Penny Arcade

I’m spending more time on the PC than I have in a very long time, and it’s a policy I can’t help but maintain - my Steam list is full of orders so pre they can’t be loaded in advance, like The Witcher 2, or the second Dragon Age, or Dawn of War II: Retribution, all of which are little more than file paths which redirect to the untamed future.

Gabriel’s PC is, like sixteen million others, essentially a WoW console that he also uses to hammer on the occasional beta.  He’s got a fairly bad-ass major label Laptop, a real battering ram, and when it didn’t run something as he thought it should have he fell ass over teakettle into the darkest corners of the living Internet trying to get his CrossFire configuration spun up properly.  And he did.  Eventually.  Very eventually.

His experience felt so universal to me, both as an enthusiast and in my former life as a techpriest, that it felt like an image (perhaps in the .jpeg format) was in order.  When I hate my machines, I “hate” them with the quotation marks firmly attached.  It’s like fighting with a sibling; we scrap, but our union is in the blood.  This isn’t true for Gabriel, who only started playing games on computers because I made him, and who I suspect may secretly resent me for it.  Not that I could blame him, necessarily.  There are people who wish to invest their leisure time engaged in leisure, not preparing for leisure, or engaging in pre-leisure rituals, or playing with lemurs.  Apparently, I require abuse and leisure in equal measure.

Everybody’s got a thing.

I’m not entirely sure what we’re supposed to think of Sony’s Next Generation Portable, an amazing piece of technology the dimensions of a Subway Club which they are afraid to name or price.  The original PSP was built on incredible technology also, and it too featured major brands; I found it to be a device of almost shocking sophistication.  Indeed, I felt confident that I was manipulating something of historic import when I squoze the various buttons and nudged the nub.  It laid no claim to the future though, even with its famed lineage - those parting mists would belong to Nintendo’s bizarre mutant, which nobody thought would be good for nothing.  And even then, I suppose the PSP is only a “failure” when you compare it to the DS.  Sixty million seems like a lot; if I had sold sixty million of something, I would be very proud.

(CW)TB out.

just a guy made of dots and lines

We’ve got a 4th Panel available for you today, which catalogs the process behind the strip “Teef.”

That is all.

(CW)TB 

For example, collating your feedback thus far, we have arrived at a low-cut, sleek skate-type shoe with a “cupsole” style “outsole.”  The side (or “quarter”) as well as the “heel counter” are broad and available for whatever art or expression we collectively choose.  I am suggesting a single, giant semicolon, but I’m open to suggestions.  Materials for these portions can be combined (with suede, canvas, or leather being the most common).  They’re suggesting no more than three colors for the raw construction.

Where do we go from here?  Let them know sur le Facebook (link on the left), or (as always) at the Official Shoe Contactenmailen.

(CW)TB

It’s true that we have decided to remove the Dickwolves shirt from the store. Some people are happy about this but a lot more of you are upset. You think we’ve caved into to pressure from a vocal minority and you’re not entirely wrong.  let me at least break down why we did it though.

First of all I would never remove the strip or even apologize for the joke. It’s funny and the fact that some people don’t get it, or are offended by it doesn’t change that. People complained about the strip and that’s fine with me, my response as always is “if you don’t like it don’t read it.” It is very easy not to log on to Penny Arcade and read our bullshit. We’ve always made offensive comics and that’s not going to change anytime soon. If jokes about violence,rape,aids,pedophilia,bestiality,drugs,cancer,homosexuality, and religion bother you then I recommend reading a different webcomic.

PAX is a different matter though. We want PAX to be a place were everyone feels welcome and we’ve worked really hard to make that happen. From not allowing booth babes to making sure we have panels that represent all our attendees. When I heard from a few people that the shirt would make them uncomfortable at PAX, that gave me pause. Now whether I think that’s a fair or warranted reaction doesn’t really matter. These were not rants on blogs but personal mails to me from people being very reasonable. It’s how they feel and according to them at least, removing the shirt would make them feel better about attending the show. For me that’s an easy fix to the problem. I really don’t want to have this fight and if not having it is as simple as not selling a shirt then I’ll do it. Contrary to what they might think I’m not a complete asshole.

Now for some people removing the shirt isn’t enough. They don’t want to come to PAX or support PA because of the strip or because they think Tycho and I are perpetuating some kind of rape culture and that’s a different matter. First off it assumes a lot about us that simply isn’t true but more importantly it’s not something I can fix. I’ve gotten a couple messages from people saying they are “conflicted” about coming to PAX. My response to them is: don’t come. Just don’t do it. In fact give me your name and I’ll refund your money if you already bought a ticket. I’ll even put you on a list so that if, in a moment of weakness you try to by a ticket we can cancel the order.

So there you go. It’s not a simple decision. No matter what we do we’ll have people mad at us. If you want to talk more about it we can chat at PAX.

-Gabe out