat fanatical Mac user (formerly known as Chuck) who underwent a drastic makeover around the same time as the Mac OS X release. He is very vocal with his contempt for Gabe and Tycho's lack of appreciation for Apple products, and regularly tells the two to "shut {Link without Title} pie holes". In addition to telling people to shut their pie holes, pies are often worked into strips with him (he baked a pie, and in another, Gabe was eating a pie). He also prefers to greet Gabe and Tycho with the colorful phrase, "Hey, fuck you". Gabe once painted a big red penis on his door to annoy him...it worked. Other shenanigans with Charles included Gabe's phone conversation, while Tycho was dead of SARS. Charles ended the conversation with the quip "I'm really excited that you might die" and hung up. However, he still remains something of a friend to the pair, once trying to get them into an Apple store by mussing up their hair to make them hip (it should be noted, however, that he failed, and Tycho and Gabe ended up standing out in the rain with other friends not hip enough to enter the Apple store). He was also seen working in an Apple store when Gabe and Tycho came in to buy an ipod for there friend, who was being deployed to Iraq. Recently Charles helped Gabe learn to work his first mac; when Gabe asked what cologne he was wearing he replied "Macantosh". ; Christian Boggs :A real-life individual who, at the Child's Play dinner and auction, donated $20,000 to Child's Play for the privilege of appearing in a Penny Arcade comic strip. According to Tycho, "as a young man, a grievous injury gave our benefactor the 'opportunity' to see just how the care at a children's hospital can change a person's life," which was the impetus behind his donation. In the strip in which Christian is featured, Tycho and Gabe tell Boggs they need him to buy them each a Lexus to inspire them to write a strip about him. {Link without Title} ; Div : A drunken talking DIVX player with a hostile, surly attitude and a penchant for consuming large quantities of alcohol. He is also known to have rough sex with Gabe's PS2. ; Frank : A Vietnam War veteran turned store manager at Electronics Boutique ; although he has been referred to as working at Software Etc in different strips, based on the manager of the NorthTown Mall Software Etc. in Spokane, WA , during 1998. Frank, who is somewhat mentally unstable, often intimidates customers and deflects their complaints or questions with surreal stories about patrolling in the jungles of Southeast Asia . He also once crucified customers in front of his shop. ; Fruit Fucker 2000 : A small, robotic Juicer with an Unusual Means of extracting juice. ; Hector : A subservient, old from golf players and he is forced to carry out Gabe's outrageous demands. Unfortunately for Hector, Tycho embraces the golfing lifestyle as well and is too intoxicated to intervene on Hector's behalf. In the later strip "Our Latest Comic Strip", Gabe threatens to lock Hector in a box for allowing a raindrop to touch his arm while playing golf during a violent storm. ; "Jesus Christ" : The presumed Lord and Saviour of the ...he was just really excited about the fact that there are now deep fried Twinkie s. ; Jim : Gabe and Tycho's long-lost Roommate who loved RPGs and (supposedly) was a Foil to the ''Penny Arcade'' duo. Everyone thought he moved out of the Apartment , but he simply was lost in the cable jungle behind the Television when he went to install the N64 . He appeared in 2 of 3 strips named after him, the "Jim Saga". His skeleton is seen wearing a red T-shirt with a 12 sided die, a Dodecahedron , used in table-top RPGs such as Dungeons & Dragons. Similar to that is sold on the site's store, except it's red instead of black, 20 sided instead of 12 and has the die on the middle without text. Interesting and Ironic fact: Jim's die throw came out with the losing face "1". ; Kara : Gabe's wife. She has reddish-brown hair and is usually seen wearing a purple t-shirt adorned with a grinning wombat's head. She became a gamer under her husband's influence, though this is rarely mentioned in the strip itself and is instead only referred to in the newsposts written by Krahulik. Kara as a character is directly based on Mike Krahulik's actual wife of the same name, to whom he proposed in a ''Penny Arcade'' strip in 1999 . She was most recently featured in a strip where Gabe buys an HD-DVD. ; Mr. Period : Your helpful guide to the English language. Often appears with his compatriots Capital Letter, Question Mark, Exclamation Point, and their 'pet' Comma. ; Mr. Tails : A violent, Top Hat -wearing Monkey . He is usually seen biting various characters. He also once donated blood to Tycho. ; Randy Pinkwood : A television news anchor whose broadcasts usually contain humorously blunt references to his alleged sexual prowess. According to Tycho in the book ''Attack of the Bacon Robots'', Randy is often used when they want to touch on multiple topics within the same strip. ; Safety Monkey : A kindhearted, nice friend of Tycho and Gabe who is usually picked on. Gabe has described him as being the friend the others bring down for amusement, including telling him the group will be at a certain location and then never showing up. ; The Merch : A cute cartoon character whose premise is that only copious purchasing of his merchandise by boys and girls can revive him (and only temporarily) from a wizard's curse. Failure to do so turns The Merch into the bloody Fleshreaper which "goes house to house, collecting torsos." The Merch satirizes entertainment that demands constant commerce (such as '' Pokémon '' and '' Yu-Gi-Oh! '', among many others). Tycho's niece, Annarchy, always wears a Merch t-shirt. Other PA characters are shown wearing both the Merch and Fleshreaper t-shirts, of which only the Merch is available at the store as a t-shirt. The Merch often is connected to a comment that kids should buy merchandise even if it requires stealing from their parents (compare to Soupy Sales ' televised 1965 stunt of asking children to mail him the "funny green pieces of paper" from their parents' wallets and purses). Most recently, from December 19 to December 30 2005 , The Merch was featured in a six part story-arc called "An Unbelievably Merch Christmas". In it, a Merch-turned-Fleshreaper is out of control because children haven't bought enough Merch merchandise. A shotgun-wielding Santa Claus saves the day by telling the children what to do (purchase more merchandise) and by doing battle with the Fleshreaper, buying enough time for children to carry out his advice. Santa loses his left arm in battle, but the kids do buy enough Merch goods in time, reverting the Fleshreaper to his Merch form and presumably saving the Free World once more. As the arc closes, The Merch imparts keen insight, commenting to a badly wounded Santa with its perpetual broad grin, "Santa? I fucked your dad," to which Santa can only comment, "I know, Merch. I know." They walk off into the sunset as The Merch cheerfully adds, "I fucked him all night long." ; Thomas Kemper (the cat) : A cat with advanced computer skills, possibly MCSE certified. Thomas is named after the Thomas Kemper brand of soft drinks. Though he has had no dialogue whatsoever, Div has appeared to interact with him as if he was fully lingually responsive, although it is unclear if Div was just drunk out of his mind. May own an industrial laser, once used to open the packaging on an Xbox controller, much to the chagrin of the space devil who designed it. ; Twisp and Catsby : An s and Twisp speaking only in single word sentences. The duo were created out of Gabe and Tycho's mystification that they were seemingly unable to create something that their readership would dislike, and also as a direct shot at Kevin Smith 's quote that the movie '' Jersey Girl '' was "not for the critics". (The first appearance of this strange pair was also labelled as "not for critics".) Although Twisp and Catsby effectively mocked Smith's quote, the pair ironically became two of the most popular characters. Prints of their panels have since sold for over a thousand dollars . ; Wombat : A wombat's head design that makes various appearances in the comic strip, and is featured as the site's Favicon , making it something of an un-official Logo . Penny Arcade newcomers often mistake the wombat for a bear, or as a reference to the "scary bears" found in Radiohead's merchandise. The Wombat first appeared on a green Pennant Tycho was holding on January 22, 1999, in the strip "Saving Private ION" before settling in as the identifying icon on Kara's clothing, imitating the iconographic association between Gabe and Pac-Man. In June, 2005 Penny Arcade began selling a lavender t-shirt featuring the wombat logo, which matches the one worn by Kara in the comic strip. Between August, 1999 and December, 2005 there has only been a single comic strip sighting of the wombat disassociated from Kara. The wombat is also indirectly referenced by the phrase "Necrowombicon" (a spin-off of the '' Necronomicon '' in H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos ) when Tycho attempts to "uninstall" the Mortyr demo and as the name of a fictitious gaming convention. PODCAST Krahulik and Holkins began to record and release audio content once a week on March 20, 2006, marking the beginning of a Podcast from Penny Arcade. The podcast specifically captures the creative process that goes into the creation of a recent Penny Arcade comic, usually starting with a perusal of recent gaming news, with conversational tangents and digressions to follow. As well as being an interesting, behind-the-scenes look at the creation of Penny Arcade, Krahulik and Holkins humorously discuss possible subjects for the comic. The format of the show is mostly "fly-on-the-wall" style, in that the hosts rarely acknowledge the existence of the microphone. There is no theme music, intro, or outro. The podcasts are of varying lengths and often begin and end abruptly. OTHER WORKS Presents]]Under the banner of 'Penny Arcade Presents', Krahulik and Holkins are sometimes commissioned to create promotional artwork/comic strips for new video games, with their signature artistic style and humor. They are usually credited simply as 'Penny Arcade' rather than by their actual names. Some of these works have been included with the distribution of the game, and others have appeared on pre-launch official websites, such as:
A partial, official list can be found here On August 8 2005 Krahulik announced that ''Penny Arcade'', in partnership with Sabertooth Games , would be producing a Collectible Card Game based on the ''Penny Arcade'' franchise 2 The resulting ''Penny Arcade'' "battle box" was released in February 2006 as part of the Universal Fighting System . There are also a few spinoffs from the main comic that have gained independent existences. The most recent example is " 2005 , and has subsequently been featured in the comics of November 7 2005 and November 30 2005 . Several elements of the ELotH:tES universe will also be featured on the cover of their second comics collection, Epic Legends of the Magic Sword Kings. ''PENNY ARCADE'' EVENTS Child's Play On November 24 2003 the authors of ''Penny Arcade'' announced their plans for a children's Charity , Child's Play , which aimed to organize large scale donations, particularly in video games, for their local Seattle Children's Hospital. In their first year they raised over $250,000 in cash, toys, and games and expanded their operations in 2004 to partner with additional hospitals in Oakland , San Diego , Houston and Washington DC . During the holiday 2004 season they raised around $310,000 for the hospitals. The creators of the comic appeared on the G4techTV television show '' X-Play '' talking about the comic and the charity. As of January 19 2006 , Child's Play 2005 has raised over $605,000 in toy and monetary donations. ''Penny Arcade'' Expo PAX 2004 On '' ( GameCube ), '' Dance Dance Revolution '', '' Doom '' (PC) and the original home version of '' PONG ''. Sean Celaya defeated Kevin Potter in the final round to take home the ultimate prize becoming the PAX 2004 Omegathon champion. In an interesting turn of fate, precisely 1337 people pre-registered, to which Holkins mused, "though I ordinarily shun leet-speak that number clearly implies the blessing of gaming deities." All told, about 3,300 people attended the event. PAX 2005 PAX 2005 took place from '', '' Karaoke Revolution '', '' Quake '', and the Atari 2600 game '' Combat ''. In a thrilling four-round match, Luke "Coreside" Armstrong defeated Will "LeRoy" Garroutte by a single point to win the best-of-three series 2-1-1 and take home the grand prize. In total, more than 9,000 gamers attended PAX 2005, almost triple the previous year's attendance. Recently, in response to Hurricane Katrina, Penny Arcade auctioned off the original pencil sketch of the PAX 2005 program cover on eBay with 100% of the profit to be given to the American Red Cross. It was sold to Christian Boggs for the final price of $8700. PAX 2006 PAX 2006 will be held from August 25 to August 27 2006 . The Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue will again be used as the venue, although some events, such as tabletop gaming, will held in the ballrooms of one or more of the hotels. PAX 06 already has several sponsors on board, including Ubisoft , Turbine Inc , NCSoft , Rooster Teeth Productions , Creative Labs , and NVidia . Other events On September 16 2005 , Krahulik and Holkins gave a special lecture at MIT . A transcript of the talk has been made available . LEGAL TROUBLES American Greetings After a strip titled "Tart as a Double Entendre" featuring character was released. {Link without Title} Jack Thompson On October 17 , 2005 Krahulik and Holkins donated $10,000 to charity in the name of Jack Thompson 3. The money was promised to be donated to charity by Thompson if a video game was created meeting certain criteria 4, but after a vaguely similar (in spirit) Mod to the game Grand Theft Auto was pointed out to already exist, Thompson called his challenge satire and refused to donate the money 5, despite the fact that he had explicitly stated that the offer was genuine in a follow-up interview. Krahulik and Holkins donated the money in his place, with a check containing the memo: "For Jack Thompson, Because Jack Thompson Won't". Thompson proceeded to phone Krahulik as related by Holkins in the corresponding [http://www.penny-arcade.com/2005/10/14 news post . On October 18 , 2005 it was reported that Jack Thompson had faxed a letter to Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske claiming that ''Penny Arcade'' "employs certain personnel who have decided to commence and orchestrate criminal harassment of me by various means" {Link without Title} 6. Holkins defended the site by saying that the harassment Thompson referred to was simply "the natural result of a public figure making statements that people disagree with, and letting him know their thoughts on the matter via his publically available contact information". On October 21 2005 Thompson claimed to have sent a letter to John McKay , U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington, in an attempt to get the FBI involved. Thompson re-iterated his claims of "extortion" and accused Penny Arcade of using "their Internet site and various other means to encourage and solicit criminal harassment". Penny Arcade denied the charge of "extortion", noting that they paid the $10,000 to charity, and are asking nothing in return. [http://www.penny-arcade.com/2005/10/21 So far, Thompson has not clarified what he considers "extortion", but he claimed the harassment of him is a direct result of Mike Krahulik's posts, which listed links to the Florida Bar Association. Thompson accused Penny Arcade of soliciting complaints to the Bar against him, even though Krahulik actually posted the opposite, asking fans to cease sending letters to the Bar, as the Bar acknowledged that it is aware of Thompson's actions, thanks to previous letters 7. The Seattle PD eventually acknowledged receiving a complaint from Thompson, but have commented that they believe the issue to be a civil, rather than criminal, matter. They noted that this was from initial impressions of the letter they received, and their criminal investigations bureau is reviewing the letter to make sure that there were not any criminal matters that they missed 8. On the same day, Scott Kurtz , creator of the webcomic PvP and a longtime friend of Krahulik and Holkins, used the image of the letter Thompson sent to the Seattle PD to create a parody letter in which Jack attempts to enlist the aid of the Justice League Of America by claiming Gabe and Tycho to be villains of some description. {Link without Title} COLLECTED EDITIONS
REFERENCES SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
|
| "http://wwwnytimescom/2004/12/16/technology/circuits/16comihtmlex=1131858000&en=f6c79717e67c1294&ei=5070" class="copylinks" target="_blank">New York Times A Comic Strip Takes Video Games Seriously (Almost) |
|