The underground and discrete world of webcomics is just beginning to gain mainstream (internet) acceptance. Like blogs and 'funny pics' sites before them, readership is skyrocketing and the most famous of them gain quasi legendary status. And amongst the legendary, are the legendary of legendary. And amongst those, is Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik's penny arcade.
Jerry (alias Tycho Brahe) and Mike (alias Gabe) may very well be the world's currently most famous webcomic artists world wide, and have every right to claim that...right. The PA comic is dedicated almost exclusively to heavy gamers, which pretty much garenties a minimum readership. Okayyy, so nothing new... Except yes! PA was pretty much the first webcomic to come up with the subtle concept of "talk about what they're interested in". Basically every gaming online comic since then can be considered a (pale) imitation of Tycho and Gabe's foundational work.
OK so what's so special about it? Firstly, it's in colour. Quite a relief from your usual eye-strain black and white stuff. Also, absolutely no continuity. Also quite a relief to not have to plow through ten years (yes ten!) of archives to understand why the fuck this is funny. I did it anyways though. The characters cleverly combine child-like innocence and vicious torture, sometimes within a single strip. The creators, in a quite divinity like gesture, often mentor another struggling strip by linking to it, more often than not blowing the mentoree's server to smithereens. Almost as popular as the strip itself is the associated blog, hilarious in it's own right; if you are a professional gamer that is, and know everything about consoles, games, game creators, gaming conventions, anime conventions, current gaming news, current console news etc. Seems there are a lot out there...
Oh and last but not least: Gabe's alter ego in the strip is a cardboard tube wielding samurai. Now who wouldn't want to read a comic in witch cardboard tubes are indiscriminately used as swords?
oao
the cod
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