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Whatever Happened to Penny Arcade?
- Thread starter Bilix
- Start date
Diprosalic
Banned
True, i remember seeing a comic from them posted for every big gaming news.
talkingood
Member
Wow, different strokes I guess, but this looks rough to me. Weird "cut-out" effect, smudgy lighting brushes over the linework, very static expressions which call to mind "Family Guy", the whole thing is just rough. I feel like he's improved a bunch.
Actual play podcasts/videos. I think the most recent stuff is the Acquisitions Incorporated series but they originally started as official D&D podcasts and then live games they played at various PAXes.
Tizoc
Member
You must not have been reading good Webcomics methinks, there are dozens of good ones, but I will say that staying up to date with them is the biggest issue with them.
In my case, I need to catch up to Unsounded, I think the plot is nearing the end and I've been away from it for a year now so there ought to be much covered by now.
Definitely the art style.
When the noses started to get shaped like beaks being pointy and red I started to lose interest. Looking at it now it feels like things are slowly getting more exaggerated in a way, but hey if the artist is happy with it so be it.
But it killed my desire to read these.
When the noses started to get shaped like beaks being pointy and red I started to lose interest. Looking at it now it feels like things are slowly getting more exaggerated in a way, but hey if the artist is happy with it so be it.
But it killed my desire to read these.
poppedcollar69
Member
im ashamed that i used to like it
I had to make sure that wasn't an edit.
What the hell happened to these?! They used to be horrible and fun to dissect. Now... this mess?
CharminUltra
Member
My two reasons:
1. Not a fan of their more recent art style (and by recent I mean the last 4 or 5 years.)
2. I just don't find it funny anymore. I dunno if I changed or they changed, but I think the comic just isn't that funny anymore.
I used to love them back in the "I smolder with generic rage" days, though.
1. Not a fan of their more recent art style (and by recent I mean the last 4 or 5 years.)
2. I just don't find it funny anymore. I dunno if I changed or they changed, but I think the comic just isn't that funny anymore.
I used to love them back in the "I smolder with generic rage" days, though.
I didn't know what people meant until I saw the comic posted from this year. Because it doesn't look as was ass as when they first started doesn't mean it doesn't look like ass at all now. Their new style is pretty bad.
AlphaTwo00
Member
Yup. And Khoo really was the glue that held the operation together. Things were going really south before his time.
DeviantBoi
Member
I was a huge fan of theirs for a couple of years, but then I stopped caring for them. I don't think I've visited their site for months now. I used to have it bookmarked, but I deleted it.
Reasons?
I know one of them has said some fucked up things on several occasions. That certainly was a reason.
Also, I have felt that they are biased against some of the stuff that I like. Why visit them if they're just gonna insult stuff that I enjoy (and not even in a funny way).
Reasons?
I know one of them has said some fucked up things on several occasions. That certainly was a reason.
Also, I have felt that they are biased against some of the stuff that I like. Why visit them if they're just gonna insult stuff that I enjoy (and not even in a funny way).
I can't speak for perception/relevance of PA as a whole, but for me personally (like several other people in this thread) they pretty much lost me at dickwolves.
I still go take a look every once in a while, but I generally don't find it funny in the same way I used to. Maybe it's me, maybe it's them; it's probably a combination of both. In general though, any comic strip that needs multiple paragraphs of an accompanying news post to explain the joke is not doing what it's supposed to.
Also not a fan of the most recent art style. Middle period was the sweet spot for me.
I still go take a look every once in a while, but I generally don't find it funny in the same way I used to. Maybe it's me, maybe it's them; it's probably a combination of both. In general though, any comic strip that needs multiple paragraphs of an accompanying news post to explain the joke is not doing what it's supposed to.
Also not a fan of the most recent art style. Middle period was the sweet spot for me.
The Iron Yuppie
Member
They became fathers. Hard to be internet edgelords when loving children sand off those edges.
Many people's concept of a webcomic is "assorted gags about video games", and that style of webcomic has fallen out of popularity. Two gamers on a couch doesn't cut it anymore.
I largely outgrew it. I don't keep up with the minutiae of games enough anymore to "get" most comics without googling, and I don't find gaming webcomics as entertaining as I used to in general.
The worst people on a forum I've ever been to. I pitied most of them at first, and then when I saw how they turned their anger and frustration outwards I just left.
The worst people on a forum I've ever been to. I pitied most of them at first, and then when I saw how they turned their anger and frustration outwards I just left.
There was a turning point, probably like six or seven years ago now, where the focus of PA stopped being the comic and became about PAX entirely.
Watch the Penny Arcade reality show. It pretty clearly shows that the comic has become something that Mike and Jerry rush out during their lunch break so they can get back to ping pong and office pranks. Their heart isn't it in anymore because it's no longer their main source of income, and it shows in their work.
Watch the Penny Arcade reality show. It pretty clearly shows that the comic has become something that Mike and Jerry rush out during their lunch break so they can get back to ping pong and office pranks. Their heart isn't it in anymore because it's no longer their main source of income, and it shows in their work.
They're still around and still very popular, especially PAX, but their time in the sun is over. I don't think it has anything to do with their controversies, it's just that controversy no longer gets them the massive amounts of attention and goodwill like in the past. It doesn't help that the strip is more miss than hit these days. I still check em out fairly often though.
Human Trashcan
Banned
You know what they say: tone comes from the top. So that sounds about right.
I love Awkward Zombie. Only webcomic I read.
polyh3dron
Banned
I found their Wonder Boy strip to be hilarious, but that's just me, I guess.
It's definitely an apt comparison. The thing is, most comics that are based around comedy struggle to stay funny after 10 years, much less 20 - just as most comedies on TV struggle stay consistently funny after just five years. I highly recommend folks watch the documentary "Stripped", it's mostly about newspaper strips but it goes into web-comics as well. One commonality amongst the creators is that when you're strip becomes long in the tooth, it can be very, very difficult and tiring to come up with a genuinely hilarious, fresh joke 3-5 times a week.
And with Penny Arcade, you pile on top of that the fact that it's grown into an entire multi-media empire, which means Mike and Jerry have about six thousand other things they're constantly working on outside of the actual comic.
But losing it's edge is not exclusive to Penny Arcade by any stretch. Like, Foxtrot is one of my favorite comic strips of all time, and it's been going nearly 30 years now. Do I think it's as funny now as I did when I was a teenager? Hell no - nor would I expect it to be.
plagiarize
Banned
I turned my back on PA when they killed the community threads. Splintered off with a bunch of the people who used to populate the Xbox 360 community thread. That forum eventually died and I washed ashore here. Haven't left.
The quality declined (and tbh, was never that great to begin with)
Here is the most recent strip. You may notice there's no actual punchline.
Yikes
I haven't really followed Penny Arcade in about 10-12 years. They were funny when the PS2 was still considered a current-gen console, though.
The PA forums were great, once upon a time, back before they switched to Vanilla forums. I spent years there. After the switch though, there was a mass exodus and now all that remains is a smallish core group of people that can be very insular from time to time. I honestly don't think gaf is any better and is often times much worse but I've mostly switched from PA to gaf for the community size alone.
Hello? This is Hailun!
Member
Garbage people, generally. I still have an account but don't post. The forum admin once made a promise to donate to Child's Play if the forum met some goal and then he backed out of it. Banned a bunch of people who called him out on it.
The new art style reminds me of Toby from Unico.
TheBryanJZX90
Member
I like the art style a lot, I just haven't found the comic funny in years so I stopped reading.
Yeah, this is the large issue. Most of the moderators are names I recognize has having been posters there since 2005 or earlier. It's super insular. They will seriously push away newcomers for not getting injokes that come from an old game thread that isn't even in the forum database anymore.
Honestly? They got old. You start a webcomic in your early 20s and by the time you're in your 40s? The well is dry. How many video game three-panel punchlines can you churn out before you run out of material?
They're doing a million other things now. The comic is mostly vestigial.
They're doing a million other things now. The comic is mostly vestigial.
AlphaTwo00
Member
Oh 360arcadians are gone? Haven't kept up, didn't know. I drifted elsewhere as well at that time.
I feel bad that I read enough Mega Tokyo to recognize the characters in that image above.
It was either a bunch of video game comics or geeky ones and I agree it became too much of a chore to keep up with. GPF was probably my favorite of the period because of the involved story lines that sprung up from its very meager beginnings. I know the guy still updates it too and the art has remained relatively consistent throughout, but there's just too much going on that catching up would take far too long than I'd want to invest.
It was either a bunch of video game comics or geeky ones and I agree it became too much of a chore to keep up with. GPF was probably my favorite of the period because of the involved story lines that sprung up from its very meager beginnings. I know the guy still updates it too and the art has remained relatively consistent throughout, but there's just too much going on that catching up would take far too long than I'd want to invest.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
What a drag it is getting old
"Kids are different today, "
I hear ev'ry mother say
Mother needs something today to calm her down
And though she's not really ill
There's a little yellow pill
She goes running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
And it helps her on her way, gets her through her busy day
"Kids are different today, "
I hear ev'ry mother say
Mother needs something today to calm her down
And though she's not really ill
There's a little yellow pill
She goes running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
And it helps her on her way, gets her through her busy day
Mossybrew
Banned
I think it's kinda cool to have followed them for so long that now they're playing games with their kids. I still enjoy their viewpoints and news posts, I check the site three times a week, an old habit. I'd agree the strip itself probably isn't as funny as it used to be, but it's always at least worth checking out IMO.
GuitarAtomik
Member
I understand not being a fan of the new art style, but it's not "bad". It's just different.
More or less my take on it. I just dropped out of the habit. I don't really follow any web comics nowadays though.
Case in point. I'm not a fan of this style at all. It's very stiff and sterile.
More or less my take on it. I just dropped out of the habit. I don't really follow any web comics nowadays though.
Yeah. It used to be a really open and welcoming place with reasonable mods. I still miss the old PA forums.
Charles Brandon
Member
I really don't like how different they look IRL compared to the characters in the strip. I know that's stupid, and it shouldn't bother me.
But it does.
Other than that I still read occasionally. Never visited the forums, have no idea about their political views or whatever. don't care either.
But it does.
Other than that I still read occasionally. Never visited the forums, have no idea about their political views or whatever. don't care either.
It originally wasn't censored either.
They're still pretty great and their empire is as big as ever. They're busy running multiple conventions, making board games, doing streams of games, hosting other comics, and so on. They've become a lot more than just their strip and Tycho's news posts.
Also, this thread is funny, especially the art criticisms, considering a recent comic they did:
Need one of these with the in-between artstyle (~2015?) making fun of the current one.
Yeah. I also used to read Brawl in the Family before it officially finished.
ZombiePlatypus
Member
Dreamwriter
Member
The quality declined (and tbh, was never that great to begin with)
Here is the most recent strip. You may notice there's no actual punchline.
Not all of their comics are the classic 2-panel setup for a third panel punchline. The "punch" is the absurdity of the mixing of Bulletstorm and What Remains of Edith Finch, and the comparing of peanut butter cups to grapefruit juice and alligator dicks.
It's pretty clear that they're focused on all the non-comic stuff they do these days - PAX, podcasts, D&D, Child's Play, etc. Couple that with the fact they're getting older and raising kids and they've grown away from the "mainstream" of gaming culture when it comes to their comics. To each their own.
I don't really hold any ill will against them. They've said some pretty dumb stuff over the years but I get the impression they're trying to learn about the things they've screwed up on - or at least learn what they don't know enough about to talk about.
I don't really hold any ill will against them. They've said some pretty dumb stuff over the years but I get the impression they're trying to learn about the things they've screwed up on - or at least learn what they don't know enough about to talk about.
I feel like an old man thinking of all these old webcomics because of this thread. I miss 'em! Not any of the drama around them, but the comics themselves haha. I loved A Modest Destiny and Ctrl Alt Del especially. Haven't read CAD in years after the change in direction.8 Bit Theater, VGCats... fun stuff.
Her life life ticks away on the grandfather clock
And the hand on it looks like an alligator cock
lol.