Readers pick best webcomic: the $64,800 bounty

Hehehehehe, moron.

Seriously though, if I had to call myself anything it would be a nintendo fan, not a fan-boy, but a fan, I'll look at thier items before others. That said, I own a total of 11 systems including a PS2 and a 360. But the way Sony has handled this launch is insane. I don't want a bunch of fanboy flame responses but honestly guys, I dont care if you own a PS3 or not, you can do whatever you want with your money. BUT if you DID happen to purchase one, regardless of how you feel about the system, how can you continue to support a company that makes statments like this? I love Sony to death, I really do, but I fear that the PS2 will be my last Sony console. Not because of the PS3 itself, it's an amazing machine with so much potential it's almost sickening, but because of the way the Sony heads are acting. They are ruining things for themselves. I think that the PS3 launch could have been more succesful than the Wii's if it would have been handled differently.

it has potential but at that price even the ps3 fanboy i know said hes getting a 360, he was all quite when we were talking about how the ps3 is overpriced and won't appeal to he casual gamer. He said he still might get a ps3 but in a few years, 360 will always be a year ahead

Hmm.. so, no comment for SCEA??? What was this asshole thinking?? Someone should make a list of the top 10 dumbest quotes about the PS3 by Sony. This one is right up w/ the "You should want to work more for this system." Ridiculous.

They say a photo's worth 1000 words; Seems like mine is worth $7200.
http://oshi.home.comcast.net/IMAGE_027.jpg
(Best Buy in Willow Grove, PA)

Hey, there's a website now.

http://www.awkwardzombie.com/comic1-021907.php

Yeah, you gotta give those two guys a ton of credit for...uh...counting. That's some creative genius in work. I'm sorry, but being humorous requires a hell of a lot more than lamely and perdictably pointing out the foibles of others.

Partially it isn't Penny Arcade's fault - there isn't much that is all that humorous about video games. But on a deeper level, it is entirely their fault for thinking that there needs to be comic strips about video games. But I guess they've hit a winning formula here - each week, instead of having to draw or think of anything, they can just put up Sony's PS3 sales numbers or stock price and write little "Ha!"s around it. I'm pretty sure we're seeing not the future of webcomics, but the future of financial forecasting here.

PA EARNED this win hands down.

Comic was spot on and made me laugh.

I'd have to say that I laughed MORE at the DA comic, but there is something to be said for a comic that can make you laugh without ALWAYS resorting to sex.

"there isn't much that is all that humorous about video games."

Not that you have an OPINION or anything....

There is nothing inherently funny about ANYTHING. You have to FIND the humor.

btw...there isn't much that is wanted about your pessimism.

holy stick in the mud, Batman.

Wow! It seems like all you have to do to win the reader pick on Joystiq is slam Sony.

I agree that the claim JT made is ludicrous, but jesus christ let it go. If you don't want a PS3, don't buy one, but don't let some douchebag hold you back if you do. After all, most of you bought Bill Gate's system!

If you're worried that your hard-earned cash is going toward money-hoarding demonesque corporate diablos, then quit eating meat, buying video games, putting gasoline in your car, going to the movies, and go join the Peace Corps or something. Jesus.

~

I saw quite a few PS3s on my trip to Miami last week (in different stores), I saw about 20 at one best buy, a couple at some Targets and also at Wal Mart. But the one that takes the cake was the Best Buy that had over 80 PS3 stacked up in the middle of the store (all 60gb version), here's a pic:

http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/615/1302071500mj1.jpg

The problem was that I didn't want a PS3, I was looking for a Wii, which took me almost 2 weeks and at least 15 different stores to find (I found it at a Toys R us that had recieved a large shipment over the weekend).

"BUT if you DID happen to purchase one, regardless of how you feel about the system, how can you continue to support a company that makes statments like this?"

Ummm, because Jack Tretton is not the people behind Motorstorm, God Of War, Heavenly Sword, Drake's Fortune, or Lair? Jack Tretton is a figurehead and a moronically out of touch one at that. I buy consoles for the games, not who's on newsweek hyping the console. Fuck what you heard.

But, while we are on this little subject, amazing that you support Nintendo so vehemotly. I mean, going by your logic, even if you can look past Perrin Kaplans latest statement of "Well, no one was shot during our launch" indicating that all hardcore gamers are thuggish violent creeps whereas Wii fans just happen to be housewives without the ability to realize they are dying due to holding their piss in, the Hiroshi Yaumachi years must have been tough for you. Hell, if I had you convictions in this regard, I would have ground my face off on a bosnian tank tread just so I wouldn't have to see that Mummified Moron call all the trends that are now features of the game industry "fads" just because Nintendo didn't have them.

@Oshi

I work about 5 minutes away from that Best Buy. The Willow Grove Park Mall EB and Gamestop both have signs for PS3 in stock. I shoulda taken a picture so I could collect on the bounty. I'd get at least 12Gs. I believe Sony slowed their shipments down. On iTrackr, the availability of PS3s has plummeted from 60/70% in January, to low 30s now. I wonder how close they are to their target 6 million shipped by March. I'd say ... not close. Possibly 4 million altogether after the European launch.

Wow, amazing, I could have almost predicted that Sheppy would be the one to take my post and twist it into his world where everyone is against everything he likes. Jesus christ kid, quit fighting the fight from all sides. All you do is defend things, you hop on a thread and search for something to defend, do you have ANY honest feelings on anything at all? Or do you just love defending random companies that couldn't give a shit how you feel in the first place? My post was asking a question, I wasn't being a prick at first, but I guess you bring that out in people. And if you actually took the time to slow down and understand my post I clearly stated. "If I HAD to label myself as something..." At which point you hear "OMG HAXORZS AGENST soniesS@!@2!!" Seriously man, I didn't say that Nintendo is the only people I support, I support them all, if you saw my living room you would clearly see that, the entire point of my post was asking if anyone ELSE found it hard to support a company with jackass like JT behind the wheel. Good god you're a moron. If you want to stand behind something then stand behind someTHING, not EVERYTHING, you're stretching yourself pretty thin around here. If I would have jumped on here and started defending his comments then I'm sure you would chime in saying "Well, he shouldnt have said that and if you would read the 19th line of article six in the Pakistani amendment of rights, blah blah blah" Nobody cares for your conjecture.

.

Yes Derbeste, I do indeed have an opinion. Maybe even an OPINION. I'll look into that.

And you are also right that humor is not an inherent property in things - it results in how events are viewed. But that doesn't mean that anything can be equally funny if you choose to think so - some subjects have high potential for humor, and others do not.

Good humor, even in comics form, cannot be summed up by one banal observation, which is inevitably what Penny Arcade and most of its ilk boils down to. Let's look at their most recent comics, from most recent to least:
1. Products marketed to gamers are stupid
2. Robots that wear clothes still look like robots (this one comes the closest to humor, since the robot looks somewhat amusing)
3. Coupons for sex don't make good valentine's presents. (Apparently the PA fellows have seen Three's Company before. Or Friends. Or every other goddamn sitcom ever).
4. A random boast made by an executive turns out to not be advantageous!!! Also, they like the Wii. hooray.
5. News is manufactured for maximum shock value! Noam Chomsky, how'd you miss this one? Fortunately PA is there to pick up the slack, and also to dust off those hilarious crazy-naked-reporter-who-is-afraid-of-bats jokes. (by contrast, I'm reminded of the Kurt Brockman Simpsons line: "Just miles from your doorstep, hundreds of men are given weapons and trained to kill. The government calls it the "Army", but a more alarmist name would be... The Killbot Factory.)
6. A piece of electronics is surly, mean to its friends, and into sex. I do love that wacky Bender.
7. Obvious questions are stupid. Obvious comic strips, however, are apparently awesome.
8. Vista comes in many different versions (many of which - get this! - don't even sound like names for operating systems!!), and AIDS is bad.

I mean, Carlos Mencina and Carrottop would wince at this shit. Does this make me pessimistic?? No, just bored at work. I think that there is too much good comedy around us to waste time on junk like this. That's what optimism's all about, baby - knowing when there's something better.

For example, here's a comedy gift - this guy Joe Mathlete explains each day's Marmaduke in an often hilarious fashion. It is like how I mocked Penny Arcade, except, you know, funny and not just angry.
www.marmadukeexplained.blogspot.com

Wow. Some people really need to lighten up.

Jack Tretton said something stupid. People made jokes about it.

That's part of life. Every time someone says something dumb, people are going to mock them for it. How many George W. Bush jokes are there?

Lighten up. Enjoy life.

Socrates, we all know that you hate this comic because they like to make fun of sony.

I dunno if you noticed or not, but ALL comic strips pick out one subject and point out the humor in it. And the ones that don't, suck.

That Marmaduke shit is hilarious. I actually can't read it right now because I'm in class and can't keep my laughter in. Nice!

~

Crono -

I know I have sounded like a Sony shill in the past, but I didn't really argue for the PS3 nearly as much as I pointed out the flaws of the Wii. I always thought Sony was fucking up fairly badly. I don't like any of the consoles out now...I don't think any of them is worth the price. I'll pay some PS3 owner to let me borrow and play FFXIII, I'll play all the best 360 games (Bioshock) on the PC, and...will celebrate my continued freedom from the Mario/Link/Metriod rut.

One more point on PA in particular...

On the point of funny vs. angry vs. pointing out the obvious....

First off, Joystiq runs a "best webcomic" competition. Not "funniest webcomic". This is for good reason too.

Comics aren't all DESIGNED to be lol funny.

Some are merely for satirical commentary on current events. If you look up websters, you'll see that it is NOT always the end goal of satire to be funny - merely to comment often (but not always) using irony.

PA did that and did it well IMO.

As for the angry bit...

MANY comedians present their schtick in a package of anger.

Lewis Black comes immediately to mind, but there are others.

Others use sex all the time. Others use the "I'm a dumb guy" approach. But in each and EVERY case, it's not WHAT is said, but HOW it is said. Presentation is everything. That is why your "summaries" of PA's content is absolute and inaccurate garbage. You don't capture the satire. Because, as others have already pointed out, you don't like that they don't like Sony right now. In fact, that's why I call you a pessemist. Cuz you obviously don't like many people...cuz there aren't many that like Sony right now.

Your loyalty and heart is in the right place, but don't expect the rest of us to get back on board till they give us a reason.

And don't be surprised by the satire that ensues in the interim.

Heck...maybe even learn to not take yourself (and videogames) so seriously and LAUGH.

*sigh*

The days of a darker humor are nearly over, I'm afraid. Emo Philips weeps.

I mean, the signs were all there. I confirmed Jack Tretton as a fucking clownshoe and went on to confirm most heads of game companies to be clownshoes. I mean, I even described the scraping of my facial tissue away by the loving embrace of a skirmishing tank as the preferential alternative to looking upon Hiroshi's embittered face (he still wanted to win WWII).

How many crumbs must be left on the path to follow? My entire post was making jockular points, not raising a banner to arms. Connect the dots, young padawan.

nice. i like the pic of the 80 ps3s all stacked up.

havnt seen that with xbox or wii since....EVER. even 14 months after launch

JAC - Wow... I have never seen so many consoles stacked up like that EVER. Impressive find.

I don't believe that a gaming comic can't be funny, and they are definitely funnier than most of the comics found in the daily papers. However, I really feel like this comic shouldn't have one, and definitely not by such a wide margin.

1.The comic wasn't really that funny as it just basically went around to different stores and took pictures to show how dumb of a comment Jack made.

2.You might say that not all comic are LOL, but I didn't even find it that satirical. A satire would be showing the absurdity of his comment by comparing it with another ridiculus comment. In fact the latest PA comic would be a better example of satire. http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/02/19

It is mocking the Headshot candybar by contrasting it with air specifically designed for gamers. That is satire. Like I said this is simply going from place to place showing the absurdity of his comment. And oh yea, there is a joke, it's actually hard to find a Wii, not a PS3. Ha!

3. This shouldn't even have been an option for best gaming comment of last week, as the comic actually went up on Saturday, and not Monday. Additionaly, Joystiq already had a news post mentioning the comic. http://www.joystiq.com/2007/02/10/sonys-jack-tretton-and-the-1200-quote/
But it was nominated anyway because none of the other comics from that week were gaming related.

Don't get me wrong, I do like Penny Arcade. It's the only comic strip that I read regularly. I just feel like people only vote for it simply because it's Penny Arcade, and if that was in another comic it simply wouldn't have one (and certainly not by nearly twice as many votes as its closest competitor).

My personal top 3. 1.DU 2.DA 3.Slackerz

Damn Myke. Chillax bud. You are implying one should purchase Nintendo products over Sony (and MS I assume) because you like their corporate heads more. I won't go into detail, but just understand that many people would find your line of thinking to be rather retarded.

Wow, I must have seriously worded my first post wrong if thats the impression you get, Jake. I didn't say you should purchase anything over anything else. I was merely asking if current PS3 owners find it hard to defend a company that allows people like JT to hold high-ranking positions, thats all. If you actually read the first post, I clearly state that I don't care what you buy and what you don't, so how does that convey me telling you to purchase Nintendo over Sony? I should do a case study on the way people percieve tone over the internet, it's fascinating.

"I won't go into detail, but just understand that many people would find your line of thinking to be rather retarded."

Not really. I agree with that line of thinking. I mean, who would you find a better opinion from regarding games? A game developer with experience, such as Miyamoto or Iwata, or people who only talk about the potential of technology but really have not touched game development themselves?

Even if you could back up anything that Kutaragi, Hirai and co. have done for games they really haven't done anything to make the better of the situation they put themselves as of now.

*********************

Congrats to PA, though it was older than the PA submission from the comic poll before last. :P DU was good though (I voted for DU).

*********************

As for SOCRATES' comment, I'd like to journey into comic strips of a less-topical variety but they don't make Calvin and Hobbes anymore. :(

I want my money. I just found 6 60gig PS3s in Futureshop. To top it all off two of them were returns.

The comment is TOTALLY out of context. Unless you have a way-back machine, STFU.

Signed, someone who has a Wii, a PS2 (with no urge to buy a PS3 anytime soon), and sold his x-box a few months ago, AKA: No Fanboy.

The PS3 will be the system to get, but not for another 2 years... and by then Nintendo Wii 2 will be out to compete again!

http://www.qwantz.com/index.pl?comic=941

@ sheppy and @ socrates

Holy fuck that was funny. Seriously, you two had me rolling with your posts. Quality, quality stuff.

And for the record, Penny Arcade sucks ass. I found socrates's rant about how much they suck to be ten times as hilarious as any worthless comic I ever read by PA. In fact, I mostly stopped bothering to look at any of the webcomics. The most I've ever gotten out of any of them was an occasional slight giggle.

As for PA being good satire? No. Sorry I don't agree with that. South Park? Yeah, good satire. The Simpsons? Yeah (used to be) good satire. All PA does is ride the coattails of the latest melodramatic gaming rant. I don't really consider that good anything.

Hey Ross, thanks a lot for putting Slackerz in the lineup.

We have another one for next weekend's lineup. If it's good enough, please feel free to put it up.

http://theslackerz.com/index.php?Page=23

Thanks again, man.

One thing that keeps getting obscured is..how come there are so many 360s in stores as well? We have heard it all, PS3 being expensive and no games (as if the 360 had any half-decent games at launch) but the 360 has a year to build up a library of games, is cheaper (both price as well as console quality!) but still not selling. besides: the 360 sold just 3mn in 6 months after launch despite having no competition at all. If the PS3 hits that level by March.with a massive lineup of games coming up...they should be happy.

I have found PS3s at every store I have checked, this whole thing is just silly.

This comic could be considered for next week:

http://www.sockd.com/d/20070220.html

check this comic out

http://minimumwagedesigns.smackjeeves.com/

http://minimumwagedesigns.smackjeeves.com/comics/


direct link to the MWD comic for this week

I've got another game related comic up this week. More random than based on real news, though. :P

http://gameboyz.smackjeeves.com/comics/117666/

We were fortunate enough to have Chris from Digital Unrest sort us out with a great guest strip about PS3

http://www.rpg-tv.com/index.php?s=127

Many thanks!