The Splendid Magic of Penny Arcade

The official title of the Penny Arcade 11.5 year anniversary book is The Splendid Magic of Penny Arcade. However, when the book jacket is removed, a new title is revealed: Penny Arcade: Nearly Twelve Years of Bullshit. The story behind this is that Random House, the publisher of the book, didn’t want a curse word in the title of the book; however Krahulik and Holkins demanded that their title be on the book as well. This, in essence, is precisely what Penny Arcade stands for: not wavering in their convictions when pressured by mainstream sources, and unapologetically being themselves.

I stumbled across Penny Arcade when I was in grade 11 and it immediately appealed to me. Here were two physically unattractive gamers being themselves, making comics that were (and remain) comprised largely of jokes that would only appeal to gamers and seem like non sequiturs to the shamefully uninitiated. Moreover, they performed the seemingly impossible: they united one of the most notoriously fractious groups ever (gamers) under one banner. Operating as their comic doppelgangers, Gabe and Tycho, Krahulik and Holkins called video game developers and publishers, lawmakers, and many, many others out on their bullshit; they even went toe to toe with lunatic anti-game lawyer Jack Thompson and won. In a time where I felt like I didn’t belong, Penny Arcade showed me that there were gamers everywhere who delighted in the dark humor that separated me from my peers and in sharing the fact that they themselves had been picked on during high school, made me—and many others, I’m sure—feel a sense of belonging unbeknownst to me before Penny Arcade came along.

For years, gamers have been reduced to a single stereotype: immature nerds that suffer from acne and live in their mom’s basement and never have sex with anything other than the palms of their hands. Penny Arcade has been dismantling this stereotype of the careless, immature nerd for over twelve years and they have perhaps struck the biggest blow to it with the wild success of their Child’s Play fundraiser, a fundraiser that raises over a million dollars annually, every cent of which goes to children’s hospitals all over the world, supplying children in need of smiles with video games and other toys. It is a testament to not only the luminary power of Krahulik and Holkins, but to the power of a (mostly) united culture of gamers.

Simply put, Penny Arcade: Twelve Years of Bullshit is Penny Arcade’s legacy as it stands. The book begins with Krahulik and Holkins meeting in journalism class in high school and collaborating for the first time. It documents their struggles as a fledgling webcomic, while Krahulik worked at Toys R Us and drew in his spare time and Holkins did tech support for libraries. It showcases their rise to fame and how they never feel complacent, constantly aware that what they have is a blessing that could be withdrawn at any moment. How it will end is anyone’s guess, but I’m sure it will be suitably great.

I will admit that this doesn’t sound especially like a book review, but I assure you that it is. The writing is often hilarious and the comics contained within are some of the duo’s best; the large-format book is lovely and the high quality glossy paper it is printed on is a genuine treat to handle; the Q&A session in which readers sent questions to Krahulik and Holkins to answer is quite illuminating as well. This basic checklist communicates next to nothing about how Penny Arcade affects people, which is really what its primary purpose is. Those who are regular readers of the strip know what I’m talking about and those who aren’t soon will (I hope).