If you (A) play videogames and (B) spend any amount of time whatsoever on the internet, you’re likely a fan of Penny Arcade, the excellent, ridiculously popular web comic by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik. Penny Arcade usually focuses on gaming-related humor, but for the past few days, they’ve been trying something a bit different. On Wednesday, Holkins wrote:
Beginning today, projecting through Friday and culminating on Monday, we will offer you one page “treatments” of three comics which differ radically from our usual output. Next week, we’ll get a poll up to determine which one you’d like to see us investigate further. Then, later this summer—during the San Diego Comic Con would be my guess—we’ll upload a storyline based on what the metamind has chosen.
Their first “treatment” was for Lookouts, a comic about a troop of boy scouts with a vaguely Aragorn-like leader. I’m not sure why, exactly—I can’t quite pinpoint its immense appeal—but this thing just feels right, and unexpectedly resonant. I found myself enjoying it immensely—I reread it three times, wanting more.
Today’s effort is Automata, a sci-fi noir that’s very nearly as good as Lookouts. Monday will bring their final new effort; based on the two they’ve already done, it’s safe to say that I’m pretty excited to see what they’ll come up with.
Every time that I think Gabe and Tycho have hit the apex of their game they just downshift and blow me away.
I thought that the last Cardboard Tube Samurai was the best they’d ever done. Then they just decide to hit two back-to-back home runs. It’s kinda unfair to most other webcomics.
Automata looks amazing. Had me on board with just the look of that first panel.
Automata looks amazing. Had me on board with just that first panel.