Tycho and Gabe Respond to Your Questions

We passed on your questions to Tycho and Gabe of Penny Arcade a while back, and today we have their answers. Tycho primarily answered the questions with consultation from Gabe and discusses the PA comic creation process, their views on the industry, and the possibility of an animated Penny Arcade venture. As usual, they do so with wit and verve: "I am not an industry analyst, so I dont feel like I'm qualified to talk about ebb and flow of hojillion dollar industries. However, it is easy to imagine a universe where small developers don't huddle in blasted out wreckage, waiting to be vivisected by the the next wave of EA Scion-class sawbots." Read on to check out their responses.

1.) Tools by cbrocious

My question is very simple: What tools do you use (both physical and digital) to create your comics?

I'm a long-time reader and have always wondered :)

Tycho:
He uses a pencil and paper for starters, and once he's scanned that in he does all the finishing work with Photoshop 6.1 and a massive 12x24 Wacom Intuos.

2.) Your Job by JediLuke

How much of your personal life does Penny-Arcade consume? On that note, great job, I love your strip.

Tycho:
Thank you for saying so. It is hard to know, actually, where to draw the line between our personal lives and Penny Arcade. The scripts come from our normal conversations. You knew almost to the moment when Gabriel was born. The site is virtually our diary, so I'm hard pressed to determine what corner of my life it hasn't yet been dominated by.

3.) First gaming webcomic by genessy

Was Penny Arcade the first, regularly produced gaming webcomic? I read approximately 20 webcomics on a daily basis, and many of them are dedicated to gaming humor or frustration. Were you guys the first, and if so or if not, who or what inspired you?

Tycho:
No, I don't believe so - in terms of a gaming focus, that honor goes to Scott Kurtz of PvP, by five or so months. We didn't know about him when we started, but we did know about Iliad from User Friendly who covered games from time to time, typically Quake. As for inspiration, we've always made little comics, but never considered doing them in strip form until we entered an online contest that Next Generation Online (now defunct) was holding. I can honestly say that if we had not entered that contest, there would be no Penny Arcade. It never would have occurred to us.

4.) Question Two by dgrgich

A question for both of you: Name the console and three of its games that you would take to that mythical desert isle.

Tycho:
Gabe suggests that a Playstation2 would suffice, with Disgaea, Phantom Brave, and Rez. If he had Internet access, and I submitted that this island might have some kind of satellite uplink, he would gladly bring along an Xbox, with the local staples Halo 2, Pandora Tomorrow, and Links for good measure.

Consoles are, in general terms, not my bag. I have come to enjoy them but they are not my preference, but I will answer the spirit of your question. It is clear to me that I would bring along a custom PC, with System Shock 2, Missionforce: Cyberstorm, and (this is a recent addition) World of Warcraft. That is, of course, provided their game begins to work properly.

5.) Gabe and Tycho: by mcc

Just curious: Are there any webcomics you read?

Tycho:
Sure. Gabe reads Kazu's Copper, Machall, and PvP regularly. I cast a fairly wide net, but the strips I read whenever they are updated include Boy On A Stick And Slither (which I crave beyond reason), PvP, Shaw Island, 8-bit Theatre, Machall, Wigu, Deisel Sweeties, Creatures In My Head, Scary Go Round, Exploding Dog, Goats, Ctrl-Alt-Del, and VGCats.

6.) Domesitification ... by SuperRob

Jerry's bought a house, Mike's had a baby boy. How has becoming bona-fide adults changed your lives, and do you find your priorities changing away from drawing comics and playing games.

Bonus Question: What advice would you give to geeks looking to in some way ensare geek grrls?

Tycho:
We are lucky enough to have really unorthodox jobs. Drawing comics and playing videogames is what we do for a living. It is an odd loophole, I admit, but if I don't play Half-Life 2 or whatever I'm actually slacking off.

As regards the laydays, Gabriel suggests the most important thing is that you simply be yourself, unless you are poor. Then, try to be someone who is richer and better looking, because you are kind of ugly. I am only only speaking for myself, but I have had good success with traps.

7.) Halo and Bungie by SilentChris

You guys absolutely roasted the original Halo, then gradually grew to like it. You've said you've met with Bungie since then. Were the meetings amicable?

Tycho:
It's important to note that what we came to like was the multiplayer mode, and the console LAN party culture it fostered, but yes - we did come around. As for the guys at Bungie, they have never been anything but nice to us, which always makes me feel bad.

8.) Collaboration... by kayser_soze

How far does the collaboration between you two go?

Does Tycho usually come up with the text/idea for the comic, then Gabe does the art as a separate process or is it more of a collaborative venture?

Tycho:
It's the collaborative venture you suggested there at the end, for the comic at least. They are written first, in a tag-team manner suggestive of the WWE, and then the art is created. For longer form projects, the full page stuff we've done for PA Presents, I handle the writing itself almost completely - but that's only after we've both come up with what happens on a page, and he has given me a light sketch of the events we've agreed on for me to write to.

9.) Rise of the Megapublishers by CarrionBird

Do you think that the industry is doomed to be under the thumb of less than a handful of publishers, buying up every promising studio?(and keeping the cost of promotion so high that small guys could never keep up)

Or is there a chance for a new wave if independent developers breaking free from the EAs of the world?

Tycho:
I am not an industry analyst, so I dont feel like I'm qualified to talk about ebb and flow of hojillion dollar industries. However, it is easy to imagine a universe where small developers don't huddle in blasted out wreckage, waiting to be vivisected by the the next wave of EA Scion-class sawbots. None what I'm about to say applies to closed platforms, consoles and so forth, where the relationship between the developer, the product, and the platform locked to varying degrees.

If you are not already familiar with Garage Games, Totalgaming.net, and of course Valve's Steam, I can understand why you might feel dread. As for the costs of promotion, I'm confident that community sites like this one can recognize quality and deliver shrewd gamers unto products missed by larger sites or publications. I'm very curious to see if, for example, the Steam platform gives rise to a number of retail quality mods for cheap. We'll see how it goes.

10.) Favourite comic? by ecliptik

Out of all the comics you've done, which one is your all time top favourite, and why?

Tycho:
Gabriel has suggested to me that his current favorite is Mr. Period Returns, where Mr. Period and his Bad Boys of Punctuation resolve issues in a collected, helpful manner. It often changes for me, typically I say Red and Blue in: We Deliver to deflect the question. Honestly, I just went into the archives looking for my favorite comic and I was stuck there for like forty-five minutes. The last strip we did is usually our favorite one.

11.) Life outside of games by hng_rval

How do you spend your free time outside of gaming?

Tycho:
I guess we don't understand the question.

And on that note, what do you and your spouses do for fun (outside of the apartment)?

Tycho:
Gabe and Kara don't really leave the apartment. They do escape from time to time to see a movie, but he just suggested that a fire might also make them leave. I typically accompany Brenna to interesting cultural events, like shows and plays, that are very interesting and cultural.

12.) Do you feel the pressure to self-censor? by Drunken_Jackass

As you get older and as PA's popularity increases to more of a mainstream level (thanks to the great job you did on last year's Childplay), are you starting to feel the pressures of self-censorship? I mean, how many news anchors could reference the good work you do with Childsplay without giving a Within that site, there be fruitfuckers warning?

Are you becoming too popular to maintain your riske side?

Tycho:
Not censoring ourselves is what made us popular, so locking up our most depraved ideas hardly seems like a recipe for success. The question itself implies that we are monitoring some kind of meter that determines how mainstream we have become, and can altering the mix of ideas to match our audience. You're giving us way too much credit.

The Child's Play thing is an issue, though it's more an issue for Child's Play itself than it is for Penny Arcade. I think about this a lot. Is it proper that a site like Penny Arcade should host or operate a charitable organization? I'll tell you where the thinking usually leads me: Maybe not, but that doesn't absolve us of our social responsibility.

13.) Difficulty of making a living via online comics? by Zeddicus_Z

Guys,

At the last SAGE-AU [sage-au.org.au] conference in Brisbane we had J.D. Frazer (Illiad) as guest of honor.

At dinner J.D. spoke of the difficulties he faced in the early years attempting to make a living from comics - the insanely difficult process of being sydicated into newspapers, working out a revenue model for a web-based comic when he realised syndication was too restrictive, and generally attempting to make a living doing something he loved.

With PA and UF being roughly as popular as each other these days and thus (hopefully!) both providing decent incomes, I'd like to hear how you guys coped with the early years and how you faced some of what seem to be the common difficulties such as the syndication process, creating a viable revenue model and dealing with early set backs.

Tycho:
Well, we walked different paths somewhat, and that should be firmly delineated. One of the few things we have in common with J.D. is that we both upload images to webservers. Gabe and I have never sought syndication as an end or a means to it. Don't forget that Illiad also made Userfriendly a public company at one point - try to imagine buying stock in Penny Arcade. The mind reels.

The main thing we share, and this is something that we have in common with all cartoonists making a living on the web, is that we keep at it until we find something that works, and when that stops working - and it will - we try something else. We don't confuse that business model with our creative work, imagining that its failure has revealed some desperate flaw in ourselves.

Over the course of six years, we have cycled through nearly every sequence the tumbler can produce. The first year and a half, we worked regular jobs until it could support one, and then both of us. We've done advertising, outside projects, joined a content aggregator for a percentage of the revenue, supported the site solely on donations, eventually moved to the quid pro quo, donations-for-gifts method that is fairly commonplace now, went hybrid with donation gifts and very limited advertising (no more than two per month), and finally stabilized on advertising alone. We've gone back and forth from doing our own merchandise to having someone else do it a two or three times, trying to find the right balance.

14.) Strawberry Shortcake by Anonymous Coward

A little while back, PA had a run-in with American Greetings over the use of the copyrighted and trademarked likeness of Strawberry Shortcake in what was obviously a (protected) work of parody.

American Greetings got called Nazis, but American McGee's Strawberry Shortcake is still missing from the PA archives.

What are the reprecussions of the Strawberry Shortcake debacle? If you had it to do over again, either the strip, or your interactions with American Greetings, would you have done anything different?

Tycho:
I think we made the best decision that we could have, and in retrospect I haven't gained any wisdom on the subject that leads me to believe we erred in judgement. We got the best advice we could from places like the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, and the final analysis was that we weren't absolutely, one-hundred percent in the right. We could have been a good deal more feisty legally, but we're still in court over something that happened five years ago and I think we were hesitant to open up another front when the first one was already as much as we could afford.

I think I would be much more unhappy about the situation if people didn't have access to the comic, if they wanted to find it - it's not difficult to type strawberry shortcake penny arcade and have it revealed in all its sensual splendor. In fact, and I think I've said as much, I almost prefer that there is this hole in the archive where a comic should be. If the strip was just there, I think it would have been forgotten by now - you wouldn't be asking me about it. As it stands, virtually every time I'm asked to speak to people the Strawberry Shortcake Issue comes up, which keeps the notion that corporations overreach in these matters front and center.

Update: 11/30 19:09 GMT by Z : Tycho sent this in to answer some questions brought up in comments -

The "ongoing legal battle," and it's still with us, is over the book we printed a few years ago. People often ask us why we haven't produced another book, and there's people who don't know about the first one. Our publisher never paid us for the first book, and then told us the second book had to be in black and white, and we'd better start writing it for them if we ever wanted to get paid. Obviously, we did no such thing, but since they own the print rights we can't make books for ourselves either. Hopefully it's something that can get worked out in arbitration here in a few months.

15.) Question for Tycho by Captain Splendid

Despite the fact that you've mentioned a few times that your aspirations don't go much beyond PA, is there any chance your unique writing style may be found elsewhere in the future? Is that even a remote consideration for you?

On a related note, what kind of offers have you received from mainstream (and not-so-mainstream) publications?

Tycho:
Not having aspirations to write outside my comfortable context is sort of my cover story, I'm afraid. I shudder to think how the things I write would be perceived outside of my own comfortable context. Even inside what I consider my own community, there is considerable disagreement about whether my output has merit. So there you go.

I've been offered this and that every now and again, but I'm not unsatisfied with my life or the way I spend my time, so I'd usually rather reserve my energies for Penny Arcade. Offers to write for gaming blogs, do community management, editorials in magazines that cover games, review sites and the like make up the bulk of such offers. I'm very lucky, which is another way of saying our readers are good to us, but neither of us needs to take work that we aren't genuinely interested in.

16.) An Animated Penny Arcade by Altima(BoB)

Have you ever considered trying an animated form of Penny Arcade? It seems that your brand of humor makes particular use of precise timing, and while you tend to be successful at conveying that through comic strip panels, the formula could translate to animation quite well.

Tycho:
When we're writing a comic, we will often become too elaborate than we can reasonably achieve with three panels. Sometimes, we try to make it fit - but more often than not, we say That's One For The Animated Series, which is to say that it would be well served by the properties of that medium. We have been approached on multiple occasions to do just this sort of thing. In fact, there is something percolating even as we speak.

Tools

He uses a pencil and paper for starters, and once he's scanned that in he does all the finishing work with Photoshop 6.1 and a massive 12x24 Wacom Intuos.

Those devices [wacom.com] are really amazing. I wonder why he doesn't just get rid of the pencil and paper altogether.

Speed and accuracy.

Yeah, WACOM tablets are sex. I have one at home and one at work, got my boss and my coworkers turned onto them. They are far beyond awesome for shading, painting, etceteras.

But I can't draw for shit with one.

It's a speed / undo / comfort / tactile / positionable thing. Especially positioning. You can't rotate your monitor and the tablet to a weird angle so you can draw the bit from a position that doesn't make your hand or your brain explode. It's not exactly feasable to lug a wacom and a laptop to a meeting for the express purpose of doodling, and it's easier to lug a sketchbook on those forced family outings.

In short, I'm sure he has his reasons. I use a Wacom for a ton of things, but drawing is not one of them.

Art tools are not on features judged

One tool does not substitute for another. I know artists who use crow quills. Nobody is so old that using a crow quill is "just what I learned in my childhood, I can't move on."

You use a crow quill if you want a certain line texture. You use a pen, pencil, or tablet for very different results. Art tools are defined by the limitations they place upon the artist.

Charlez Schultz used a certain pen nib for years. When the company making them went out of business he rushed over and bought up all the remaining stock rather than switch to a different nib. Another nib would have been very nearly the same in that it would be a fountain pen nib with the same ink, but he had trouble making his lines with anything else.

Gabe developed those characters on paper. He made a certain process. Drawn entirely on the tablet they probably won't look quite the same, feel quite the same, or act quite the same.

I learned to draw almost entirely on my 12x18 Wacom, so I'm perfectly content to make every piece from digital scratch. I haven't touched my scanner to start a digital piece in over a year.

Several sibling posts are talking about the problems their authors have with a tablet. The hand-eye disconnect or whatever. Those are silly answers to a silly question, though I'm always interested to read how people feel about tablets. If you ask a cellist why she plays the cello instead of the electric guitar you also won't get a sensible answer. It's... bigger? Deeper? Softer?

It's a different instrument.

funny comic excerpt

This is that Star Ocean?

Yeah I hate it.

Looks like 2 of your characters are being molested by lizard men.

I didn't send those gus over there.
I don't even control them.
I don't know what the f*** they're doing.

Why don't you jus switch to the other guys?

It doesn't matter. Whoever I'm not currently controlling gets gangbanged by reptiles....

Oh, and why are you so cool?

I got a few questions: Where do the ideas for your comics come from? Favorite game of 2004 so far? Quake III/IV Vs. UT2004? Ever think of a Penny Arcade movie? DS vs. PSP? Console vs. PC and why? Thoughts on Nintendo in general? And last but not least: Are you available for birthdays/bar mitzvahs?

But

Although "it is easy to imagine a universe where small developers don't huddle in blasted out wreckage, waiting to be vivisected by the the next wave of EA Scion-class sawbots.", it's very hard to believe in it now.

TWW

First gaming webcomic by genessy

I was reading the Sexy Losers webcomic way before I started reading Penny Arcade...

Oh wait, a gaming webcomic?

Polymer-City is the first vg comic on the web

The very first regularly published web comic based on video gaming is the original incarnation of The Polymer-City Chronicles [polymercit...nicles.com] which ran through Game Zero magazine and can be read in the Game Zero [gamezero.com] comics archive. The strip dates from the week of March 13th, 1995. Prior to that the strip was running in the GZ print magazine. The current PCC site features the story arc since January 2000. For more chronology about PCC, you can read this post in his forum [ezboard.com].

While there were some one-off comics that floated around the usenet that had video gaming punchlines, PCC was the first on the web dedicated to that theme.

Drawing

I draw during my freetime, and the reason is probably because paper and pen/pencil creates a deeper attachment to your work then a machine.

Josh

"protected works"

A little while back, PA had a run-in with American Greetings over the use of the copyrighted and trademarked likeness of Strawberry Shortcake in what was obviously a (protected) work of parody.

Except that it's not obvious.

The fact that two trademarks (American's McGee's Alice and American Greetings' Strawberry Shortcake) were being parodied at once made it open to debate. If one or the other had been in the public domain, the comic would have been clearly protected. For example, parodying Strawberry Shortcake with "Frankenstein."

I'm not taking a stand one way or another -- I'm just pointing out that it's not obvious at all.

we're still in court over something that happened

"we're still in court over something that happened five years ago" Anyone care to describe what they're talking about?

Re:we're still in court over something that happen

I believe this is over their original book deal (where the "publisher" took the money and then ran to Alaska). But I could be wrong considering that much of their early history has become something of a legend.

Steam as salvation?

I'm not sure why Steam is often mentioned as some sort of possible salvation for independent gaming. I mean, online-delivered content has been available for many independent games, and in fact, is probably the norm for delivery of independent games. I'm not sure that online delivery has somehow radically changed the gaming industry, if at all. It has certainly made independent games more accessible, but I'm not sure it's changed the general status quo of gaming.

Holding up Steam as revolutionary has actually seemed sort of ironic to me, because Half-Life 2 has seemed to me to be one of the most over-hyped games ever produced. HL2 is a good game--don't get me wrong--but it's not nearly as good as some of the mass-media reviews, nor is it radically better than other FPS, except in technical quality perhaps. Using Steam as an example has therefore seemed sort of strange to me, because the very act of arguing that it's sort of revolutionary seems to maintain the very status quo that it's being used to argue against.

I'm not trying to be a troll here. I'm not saying Steam isn't useful--if Valve can avoid the middle-man, great. I'm just wondering if there's something about Steam that really is radically different in terms of content delivery from typical online delivery, or the sort of delivery implemented by e.g., Bioware.

Re:Steam as salvation?

Steam's importance is much deeper than you think. For starters, CS is the most popular online game in history, now, available on steam, and only steam. This means that Steam is now the delivery method of the most popular online game. HL2 will probably pan out to be one of the most popular PC games in history, again, Steam is there. if HL1 taught us anything, HL2 will probably be the most modded engine in history, again, Steam. Source should have the ability for full TC mods (like CS, DOD, etc) to be created, and sold via Steam. This means a small studio can use an engine that will do mostly what they want it to (Source), for no cost, and write a game for substantially less money than before, and deliver their mod (game) to millions of people (Steam). Steam also has a payment system, so for maybe $5, they can sell hundreds of thousands of copies of their mod, giving small percentage to VALVe, cutting out the publisher, and allowing a small developer to earn money making games. Yes, technology like this may have existed before, but Steam is in the mainstream, and it seems to be in the right place at the right time. I think Steam + Source will have a MAJOR impact on the gaming world.

Previous Legal Matter

We could have been a good deal more feisty legally, but we're still in court over something that happened five years ago and I think we were hesitant to open up another front when the first one was already as much as we could afford.

Does anyone know what Tycho is talking about? I'm familiar with the SS incident of course, but I'm not aware of them being in court with anyone else.

Re:Previous Legal Matter

It pertains to their first (and only) book. If memory serves, they accidentally sold the rights to their first 5 years worth or comics to someone who made the book, who basically kept all the money and fled the country.

They haven't made any more books because legally this guy has the rights to the comic strips.

Re:Previous Legal Matter

IANAL, but unless the contract had an explicit clause nullifing it in this instance, the scumbag on the other end still holds a valid license. The obvious thing to do is to summon him to court to have the contract nullified (for breach of contract), but that costs time and money. I don't know if they'd have to hunt that guy down and provide an address to do that either.

No other publisher is going to touch the material with that sort of legal baggage attached to it. That guy could come back into the country and sue the new publishers for copyright infringement, and since his contract would still be valid he could stand a chance of winning (even if the contract is nullified before his case gets to court). Copyright law (as it is interpreted today) is very liberal in who you can sue. Don't underestimate the greed or audacity of a scumbag.

Kara and Brenda

All I want to know is where I can get a picture of what Kara and Brenda actually look like.

More?

we're still in court over something that happened five years ago

Anyone else curious about this answer?

Inquiring minds want to know.

BOASAS

...but the strips I read whenever they are updated include Boy On A Stick And Slither (which I crave beyond reason)...

Tycho reads boasas! That's awesome. If you don't already, you very much must read this comic. It is clearly a relatively unknown awesome comic of ultimate awesome.
The Comic [boasas.com].
My favorite one [boasas.com]

Speaking of gaming webcomics.

I find Angst Technology [inktank.com] much more geek friendly than Penny Arcade [penny-arcade.com].

Define 'hojillion'

HOJILLION (n): amount of money necessary for sex with erotic professionals, non-stop, for an average human lifespan.

Article needs too be renamed.

Should't the title of the article read "Tycho Responds To Your Questions, Gabe's busy playing Metroid 2 or something."

Jokes aside thanks for the Q&A guys.

-- Enditallnow

Self censorship

I know some corporations ( like mine ) started blocking access to Penny Arcade at some point over the past year.

That's when I knew they were mainstream.

Good for them.

For some more satire, check QuipWire [quipwire.com]...

The Bench

I really liked The Bench. I wish they would do that again. I think I contributed three cartoons for The Bench, and one of them was even funny. =)

Thanks a lot Tycho

So I hopped back to Slashdot after my break at work came around, hoping to enjoy some well-worded commentary from my favourite webcomic authors. I had already glanced at the first few questions, so I grabbed for my beverage and began reading.

I had managed to take a whole mouthful of apple juice when I got to the 'sawbots' comment, and as a result spent the next ten minutes in a coughing fit that I'm sure the majority of my (call-centre) coworkers appreciated to no end.

So for drawing undue attention to my breaktime reading, and for making those around me think I should be restricted to a sippy cup until I get the hang of this whole beverage thing, thanks! I appreciate it. :(

Gabe's Wacom

he does all the finishing work with Photoshop 6.1 and a massive 12x24 Wacom Intuos.

I mentioned this to my gf [uberpop.com], who uses a 6x8 tablet (our friend [stefangruber.com] cartoons capably with a mere 4x6) and she wanted to know, "Does he stand on the thing and ice-skate to draw?"

Animated Series Speculation

w00000! I don't really think anything more needs to be said. Gimme!

My favorite comic

Anything (everything?) with the Fruit Fucker in it. The first strip was probably the best.

Follow up question:

I am only only speaking for myself, but I have had good success with traps.

What kinds of traps? Do you have to bait them with some sort of female geek bait, or will they willingly throw themselves into your traps of love?

Clan Walrus

I should have asked Tycho and Gabe about Clan Walrus. It was their Quake clan back in the day, of which I was thankful to be a member. If Clan Walrus [uswest.net] still exists, Tycho and Gabe are probably the only two left playing.

interesting stuff...

good questions and the answers are as amusing as they are informative (very... (clarification for the cynical crowd))

Re:How's Business?

You can add a PA box to the side of your front page under preferences.

You have to be logged in, of course.

Re:dang I should have asked...

LOL way to correct someone and then spell plural's and cell's wrong! roofles!

Re:The infamous comic

The comic [fredsmith.us] and the followup [fredsmith.us]

Re:Huzzah for chilling effects

IIRC, It was to do with a book deal that went all wrong, rather than someone sueing them.

As a result though, it is unlikely we will see another PA book, at least for some time.

Re:Well, 5 Intelligent Questions out of 16 Isnt Ba

Ahem.

"If you give a rat's-ass about your Karma score on Slashdot, you have Too Much Free Time(tm)."

Call your mom and see if she has any chores she needs you to do. Subscribe to World of Warcraft. Something. Anything.

Re:dang I should have asked...

This calls for Bob's Quick Guide to the Apostrophe, You Idiots [angryflower.com].