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Penny Arcade: How Far We Have Come
Kerensky287
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
In viewing today's comic, regarding frustration with inelegant prose, I found myself noticing - as I often do - the usual high quality of the art. It stands out in particular here, with the wide range of emotion evident on each character's face. And that fist in the last panel! Most artists I know are always talking about how hard it is to draw a good hand. That is a good hand.
Now obviously, Krahulik and Holkins have been at this for a very long time. They know their craft, honing it through years of experience to form what some may call the Penny Arcade Empire, that monolithic entity whose influence is evident at all corners of the internet. But were they always destined for greatness? Is it possible, perhaps, that it was already the greatest webcomic known to man from its inception?
The answer, of course, is yes. And in this ongoing series, planned to update once per day for as long as it remains entertaining (to me), I will personally go from the first comic onward, critiquing each individual piece on its own merit, allowing my completely unbiased opinion to reveal the greatness inherent in Penny Arcade from the very beginning.
So without further ado:
Penny Arcade: How Far We Have Come
Issue 1: The SIN Of Long Load Times
The depth contained even in this first page is astounding. On the surface, it appears to be a simple rimshot-worthy gag about a video game with sub-par load times. But as I will explain, there is much more to it than that.
In panel 1, we get our first look at the characters, and in doing so we are rewarded with a stellar amount of information and symbolism. Even the art style tells us useful things about Tycho; the carrot nose and mouth of coal are symbols of the fact that he is the whitest boy we will ever know, white as the proverbial snowman. He will also probably melt if he goes outside during the summer. His right hand is composed of several sausage-like digits of equal length to show that this man, this writer, treats all subjects with the equality and fairness due to them.
Gabe stares stock-still at the computer screen with the unerring focus of Achilles, or perhaps William Tell. The decision is left up to the reader.
Panel 2 goes even further. Visually, we get our first look at Tycho's left hand. It is utterly bereft of fingers. From previous panels (panel, I should say, singular), we know that this is not artistic license; we can assume that he literally does not have any fingers on his left hand. This can be interpreted in many ways, the first of which being that he is a victim of his own craft - whether that craft is video games or the written word, I cannot say. He may also be displaying his devotion to interactive media, having placed a flesh-colored Pac-Man orb over the stump of an amputated limb, rather than the traditional hook of pirates or gun of action heroes.
Below him, Gabe still has not moved, or even changed his expression. He appears to be speaking without moving his mouth, which we can infer to be a result of the "latent pscyhic [sic] ability" he uncovered. This also serves as further elaboration upon Gabe's character - despite having so much time with which to improve himself as he pleased, he saw the development of psychic abilities as higher in priority than practicing his spelling. Gabe is not a thinker, he is a doer.
The third panel reveals a surprise ending. At first glance, one might perceive it to be that Gabe has, in fact, developed telekinesis, but the truth is less obvious, and far more sinister.
Notice that Gabe - or at least, the figure we assumed was Gabe - still has yet to move at all from his original position. It begs the question: are we sure this is really Gabe? In fact, since he has spoken this entire time without moving his mouth, it seems likely that the voice was not originating from him at all. But we'll get to that in a moment.
Look at the arm holding the sweater. Notice how it is far too short, relative to either of Tycho's arms, to be coming from Gabe's shoulder. That leads us to only one possible conclusion: it is coming from the computer screen. We had assumed that Gabe's personality was "metaphorically" absorbed in the wait time, but the truth was far more literal. The Gabe we knew was gone, and all that remained was his shell. His true soul had taken up residence in the load time.
Then it knit a sweater. Think about that for a moment.
Yeah. Deep.
So what we end up with is a symbolic representation of the immersion of video games, and the dangers of losing ourselves in the experience. Before long, our friends will suffer, and none of our attempts at reconciliation will bring their upper torsos back into the panel.
That's all for today! Come back tomorrow for a study of the character of John Romero, as interpreted by the artists Krahulik and Holkins. It is a timeless example of the "villains" of the electronic world, and while Romero himself is scarcely relevant, the same template can be applied to many of today's modern antagonists.
Now obviously, Krahulik and Holkins have been at this for a very long time. They know their craft, honing it through years of experience to form what some may call the Penny Arcade Empire, that monolithic entity whose influence is evident at all corners of the internet. But were they always destined for greatness? Is it possible, perhaps, that it was already the greatest webcomic known to man from its inception?
The answer, of course, is yes. And in this ongoing series, planned to update once per day for as long as it remains entertaining (to me), I will personally go from the first comic onward, critiquing each individual piece on its own merit, allowing my completely unbiased opinion to reveal the greatness inherent in Penny Arcade from the very beginning.
So without further ado:
Penny Arcade: How Far We Have Come
Issue 1: The SIN Of Long Load Times
The depth contained even in this first page is astounding. On the surface, it appears to be a simple rimshot-worthy gag about a video game with sub-par load times. But as I will explain, there is much more to it than that.
In panel 1, we get our first look at the characters, and in doing so we are rewarded with a stellar amount of information and symbolism. Even the art style tells us useful things about Tycho; the carrot nose and mouth of coal are symbols of the fact that he is the whitest boy we will ever know, white as the proverbial snowman. He will also probably melt if he goes outside during the summer. His right hand is composed of several sausage-like digits of equal length to show that this man, this writer, treats all subjects with the equality and fairness due to them.
Gabe stares stock-still at the computer screen with the unerring focus of Achilles, or perhaps William Tell. The decision is left up to the reader.
Panel 2 goes even further. Visually, we get our first look at Tycho's left hand. It is utterly bereft of fingers. From previous panels (panel, I should say, singular), we know that this is not artistic license; we can assume that he literally does not have any fingers on his left hand. This can be interpreted in many ways, the first of which being that he is a victim of his own craft - whether that craft is video games or the written word, I cannot say. He may also be displaying his devotion to interactive media, having placed a flesh-colored Pac-Man orb over the stump of an amputated limb, rather than the traditional hook of pirates or gun of action heroes.
Below him, Gabe still has not moved, or even changed his expression. He appears to be speaking without moving his mouth, which we can infer to be a result of the "latent pscyhic [sic] ability" he uncovered. This also serves as further elaboration upon Gabe's character - despite having so much time with which to improve himself as he pleased, he saw the development of psychic abilities as higher in priority than practicing his spelling. Gabe is not a thinker, he is a doer.
The third panel reveals a surprise ending. At first glance, one might perceive it to be that Gabe has, in fact, developed telekinesis, but the truth is less obvious, and far more sinister.
Notice that Gabe - or at least, the figure we assumed was Gabe - still has yet to move at all from his original position. It begs the question: are we sure this is really Gabe? In fact, since he has spoken this entire time without moving his mouth, it seems likely that the voice was not originating from him at all. But we'll get to that in a moment.
Look at the arm holding the sweater. Notice how it is far too short, relative to either of Tycho's arms, to be coming from Gabe's shoulder. That leads us to only one possible conclusion: it is coming from the computer screen. We had assumed that Gabe's personality was "metaphorically" absorbed in the wait time, but the truth was far more literal. The Gabe we knew was gone, and all that remained was his shell. His true soul had taken up residence in the load time.
Then it knit a sweater. Think about that for a moment.
Yeah. Deep.
So what we end up with is a symbolic representation of the immersion of video games, and the dangers of losing ourselves in the experience. Before long, our friends will suffer, and none of our attempts at reconciliation will bring their upper torsos back into the panel.
That's all for today! Come back tomorrow for a study of the character of John Romero, as interpreted by the artists Krahulik and Holkins. It is a timeless example of the "villains" of the electronic world, and while Romero himself is scarcely relevant, the same template can be applied to many of today's modern antagonists.
Kerensky287 on
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oh god the second ones are nightmare fuel
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
And I think that the Penny Arcade presents for Skyward Sword is my favorite thing that Mike has ever done, although pinning down a favorite piece is an increasingly difficult thing to do over time as he simply goes about his job drawing more and more awesome art.
You were not the first, you will not be the last.
If Gabe knew I was looking through his old art he'd probably telekinesis me to the moon.
Not sure if serious?
I was debating adding a disclaimer in spoilers (ie, "This is a work of sarcasm, and to a lesser extent satire"), but I figured people would get it. D'you think I should remedy that?
I get that same vibe looking at a lot of webcomics in general after seeing the evolution here. If Mike can practically phase out banana hands with practice, then surely you would think Buckley would be able to phase out dolphin hands. Actually, I'm probably giving him waaay too much credit.
Oh okay. It was hard to tell. I don't know man, you're new. New people are sometimes not the brightest of the bunch.
Welcome!
I was really confused for a second.
"Did I black out and post in this thread?"
JordynNolz.com <- All my blogs (Shepard, Wasted, J'onn, DCAU) are here now!
Ah, okay, great. Yeah, sorry, I know how it is with new folk. I've been on a couple of forums in the past, and I made sure to lurk a bit and read the rules before I posted anything.
A disclaimer would probably ruin the joke, but I'd prefer a crappy joke to having people think I was actually the uber-pretentious jerkass critic I was pretending to be. I've got tomorrow's page planned out already and I think it'll be more clear there.
Well....did you?
Secret Satan 2013 Wishlist
Ie. it would be broken down by the natural acidic conditions
http://i.imgur.com/tAcFo.png
http://witnesstheabsurd.tumblr.com/
http://i.imgur.com/OPLlE.png
Commission me at http://tinyurl.com/cv3h2pl
!
possibly already have
Heh, you have no idea what it's like for new folk on here.
But, you will.
Oh yes, you will know.
Elephant Prose
you gave me a nosebleed
Now expecting write ups for each comic on my desk at the end of every day before you logout though.
Well you aren't really making a great argument for the intelligence of established posters here
I only post when black out drunk anymore.
JordynNolz.com <- All my blogs (Shepard, Wasted, J'onn, DCAU) are here now!
Look I made this great picture out of macaroni and my mom said it was awesome okay
Meanwhile regular jackoff posters can often get away with threads with opening posts that basically equate to taking a big shit on this subforms front porch because we all know that by page two we'll all be talking about something completely different.
Issue 2: John Romero - Artiste
To the casual observer, this looks like a strip about a joke about the then-unreleased travesty known as Daikatana. But to us, the critics-in-the-know, there are two very prominent themes that exist throughout the strip: the theme of unfulfilled promises, and the theme of John Romero is a dickmuncher.
First, consider Panel 1. We encounter a near-prophetic bit of symbolism almost immediately. The character's eyes are significantly larger than his mouth. Failed attempt at imitating the oversaturated manga style? No - it is clearly a reference to the colloquial phrase, "one's eyes are bigger than one's stomach," which suggests an overestimation of one's ability (eg. to eat a hamburger the size of the Washington Monument or something). Clearly, Gabe is trying to get across the idea that John Romero has taken on more work than he is capable of performing, and if we interpret the anime schoolgirl-esque triangle smile as part of the imagery, we can interpret it additionally as Romero being ignorant, flirty, and oversexualized about the fact.
On the topic of sexuality, we might also note that the John Romero figure looks shockingly like the Gabe figure drawn with a large brown wig. This is clearly a symbol of gender identity, and when combined with the aforementioned schoolgirl mouth and anime blush, we may infer that John Romero takes on the aspect of the vulnerable schoolgirl in his everyday life. And what is the first and foremost characteristic that anime schoolgirls are known for? An insatiable desire for phallic objects, tentacle-based or otherwise.
Panel 2 yields some intriguing prospects. The most obvious example, of course, is in Romero's right arm. We see two arm segments, one stretching down from the shoulder, and one extending up from off-panel. The idea that they are connected is ludicrous, unless Romero's arm is intended to be broken or disfigured; at any rate, if they were to fully extend, the limb would be Slender Man-esque in its length, which carries a whole new set of potential meanings. But I propose a new idea: what if the two arm segments were never intended to belong to the same person?
John Romero is actually choking someone to death off-panel. Someone who happens to be wearing the exact same kind of shirt. I propose, ladies and gentlemen, that John Romero is intended to be choking a clone of himself. Perhaps not even a clone - perhaps it is his conscience. He is suppressing his own moral fibre in his pursuit of recognition, recognition he knows he does not deserve... because he has not fulfilled his promise.
His left hand seems to consist of two fingers, a thumb, and a vestigial penis attached to the wrist. This is a literal depiction of the phrase "you are what you eat."
The third panel depicts John Romero's desire to stick as many cheap, suspicious weiners in his mouth as possible. But as we can see from the odd angle of the hot dog cart, the street meat is mere moments away from being lost to the vaguely white-and-blue abyss; the umbrella end is being lifted up off its wheels, Mary Poppins style, and we know we may never see it again. The ground, a simple black-to-white gradient, depicts the characters in order of their senses of loss. Tycho, standing in the white, has already tasted the weiners, and he knows that they are far more than they are cracked up to be, yessir. Romero was moments away from weiner-heaven before it was denied him, which explains his spot in the blackened section, but perhaps he got a whiff of the hot dog scent before it was taken away, leaving him with dreams of what it might have tasted like had fate gone another way.
Interestingly, Gabe is even further in the black than Romero. With some thought, a conclusion is evident: not only has Gabe been denied the promise of a hot dog, but Romero is denying him the promise of the game Daikatana should have been. Krahulik's remarkable foresight is evident; while one can smother a hot dog in ketchup to ignore the fact that they are eating processed pig snouts, no mass of condiments will ever allow us to forget our buddy Superfly.
Inelegant = clumsy. No matter how fancified the words are, there's no reason to use a word like "moldywarpe" and expect people to be cool with it. Elegant would mean that it was written cleverly or intelligently, so that a reader wouldn't be as likely to get utterly lost or disgusted.
Elephant Prose totally works though.