By Jerry Holkins and Mike KrahulikSurrealistic funny, snobbishly self referential (but not as bad as it is now) and wrong for all the right reasons, Penny Arcade has been entertaining ‘The living in their parent’s basement’ gamer masses since the year 2000 and this collection of comic strips is their first foray into the world of Web. The strip deals with gamer room-mate friends Tycho and Gabe as they go through their daily life of summoning the devil, fellating the dreamcast and being frightened by bears. There aren’t many laughs out loud strips on display here but the eggs of the insanity that was yet to come are being nestled in your lower intestine. It wasn’t until 2003 (Book 3: The War Sun Chronicles) that the creature reached full strength and burst through your ribcage and ate your eyes. It was then they reached a nice balance between making gaming references and flat out weirdness.
The real question here is ‘Why the hell would I spend my money on something I could get free on the internet?” The answer: BECAUSE I SAID SO! Or if I’m in more polite company, because each strip has its own commentary on its inception and is usually funnier than the strip itself. Jerry Holkins (Tycho) is very talented writer when he sets his mind to it and he’s on his A-Game the whole way through. It’s designed for maximum rip-off value (I don’t want pages and pages of pin-ups. Choke on them instead) but at 11 dollars from most comic shops you can’t go wrong if you must have a physical copy in case the internet disappears and the world markets collapses. We could all be cannibalistic roamers in a post-apocalyptic desert wasteland but you’d have the advantage because you know jokes about Tribes 2!
Or you could borrow my copy.
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