Today’s Penny Arcade is a near perfect commentary on the Unity debacle.
Whole comic linked above, but here’s the one-panel that is perfect.
Oh yikes. I mean I agree that the first panel is solid but the other two reminded me why I stopped reading PA. So often the “punch line” is just edgelord violence or insults.
Reminds me of the Hbomberguy video that really dissects “gamer comics”.
The way this CEO operates is absolutely worthy of condemnation and viewing him through the lens of unfeeling cosmic horror is, if anything, a nicer take. But it’s fair to say that people operating at that level of wealth have become detached from and profoundly alien to normal folk.
I don’t think you’re parsing this comic fairly or engaging with its content by labeling it “edgelord violence or insults.”
Pretty much ALL of Hbomb’s substantive examples from the video are from CTRL-ALT-DEL which is like … the worst example imaginable. There’s screenshots of PA’s art, but beyond the one dumb gag about “stake me bro” he never really gets into PA’s writing. ODD, THAT. Because if you actually read Jerry Holkin’s posts, you’ll find a level of writing that puts the lie to the notion that these are idiots making cheap, derivative work. Setting aside the fact that they’ve been doing this so long that they basically defined the genre.
And as an aside, really Harris, web comic artists as targets? You’ve done it, you’ve achieved the epitome of punching down. These and other extremely sane takes from the guy that brought you an almost 2 hour long video on the goddamn Roblox “oof” sound effect.
These and other extremely sane takes from the guy that brought you an almost 2 hour long video on the goddamn Roblox “oof” sound effect.
Or a 3 and a half hour video about how a game is just okay. If you don’t know how to edit down videos to a reasonable length, then you’re just wasting my time.
That’s disingenuous as hell. It’s about the motifs of the genre and what the game was aiming to accomplish after it’s predecessor.
And the Roblox video was only 28ish minutes. The rest of it is on Tommy “my mother’s very proud” Tallarico.
And both deserve the full 3 hours.
They’ve done the cosmic horror joke many times. I found it funny in my 20s.
Gabe’s art has gradually deformed and is just horrible now.
To be fair, that’s not all the strips. That’s the one the OP chose to show.
Like I’d say going through 20-30 strips only 2-3 were like that.
edit: here’s a strip that I thought was pretty decent but isn’t like the one in the OP
https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2023/06/09/conveniente
Well that one made me snicker lol. Maybe I am being too harsh. Idk, I used to read PA daily when I was in high school but at this point a few decades later, it’s just something that I’ve grown out of so it seems pretty juvenile in retrospect.
This might be more of a “me” thing instead of “penny arcade” thing. 🤷
