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Penny Arcade Holiday Strip Series #1

Posted by CmdrTaco on Fri Dec 17, 2004 01:31 PM
from the tis-the-season-to-writhe-and-scream-fa-la-la-la-la dept.
While normally we don't do this sort of thing, recent charity work with Child's Play has substantially increased the bandwidth demands over at Penny Arcade. To assist Gabe & Tycho, and keep their site running slightly faster than a snails-pace, we're co-hosting their seasonal holiday strip series "The Last Christmas". The cover and the first page are attached to this story (future pages in coming days), so read on and enjoy until we hit our bandwidth limits! (Warning: Comic may contain Cthulhu)
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Related Stories

[+] Penny Arcade Holiday Strip Series #2 53 comments
We're happy to bring you more work from Gabe and Tycho, the co-authors of Penny Arcade and organizers of the Child's Play charity. This week the Holiday strip series continues with Page 2 of the story.
[+] Penny Arcade Holiday Strip Series #3 20 comments
We continue today our co-hosting of Penny Arcade's Holiday strip series "The Last Christmas". If you haven't seen the gaping maw of comics 1 or 2, make sure to do that before you check out Gabe and Tycho's latest.
[+] Penny Arcade Holiday Strip Series #4 18 comments
The fourth piece in the Penny Arcade Holiday Strip series is now available, just read below to check it out. Strips 1, 2, and 3 are also very good if you haven't checked them out yet.
[+] Penny Arcade Holiday Strip Series #5 39 comments
Today we run the final strip in the Penny Arcade Christmas series "The Last Christmas". As a last strip, it is preceded by others. Strips 1, 2, 3, and 4, to be precise. Many thanks to Gabe and Tycho for allowing us to share in their Holiday fhtagn.
[+] Penny-Arcade Videogame Announced 129 comments
MaryAlan writes "Penny-Arcade has announced that they're going to be making a game, partnering with Hothead games to create titles featuring the characters of the comic. The games will be released in episodes several times a year, digitally downloaded, and will play on Windows, OS X, and Linux, with an eye on consoles somewhere down the road. The first game is to be called Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness. There's also talk of the possibility they'll be released on Steam." From the Kotaku article: "'We're really excited to be working with Hothead Games on our first electronic adventure,' said writer Jerry 'Tycho' Holkins. 'From the moment we laid eyes on them, it was clear they had the technical and creative chops to execute our grim vision. Now that we have pooled our strengths, our dark work may truly begin.'" Yay! Dark works!
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  • by JJBird (831418) on Friday December 17 2004, @01:33PM (#11118113)
    I'd buy it for my kids.
    • No can do (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 17 2004, @02:19PM (#11118694)
      PA's run afoul of some nasty twit who's locked up the IP rights to their published output, book-wise, a tangle that came from their first book publishing fiasco. It was something that came up during thier /. interview a while back. Damned shame, too...
      • by JabberWokky (19442) <slashdot.com@timewarp.org> on Friday December 17 2004, @03:41PM (#11119574) Homepage Journal
        More like (picture Tycho and Gabe as Peanuts characters):

        Tycho: "I know! Gabe... you can draw, and I can write, and we can make a Christmas webcomic!"

        Gabe: "Yeah! And I have an uncle Taco with a barn! We can host it there!"

        Tycho: "..."

        Gabe: "Did I say barn? I meant penis."

        Gabe: "Website! I meant website!"

        --
        Evan

  • One page? (Score:2, Insightful)

    I'm a little confused. We read this one page at a time? When does the next page come?
    • Re:One page? (Score:3, Informative)

      I guess the next page will be on Monday, assuming PA sticks to their normal schedule (Monday-Wednesday-Friday).
    • Re:One page? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Zonk (12082) on Friday December 17 2004, @01:36PM (#11118173) Homepage Journal
      PA post strips Monday - Wednesday - Friday.

      We'll be hosting them here as well until this series is done, though the rest of the strips will be Games sectional only.
      • Games section only! Oh well, it's not that hard to hit penny-arcade.com and add to the overwhelming amount of bandwidth they go through.
      • According to Tycho's post today, the series will run until Dec. 27. So, you should be able to expect the series to run like this:
        Page 1 - 12/17 (Fri)
        Page 2 - 12/20 (Mon)
        Page 3 - 12/22 (Wed)
        Page 4 - 12/24 (Fri)
        Page 5 - 12/27 (Mon)
        The sad part is that they appear to have abandoned the Sony Style storyline, of which episode 3 should've been up today.
    • When does the next page come?
      Depends on how many days it takes the first one to load.
  • Its slooooooooooow as hell even when hosted on /. ...

    I guess its why Slashdot don't offer to mirror sites they're going to link to on the mainpage.
  • by LiquidCoooled (634315) on Friday December 17 2004, @01:35PM (#11118160) Homepage Journal
    The article is going a little slow, so heres the text:

    Posted by CmdrTaco on Friday December 17, @18:31
    from the tis-the-season-to-writhe-and-scream-fa-la-la-la-la dept.
    While normally we don't do this sort of thing, recent charity work with Child's Play has substantially increased the bandwidth over at Penny Arcade. So to help Gabe & Tycho keep the site running slightly faster than snails-pace, we're helping host their seasonal holiday strip series "The Last Christmas". The cover and the first page are attached to this story, so read on and enjoy until we hit our bandwidth limits! (Warning: Comic may contain Cthulhu)
  • duplicity? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 17 2004, @01:37PM (#11118185)
    So Slashdot will host penny-arcade's strip because of bandwidth concerns, but they won't mirror the websites they hammer into the ground?
    • Yeah that's what I was thinking... Directly linking video files in articles etc.

      I don't see what the difference is about Penny Arcade. I'm kind of guessing /. wants to support them to due the whole charity thing. Just seems odd when surely sites regarding equally respectable things have been /.ed in the past...
    • Re:duplicity? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by calibanDNS (32250) <brad_statonNO@SPAMhotmail.com> on Friday December 17 2004, @02:08PM (#11118570)
      Slashdot could conceivably get into legal trouble by mirroring everything that they link to. If the editors had to take the time to contact content owners before linking, it could significantly slow down the flow of stories on Slashdot. I'm guessing that in this instance, the editors contacted Gabe and Tycho or vice versa and made an agreement to do this.
  • by pla (258480) on Friday December 17 2004, @01:38PM (#11118204) Journal
    Umm... Judging by the time this has taken to load...

    Did we manage to Slashdot Slashdot?

    Freaky!
  • /. fucks up again (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Nine Tenths of The W (829559) on Friday December 17 2004, @01:40PM (#11118228)
    Penny Arcade seems to be down ATM. Could this be because of /. readers seeing the headline and running to it?
    • /. readers seeing the headline and running to [penny arcade]?

      Well, I saw the headline and remembered "oh yeah, it's friday", fired up Safari (I was on firefox for it's adblockedness) and went to my bookmark bar's comix folder and selected "open in tabs", as is my custom.
      That opens all my bookmarked webcomics in tabs, simulteniously, with one click: Very cool.

      So, yes.

      P.S. Safari has much better tab browsing and navigation than other browsers, but they have it deactivated by default. Go figure.

      P.P.S. I l
      • You can do that in Opera.

        P.S. Opera has as good if not better tab browsing than other browsers, and they have it activated by default. Go figure.

        P.P.S. Ever notice that even with The Almighty, there were (at least) four gospels?
  • Um, no strip!

    A little quick on the draw I see?

    Or maybe you hit your limits already? ;)

  • What do we call it when /. actually tries to help alleviate bandwidth shortage?

    todhsalsing?
    • What do we call it when /. actually tries to help alleviate bandwidth shortage?

      The first sign of the Apocalypse.
    • I think it's like the term FUCK it can be used in either a positive or negative way depending on what the words are proceeding it or following it.

      Such as:
      Fuck yeah! (positive)
      Oh Fuck! (negative)

      Therefore we can use the term Slashdotted as follows:
      The site is Slashdotted (negative)
      We Slashdotted the site (positive)

      Or it could just be the end of the world. In either case i'm going to piss myself and curl up into a little ball on the floor.
  • Child's Play (Score:5, Informative)

    by kippy (416183) on Friday December 17 2004, @01:43PM (#11118274)
    Thank God /. gave another plug to Child's Play [childsplaycharity.org]. It's a great cause and if you forgot about it after the initial ./ announcement [slashdot.org], get out there and buy a gift or two for some sick kids who could really use the cheer.

    Time's getting short!
    • I prefer the Toys for Ta-tas being held at a caberet joint in Minneapolis. Bring a toy and get free cover for a night, and an entry into a lottery for a free lapdance. Now THATs Christmas Spirit!

      HO HO HO HO HO!!! (no pun intended)

  • by Suicyco (88284) on Friday December 17 2004, @01:46PM (#11118312) Homepage
    Slashdot is slowly eating itself tail first. This is the end of times, the internet cannot be far behind! I'm going to go grab my wind up radio and get a shotgun.

    Its /.2K

  • Until.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by travdaddy (527149) <(travo) (at) (linuxmail.org)> on Friday December 17 2004, @01:49PM (#11118351)
    enjoy until we hit our bandwidth limits!

    I didn't get to enjoy for very long. stick to text.
  • by Guspaz (556486) on Friday December 17 2004, @01:59PM (#11118471) Homepage
    USE CORAL!

    I mean honestly. Coral is precicesly what this situation was designed for. Penny-Arcade could significantly reduce their bandwidth usage by coralizing the comics. Heck, even Slashdot could get a major speedup on their hosting these christmas pages by using Coral for the links.

    Here are the coralized versions of the Slashdot-hosted images... If a few people request them they should get cached and will load like greased lightning:

    http://66.35.250.242.nyud.net:8090/cover_book.jpg [nyud.net]
    http://66.35.250.242.nyud.net:8090/page_1_book.jpg [nyud.net]
  • by curtisk (191737) on Friday December 17 2004, @01:59PM (#11118475) Homepage Journal
    and faster in Firefox....the more you do it, the faster it loads, kinda warms the bits of data and lowers viscosity.

    The "R" is for "ReallyFastLoad" it a secret feature *shhhhhhhhhh*

  • by Wordsmith (183749) on Friday December 17 2004, @02:07PM (#11118553) Homepage
    It actually loaded faster for me off of the Penny Arcade site than it did off of slashdot.

    I guess slashdot got pennyarcaded.
  • Coralize (Score:5, Informative)

    by Spankophile (78098) on Friday December 17 2004, @02:23PM (#11118747) Homepage
    Why don't more people jump on the Coralize bandwagon? i.e. If they won't mirror, why not "Coralize" the links in the stories?

    Just append .nyud.net:8090 to the domain you're after, and presto, automagic load balancing.

    http://www.scs.cs.nyu.edu/coral/overview/ [nyu.edu]

    for more info.

  • Der Newsposten (Score:5, Informative)

    by mbbac (568880) on Friday December 17 2004, @02:27PM (#11118799)
    How could you guys forget to mirror der newsposten?

    Alright. So, a couple things happened.

    One, the Sony [penny-arcade.com] Syndrome [penny-arcade.com] "story" is probably over. We're fond of this as an ending place for it, but we your comic masters are mercurial and delight in misdirection. One never really knows. We promise nothing, and you should expect nothing. Nothing!

    The second thing is that the Spike event sort of put me off of awards for the time being. Just as a random comment, if your 2004 awards program does not include Metroid Prime 2 or World of Warcraft, it has no authority whatsoever to coronate the king of any genre. I'm not even saying that those games need to win. I'm simply stating that the games exist and are real, news which has not reached them out there on the ragged periphery of taste and intellect. It has been our annual tradition to list the twelve most delicious games of the year here at Penny Arcade, and though the odds of us telling you our favorites are actually quite high doing it the way we've done it for the last few years really sounds awful to me. To both of us, even. So we're not going to do that.

    What we are going to do is present a very short children's book concerning a celestial alignment which awakens the doom that lies dead and dreaming in R'lyeh. The first page [penny-arcade.com] can be found here. Ia! I'm sure you'll agree that this will be a great deal more fun for everyone involved. It goes until the 27th of December, the Monday after next. This is the cover [penny-arcade.com].

    Child's Play: Kiko's Child's Play Shirt [gameskins.com] is, like his other work, a stunning act of design savvy. He still has a few left [gameskins.com] in the run, if you'd like to climb aboard. We're coming up on the end of this year's drive, and I have every faith that when we incorporate the gifts from the partner sites [penny-arcade.com] last year's high score will be defeated, and we will enter our initials.

    Please consider what the games you enjoy could mean to a young person staring down a long-term illness. If you haven't given yet, it's possible you don't know: you're entirely capable of heroism. The barrier to entry is surprisingly low [childsplaycharity.org].

    (CW)TB out.

  • by un1xl0ser (575642) on Friday December 17 2004, @03:03PM (#11119180)
    They sell these at a local RPG store (Zombie Planet in Albany NY). The santa one is perfect for the season.
    Buy plush Cthulhus online. [toyvault.com]

    This link is highly amusing. Tales of the Plush Cthulhu [logicalcreativity.com]

    • Re:uhh (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cot (87677) on Friday December 17 2004, @01:39PM (#11118224)
      It doesn't sound like they're paying for bandwidth with it, it sounds like they drive is causing more bandwidth USAGE that they can't afford.
      • Re:uhh (Score:2, Insightful)

        It doesn't sound like they're paying for bandwidth with it, it sounds like they drive is causing more bandwidth USAGE that they can't afford.

        Yes, that's my point, the way the editors phrased it conveys the exact opposite of what they meant to. Like I said, I don't think PA did anything wrong, I just think the slashdot crew, if they're going to call themselves "editors", should put some actual editorial effort into their work. When you get paid a nice salary to maybe write a few lines a day, at least do
    • I don't think many people will take it the way you suggest. For those not in the know, penny arcade holds a season long charity called "child's play" [childsplaycharity.org] that asks for donations for children's hospitals. This is the second year running for it. Child's play has been receiving much more media attention this year, thus driving up the bandwidth needed by the site.
    • kormoc@kormoc ~ $ whois suprnova.org
      % DOTGOV WHOIS Server ready
      Domain Name: suprnova.org
      Alias: fbi.gov
      Status: Active

      Please be advised that this whois server only contains information pertaining to the .GOV domain. For information for other domains please use the whois server at RS.INTERNIC.NET.

      Uh oh!