Obviously it’s a sensible gift in the proper historical context. But it’s still the “What’s the deal with airline food?” of religion jokes.
True, hence the pedantry warning. :P
“WTF is myrrh” jokes are a lot less common than you might think. I heard my first one in Life of Brian in 1979… and then went another 34 years before seeing the Penny Arcade strip. No intervening myrrh jokes in between.
Probably because it’s hard to write a joke on that skeleton. Life of Brian did a bad pun on “myrrh = balm = bomb” which didn’t make much sense beyond calling attention to the “what is it?” question. The PA strip just draws out the core joke without really going anywhere with it.
For my money, nothing improves humor more than spending pages analyzing whether or not it’s funny.
PA hasn’t been nearly bad enough for me to drop from my rotation, but lately, the jokes haven’t gotten to me the way they once did. I think the main issue is that the past few months’ worth of strips have been about games, especially new games, and pretty much the only game I play nowadays is Bejeweled Blitz.
It’s not them, it’s me.
From a certain perspective, that is a them problem. If their audience has grown up to the extent that many of them no longer have time to play games the same way, then if they want to keep that audience, they need to somehow develop as well. Their jobs being what they are, they don’t have the same kind of pressures that exclude the playing of games from their daily routine.
The counter-argument, of course, being Doonesbury.
It would be a “them problem” if I were typical of the demographic of 40-somethings who grew up as hardcore gamers. The subset of that demographic, the 40-something former hardcore gamers, is a minority.
Meanwhile, the audience of hardcore gamers is constantly getting newcomers to it, and due to PAX and just having a place in the industry they write about, they’re in a very visible spot for said newcomers to pick up on them. For every guy like me they lose, they’re picking up a solid dozen replacements.
It’s nice that they can keep growing by doing what they’re doing, but the real important thing is that this is what they love and enjoy and are interested in doing.
I don’t think you can compare a long-running webcomic to a long-running newspaper comic: If I stop reading a webcomic, then it immediately stops getting my page-views for ad hits and potential merch sales; if I stop reading a newspaper comic, the paper still prints it regardless, with no effect on the creators’ revenue stream. Newspaper strips succeeded not by pleasing readers but by helping to sell the newspaper. The business is totally different, which is why the creators of each end up considering each other with sort of bemused expressions, each one wondering when the other will realize that they’ve walked off the cliff and just need to look down in order to finally fall to their doom like a whole pack of Wile E. Coyotes.
I was there yesterday for some random reason and saw this one, which gave me a giggle:
I thought the extended back-and-forth on what’s usually just a one image meme sold it pretty well.
I always enjoy the strips showcasing Gabe’s arachnohomosexuality. Plus “glorious bursts,” “my window, or a window,” and the rare distorted face that succeeds in conveying Gabe’s intent.
So, “he’s gross”. Veiled chogglepants reference? Probably not, but I thought it.
My first thought as well.
Why, WHY did I go against my best instincts and look up what “chogglepants” is? Why do I always have to know?
To that point, no need to tell me how you guys knew already.
What does Whitta have to do with choggle pants?
I am convinced theres somebody in Urbandictionary.com whose only job its to invent new words by smashing the keyboard, to force people to visit the website.
I always figured it was that everything in Australia is deadly, including prices.
