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Penny Arcade

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Penny Arcade
Penny Arcade Home Page
Author(s)Jerry Holkins
Mike Krahulik
Websitehttp://www.penny-arcade.com
Current status/scheduleMonday, Wednesday, Friday
Launch dateNovember 18, 1998
Genre(s)Gaming, Humor

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. New comic strips 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 (though they are abstract represenations and not caricatures). 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. [1] The strip also sometimes refers to other Internet subcultures, and sometimes features in-jokes that are explained by the news posts accompanying each comic.

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 advertising and merchandise revenue alone. The website attracts more than 800,000 visitors every day[2]. On 2005-11-13, the website was given a face lift in celebration of their seventh year running and to match the designs of the Child's Play and PAX websites. It is currently one of the largest Ruby on Rails implementations on the web.

Attributes of the comic strip

File:Penny Arcade comic-20051216h.jpg
Penny Arcade satirizies Wikipedia with a hypothetical scenario of Skeletor vandalizing the He-Man article.

As a (primarily) topical video gaming news comic, there is little plot or general continuity in Penny Arcade strips. (Any story sustained for longer than a single strip is referred to as "dreaded continuity", something of a running gag in the newsposts.) A character who dies a horrible, violent death in one strip will come back the next perfectly whole, though occasionally these deaths have an effect on later comics. For example, often, when Gabe kills Tycho or vice versa, the killer takes a certain Pac-Man watch off the dead character, but only if he currently has the watch. Profanity and violence are common in Penny Arcade, and the strip is not known for its realism: zombies, a talking DIVX player, a living juicer that has sex with fruit, and Jesus, among others, are known to drop in. Other such occurances are implied if not shown, such as mentionning Dante from Devil May Cry living in the building next door.[3]

Some of the strips are drawn from the perspective of characters within a game[4][5] or movie[6], often Gabe and Tycho as they would be as characters or players in the game itself and usually 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.

Jerry Holkins' news posts which accompany each strip are helpful (in some cases required) for background and context for the strip.

Recurring characters

Major characters

File:Spoilification.jpg
Penny Arcade Comic "As Regards Spoilification"
Johnathan Gabriel [7]
Mike Krahulik's comic alter ego (named after the archangel Gabriel). "Gabe" is energetic and free-spirited[8], but has a propensity to become extremely angry [9]. He has a Pac-Man tattoo on his right bicep and a love of line dancing [10]. He has a fascination with unicorns and is a dedicated fan of Spider-Man [11] and Star Wars [12]. He has an odd affinity for a cardboard tube which he had fantasies of wielding as a wandering samurai, often in ancient Japan (see Cardboard Tube Samurai below). In one strip, he claims to have a glass eye from a fight with Tycho over Warcraft II seven years prior (though that was probably a one-off reference). [13] He was for a short time addicted to Tribes but soon grew out of it. He also has an obsession with his own genitalia [14] [15] [16].
Tycho Brahe [17]
Jerry Holkins' comic alter ego (named after the astronomer Tycho Brahe), bitter and sarcastic. Nearly invariably clad in a blue-striped shirt. Tycho enjoys books, RPGs, large words and deflating Gabe's ego. He is a rabid fan of Harry Potter [18] [19]. He also often plays Dungeons & Dragons [20] (the website's banner illustrates him holding a d20 die).

Minor characters

Annarchy [21]
Tycho's 11-year-old niece, as hardcore a gamer as her uncle. 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 comes to her defense. Much to her uncle's chagrin, she kisses the boy. Most recently, Uncle Tycho allowed her near Gabe (not a particularly wise choice), who in turn gave the young one advice about World of Warcraft. [22]
BatJew [23]
A friend of Tycho and Gabe. After his old URL, www.batjew.com, was purchased by spammers he is now the absentee landlord of KingAwesome.com.
Brenna [24]
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 countinuity "Ripped from Today's Headlines" [25].
Cardboard Tube Samurai [26]
An alter ego of Gabe, who uses a cardboard tube as if he were a samurai wielding a katana. Not surprisingly many readers have themselves wielded the tube of the samurai, making him a popular character. Story boards have been developed based on him in the style of samurai films of the past. Video game developer Crystal Dynamics paid homage to Cardboard Tube Samurai by implementing a code in their game Legacy of Kain: Defiance 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. [27] [28] 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". Fans of the cardboard tube have also produced a Jedi Knight mod called Cardboard Showdown. [29]
Charles [30]
A somewhat fanatical Mac user (formerly known as Chuck) who underwent a drastic makeover around the same time as the Mac OS X release (compare: [31]). He is very vocal with his contempt for Gabe and Tycho, and regularly tells the two to "shut [their] pie holes". 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 piss him off. ...it worked [32]. Other shennanagins 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.
Div [33]
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.
Dr. Raven Darktalon Blood [34]
A character created by Gabe to capitalize on the overmerchandizing of comic books. He is a parody of Todd McFarlane's comic book characters, which Gabe dislikes.
Frank [35]
A Vietnam War veteran turned store manager at Software Etc. or possibly Electronics Boutique; he has been referred to as working at both places 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 South East Asia. He also once crucified customers in front of his shop.
Fruit Fucker 2000 [36]
A small, robotic juicer with an unusual means of extracting juice.
Hector [37]
A subservient, old golf caddy that first appeared on the second part of the story arc "An Alternative Lifestyle" [38]. After countless hours of playing Mario Golf, Tycho proposes he might be a good golfer, so he grabs Gabe to try his skill out on a real golf course. Hector's livelihood depends on gratuity 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 [39].
Jesus Christ [40]
The Lord and Saviour of the Christian faith. Also a big fan of FPS and Fighting Games. He enjoys shooting people in online games when they are talking, and "throwing up the horns" when he wins. Also known for his legendary skill in Mario Kart: Double Dash - for his ability to "bring those blue sparks." Once warned Judas against being a dick for team killing.
Jim [41]
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 and Dragons. Similar to that is sold on the site's store[42], 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 [43]
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.
Mr. Period [44]
Your helpful guide to the English language. Often appears with his compatriots Question Mark, Exclamation Point, and their 'pet' Comma.
Mr. Tails [45]
A violent, top hat-wearing monkey. He is usually seen biting various characters. He also once donated blood to Tycho.
Randy Pinkwood [46]
A television news anchor whose broadcasts usually contain references to his alleged sexual prowess.
Safety Monkey [47]
A kindhearted, nice friend of Tycho and Gabe who is usually picked on.
Spiderman
The classic Marvel superhero, has donated blood to Gabe [48] who once had homoerotic dreams about him. [49][50]
The Merch [51]
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. 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. [52] 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 19th to December 30th, 2005, The Merch was featured in a six part story-arc called "An Unbelievably Merch Christmas" [53]. 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 doing battle with the Fleshreaper, buying enough time for children to take his advice to go purchase their "favorite Merch merchandise" [54]. Santa loses his left arm in battle, but the kids purchase enough merchandise in time, reverting the Fleshreaper to his Merch form and presumably saving the Free World once more [55]. 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 adds, "I fucked him all night long." [56]
Thomas Kemper (the cat) [57]
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. 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 [58]
An anthropomorphic cat and an imp who are featured only in sepia toned strips. Contrary to what one might infer from the names, Catsby is the imp character and Twisp is the cat. Everything about these characters and their strips is even more bizarre than "regular" Penny Arcade continuity, and non sequiturs are standard fare. 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 demonstrated the absurdity of 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 [59]
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. The Wombat first appeared on a green pennant Gabe was holding on Januray 22, 1999, in the strip "Saving Private ION". It reappeared on a shopping bag four months later in the strip "Software, and Like, Etc.", made a transition to a raver's t-shirt in "PA in DA House", then appeared once more on a bandana in "Communication?" 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 [60]. Between August, 1999 and December, 2005 there has only been a single comic strip sighting of the wombat disassociated from Kara [61].
The wombat is also indirectly referenced by the phrase "Necrowombicon" when Tycho attempts to "uninstall" the Mortyr demo [62] and as the name of a fictitious gaming convention [63].

Other works

File:Pa presents.gif
Penny Arcade 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 complete list can be found here

On 2005-08-05 Krahulik announced that Penny Arcade, in partnership with Sabertooth Games, would be producing a collectible card game based on the Penny Arcade franchise.[69]

There are also a few spinoffs from the main comic that have gained independent existences. The most recent example is "Epic Legends Of The Hierarchs: The Elemenstor Saga" (ELOTH:TES), a parody of the written-by-committee fantasy fiction used as back-story for a wide variety of games: originally a one-off gag in the Penny Arcade comic, in late 2005 this was expanded into a complete fantasy universe, documented on a hoax "fan-wiki" [70]. ELOTH:TES first appeared in the webcomic of February 2, 2005 [71], and has subsequently been featured in the comics of November 7, 2005 [72] and November 30, 2005 [73].

Crossovers

The characters of Penny Arcade have appeared in many crossovers with other comics. Among them are:

Penny Arcade events

Child's Play

File:Childsplay.jpg
Child's Play Homepage

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 4th, 2006, Child's Play 2005 has raised over $590,000 in toy and monetary donations.

Penny Arcade Expo

PAX 2004

On April 12, 2004 the authors of Penny Arcade announced PAX, the Penny Arcade Expo. PAX 2004 was a two-day event held in Bellevue, Washington from August 28 to August 29, 2004, which they hoped would turn into an annual event. Several exhibitors, including Microsoft and Ubisoft, showcased videos and playable demos of their upcoming games at PAX 2004. Microsoft allowed attendees to experience a multiplayer level of Halo 2 months before it hit stores in addition to a number of other Xbox games, while Ubisoft showed Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Ghost Recon 2 and two other titles. Included amongst the events of the first PAX were live musical performances by bands including The Minibosses, Q&A panels featuring Penny Arcade editors Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins as well as others in the computer and video game industry, and the Omegathon, a contest where twenty contestants played a series of games for a chance at winning an excessively large video game collection worth in excess of $25,000. The contestants competed in a tabletop dice game, Halo (Xbox), Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (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 August 26 to August 28, 2005 at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue, Washington, where the first PAX was held. PAX 2005, unlike its predecessor, occupied the entire center, effectively doubling the usable floor space. Sponsors included Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Ubisoft and NCSoft, among others. Musical guests included the rock groups The Minibosses and The Neskimos, self-professed "professional hardcore gangster rapper" mc chris, pianists Martin Leung and Connie Lin, nerdcore hiphopper MC Frontalot, and rap/funk group Optimus Rhyme, who performed live in two separate concerts in a massive theater. Many favourite events from PAX 2004 such as Pitch Your Game Idea, Red vs Blue, a screening of the 1989 film 'The Wizard', and Penny Arcade Q&A made encore appearances. New events included Play Against The Pros, and industry panels on online gaming, the videogame marketing process, and on controversy in the industry. Omegathon II was an even more elaborate affair than its predecessor. Krahulik said on February 9, 2005 on penny-arcade.com that, "[At PAX 2005] we will deliver an even bigger prize to the winner of the Omegathon." On June 29, 2005 [87], it was revealed that prize would be the complete NES video game library valued at at least $10,099.99. The prize was locked in a large cage in the exhibition room and also included two Star Wars-themed Alienware gaming PCs, one of which would go to the winner and the other to the runner-up. Contestants competed in the tabletop game Diceland, Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, Katamari Damacy, 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, nearly 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.

Other events

On September 16, 2005, Krahulik and Holkins gave a special lecture at MIT.

American Greetings

After a strip titled "Tart as a Double Entendre" featuring character Strawberry Shortcake paddling Plum Pudding was published on April 14 2003, American Greetings sent a cease-and-desist letter to Penny Arcade creators. They chose not to enter into a legal fight over whether or not the strip was a protected form of parody and complied with the cease-and-desist, by replacing it with an image directing their audience to send a letter to a lawyer for American Greetings [88]. However the comic is easily findable with a few well chosen Google search terms (try: penny arcade strawberry).

Jack Thompson

On October 17, 2005 the creators Krahulik and Holkins donated $10,000 to charity in the name of Jack Thompson [89]. The money was promised to be donated to charity by Thompson if a video game was created meeting certain criteria, 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 [90], despite the fact that he had explicitly stated that the offer was genuine in a follow-up interview.

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" [91][92]. 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 claims 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-iterates his claims of "extortion" and accuses Penny Arcade of using "their Internet site and various other means to encourage and solicit criminal harassment". [93] Penny Arcade denies the charge of "extortion", noting that they paid the $10,000 to charity, and are asking nothing in return. [94]

So far Thompson has not clarified what he considers "extortion", but he claims the harassment of him is a direct result of Mike Krahulik's posts, which list links to the Florida Bar Association. Thompson accuses Penny Arcade of soliciting Bar complaints against him, even though Mike 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. [95]

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. [96]

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. [97]

Collected editions

  • Year One: A Penny Arcade Retrospective (Limited Edition) — ISBN 1931195072
  • Year One: A Penny Arcade Retrospective (Soft Cover) — ISBN 1931195110
  • Year One: A Penny Arcade Retrospective (Hard Cover) — ISBN 1931195129
  • Penny Arcade: Volume 1 Attack of the Bacon Robots — ISBN 1593074441

See also

Wikiquote has quotations related to Penny Arcade.
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