Randall Munroe has a lot of respect for Penny Arcade, and I just don’t get it. Any time I try to get into the comic, it’s just not funny or insightful. The only Penny Arcade strip I liked was the one about the big xbox remotes. That was funny!
I haven’t read many Penny Arcade strips, because I don’t have fun when I try to do that. So Lemmy, please help Me. Post your favourite Penny Arcade strips and explain what you like about the comic.
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Randall Munroe says many many many very smart things and his opinions should be valued but there is no law saying you need to share ALL of his opinions.
I’m just giving it My final best shot before I definitively declare that I don’t like Penny Arcade. I want to see what all the fuss is about, and then once I understand the fuss, I will see if I like it. And if I don’t like it, then I can deride Penny Arcade and its fans secure in the knowledge I didn’t judge a book by its cover /hj
You don’t have to like everything. PA is so cynical, it’s really not everybody’s style. That said, I really like this one because before Warhammer got popular, this kind of conversation definitely happened among the World of Warcraft communities: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/04/10/i-hope-you-like-text
Tycho’s elitist overreaction is just so classic gatekeeping behavior, especially from that era. To me it’s funny because he’s right, but he’s such an asshole about it, and he doesn’t really teach Gabe anything, just freaks him out.
Hm. I only registered those themes on a subconscious level, and all they got out of Me is a sensible chuckle. I think the joke went on for too long for how good it was.
They’re generally drawing actual conversations that happened between the two authors. They are definitely not for everyone.
Personally the character style drives me crazy. Mike went on some bender about how they weren’t stylized enough after comparing his work to another artist he really liked. Since then I think they look stupid and overly exaggerated.
The (really rod at this point) Penny Arcade The Series gave a lot of insight, and I thought was really interesting. Still not for everyone.
This is the only penny arcade comic I remember, but I liked it.
I tried to use it as a clue and prop in a tabletop RPG once, and one of the players unironically said “I’m not reading all of that”. She was not a great player.
I still like it. Here’s one :
https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2025/09/15/hedge-wizard
And here’s another :
https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/12/12/one-day-in-the-futureThose ones are really good!
I don’t really game, so PA doesn’t usually connect with me.
But “Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory” should be required reading in schools. And I love the original iPod VS cd player comics: “Yeah but the iPod doesn’t skip!” “Neither does my cd player, it’s cushioned by about $280 in cash!” (paraphrased)
Edit - I often find myself thinking, “I don’t know what to do with that information” pretty frequently, but I rarely can say it out loud.
Most of them, I just have no idea what they are talking about, so I don’t read it regularly.
Greater internet fuckwad theory is pretty good, I gotta hand it to them on that
Shitcock!
Penny Arcade was one of his contemporaries in the early webcomic space. It may simply be nostalgic to him.
Personally I find Penny Arcade distasteful but it’s hard to ignore how much that IP helped grow the webcomics industry.
If you don’t like it, you don’t like it. Why spend time/effort on something that isn’t speaking to you?
Also, Randall Munroe is xkcd, not Penny Arcade. Penny Arcade is made by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik.
Thank you! I was briefly thinking that Randall had some weird secret double life I’d missed out on for more than two decades!
“Popular web cartoonist has secret double life as popular web cartoonist.”
Exactly!
Entertainment is as personal as beauty or humor. Also, be your own person and stop copying other successful people. Find your own way or you will risk living in regret for things you will never have.
I’ve found My own way. I seriously looked at the best that Penny Arcade had to offer, and now I can honestly say that I like Ctrl-Alt-Del better than Penny Arcade.
This is such an odd thing to ask.
There are literally thousands of web comics out there. Not every one will hit the same for all people.This is like saying, “Hey, I don’t like the taste of anchovies. Help me to like them.” To what end? If you don’t like something, don’t like it and move on.
I agree with the other comments here saying the comic just might not be your cup of tea, which is totally fine.
But since you’re asking for people to share their favorites, I’ll share some of mine here. I think it’s a fun comic, but they’ve also been making comics consistently since 1998 and they can’t all be zingers. Most of my favorites tend to be on the absurd side, leaning on the characters’ respective weird idiosyncrasies or their #relatable moments with getting older and having kids.
- https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/03/26/space-is-still-the-place
- https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/04/10/i-hope-you-like-text
- https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/01/02/side-effects-may-include
- https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2016/02/08/decrepitude
- https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2017/08/02/the-age-of-gabriel
- https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/04/11/he-who-fights-with-nerds
- https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2017/07/31/the-seventh-axis
- https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2015/12/18/i-am-not-your-father
- https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/10/06/behold
- https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/11/25/retales-part-one
- https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/05/26/the-unhorse
I’ll probably edit this comment to add more later cause I know I’m forgetting some bangers.
Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about!
…
Well, I like some of these.
I think I’m starting to understand. This is PizzaCake for men, right?
I can’t agree with the description “PizzaCake for men”. I read PizzaCake as well and the similarities to Penny Arcade are surface level at best. The comics about parenting are similar insofar as many comics about parenting are relaying an experience that many people can relate to, but outside of that, I would say Penny Arcade’s comedic range is far broader than PizzaCake’s. And I don’t mean that as an insult to PizzaCake; PizzaCake just tends to focus primarily on parenting and politics while Penny Arcade covers a much wider berth of topics (in addition to just having many comics be glorified shitposts carried by erudite prose).
Frankly, my biggest criticism of PizzaCake is that when they do choose to make political comics, they’re typically really unfunny. They’re just blunt statements about Republicans being stupid/evil/hypocrites/etc with no real setup or punchline. I enjoy bashing conservatives as much as the next guy, but I can’t consider PizzaCake’s political comics to be funny or insightful. They’re mostly just variations on this:
I used to enjoy Penny Arcade when I was younger and much more into the game space. I still have a couple of Penny Arcade t-shirts in the rotation which have got to be over twenty years old by now!
Back then there was lots going on - starting the Child’s Play charity, starting PAX, the whole Jack Thompson saga. Also I got the gaming references in a way that I no longer do…
I dip into the strip now and then, but don’t follow it like I used to. The art has gotten really good now, but I do miss the 2005 style.
I read Penny Arcade until around the mid 2000s or so when the art had a weird style change that I didn’t like.
It was the mid-2010s that he transitioned to the weird style
Same.
I think they’ve got low to medium tier jokes, but with excellent pacing and timing and without any fear of going into fantasy space. They kinda keep you hoping for a much funnier one, but yeah, they’re not knee-slappers.
This one is decent and pretty typical: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/09/09/home-city-usa
Yeah, start from þe beginning. It went downhill, but frankly, how could it not? It’s, what, 20 years old? A lot of it was topical, but still could be funny.
I want to help you but I don’t know how. I’m at a bit of a loss. :-D
That’s ctrl Alt delete dumas
Oh yeah. The early 00’s are still a blur.
Penny Arcade was popular enough that Tyco from the comic got a cameo as a character in one of the Poker Night at the Inventory games, the first one. I never really liked him and found everything he says cringe-inducing.
And popular enough to launch PAX the gaming convention that ended to growing into multiple events a year around the world.
I remember when Robert joined the team. If I recall he’d just graduated from business school and worked for nothing up front to build the brand. The boys were funny but had made a lot of terrible business decisions and needed someone like him to run the business side.
