Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 12:00 am
I kind of like their less-gaming-punchline comics more. Game punchlines are too dime-a-dozen and "HEARD IT BEFORE" on most their comics since I read forums all day.
RANT MODE, ENGAGE:
I'm a pretty vulgar person. I was raised in a household where profanity was a means of augmenting speech, or stalling, much the way people say "Umm.." when they're thinking, I say something like, "Fucking, you know..." People who spend a lot of time around me or my family dont actually really notice, and I dont really notice when other people curse. So thats never really effected me in terms of Penny-Arcade and its punchlines. I can see how the vulgarity and profanity can be off putting, and sometimes seem entirely superfluous, but I think its worth actually investigating, and trying to get past that. Often there are little gems hidden away (The comic about Mega Man 9, for example, very much mirrored my roommate and mines reaction to the game) that you would simply miss because of a presumption that vulgarity and profanity preclude legitimate discussion or humor at more than a base level.
Example: Some people LOATHE Kevin Smith movies because of the incredible excess of profanity and vulgarity, and because of that they miss some quite well put together screenplays and realistic characters. The idea in Clerks that you shouldn't dwell on who your significant other was before you met, because not just everyone cares enough to bring you lasagna when you're having a shitty day. Or in Dogma that religious institutions are often so flawed and divisive that people can't grasp an essential message thats buried under heaps of useless doctrine. Or in Chasing Amy that insecurity can be the root of so much disaster in a relationship. These things are buried under heaps of profanity, more than many people can stomach, but there are legitimate things there. Critically acclaimed things, even. And I think its a mistake to miss that because of a aversion to vulgarity.
That said, having attended PAX 4 times now, and having been reading Penny-Arcade (and the accompanying posts) since late 1999, I can say that Gabe and Tycho have some of the most well formed and fair judgements about video games and the video game world. Often their comic strips are a more extreme take on a game, but they come backed with a news posting that often explains a deeper opinion than can be portrayed in 3 panels, and Tycho has come to be one of my favorite writers on the internet in the form of his news posts. Additionally, despite vulgarity, annual "Dickerdoodle" competitions, jokes about ravenous, raping, Dickwolves, and all that other divisive material, few in the gaming community have actually done more to give back to children then they have, in the manner I would prefer, video games. They may have a somewhat base sense of humor, and their speech may not always be flawless and fiercely intellectual, but they are the most reliable web comic there is, and have been for over 10 years, and they've shown themselves to be just in dealing out reviews and advertisements, when so many other online video game institutions have failed. They have a phallic obsession, certainly, but I think that being bothered by that and being put off of their comics is a mistake.
RANT MODE, DISENGAGE
That said, I need to level up my character before I take this bag full of shitty beer to play D&D.