A shrine for the best webcomic ever

"What is Penny Arcade?"

Penny Arcade (often abbreviated to PA) is a (still) on-going weekly gaming webcomic started in ~1998 with the first comic being publish to the site on November 18th of that year. A huge chunk of the It quite a large staple of internet gaming culture back in ye olden days (the 00s) but now is just a niche thing that autistic teenagers and nostalgic adults are into. It's influence can still be felt in the landscape of internet humour to this day. Though the artstyle has changed a lot (as of 2015 I think it looks kind of ugly...) its stayed mostly consistent in its pacing and shit like that. It also happens to be a hyperfixation (and quite possible a special interest of mine).

The characters! (aka 99% of the appeal)

There are but 2 main characters in all of PA, those being Jonathan Gabriel (most commonly refered to as Gabe) and Tycho Brahe. There's also a plethora of side characters who range from "annyoing dweeb" to "one note wife". Notable side characters include Charles (their Apple fanboy neighbour), Kara (Gabe's wife), Brenna (Tycho's wife), Anne-Claire (Tycho's niece), though they don't really do that much (especially the wives lol, they're more like set dressing)

Gabe

"I did punch a baby once... in anger. In my defense, the baby was being kind of a dick."

Jonathan "Gabe" Gabriel is one of two main characters in Penny Arcade. He's the black-haired, two-shirt-wearing gamer dork. He's the roommate and best friend of Tycho, who he has an obvious homoerrotic friendship with. He's canonically married to Kara, though he has some kind of implied romantic relationship with Charles going on, if you read the comics its blatantly obvious (see "" and "" specifically). Gabe has a pac-man tattoo (which looks nearly identical to the graphic on his shirt) on his right upper arm. Gabe has one notable alternate version: the Cardboard Tube Samurai.

Tycho

"Some people play tennis, I erode the human soul."

Tycho Brahe is the other main character of the webcomic and is actually the more well-known one LOL. He's the brown and black haired, blue sweater guy. He's Gabe's roommate and best friend and as previously stated (and which will be further elaborate on) has a homoerrotic friendship with. Compared to Gabe he's the "smarter" and more intellectual one. His interests include fantasy books, the occult and men. He is canonically married to Brenna. He can most easily be described as an utter freak, do not look at his wiki page. Tycho despises zombies for some fucking reason, don't ask me what that reason is. He was a vampire at one point, no idea what happened to that plot point, it was one comic, but he'll forever be a vampire to me. He's rarely seen in any outfit other than the fuckass blue striped sweater and tan pants combination, not even during the summer. He owns 20 of the same outfit. My favourite alternate version of Tycho (besides his On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness appearance) is Tychopillar, the weird green caterpillar Tycho that is in exactly one comic (that being "Itsy, Bitsy, Fuzzy, Wuzzy"). He was a mallgoth during highschool which is really fucking cool. I love this man. As you can hopefully tell Tycho is my favourite PA character. If you wanna know even more about this absolute freak you should check out the shrine I made for him

Spin-offs and alternate universes

Apart from the standard "story" of the webcomic there are also a few spin-offs.

Cardboard Tube Samurai

The first "spin-off" is the Cardboard Tube Samurai saga (abbreviated as CTS). This one's Gabe-centric, having him feature as the Cardboard Tube Samurai. It's not obvious if it's supposed to be an alternate universe of not, but in my opinion it is. It's story has almost nothing to do with the original comic and takes place in some unnamed east-asian place. The cardboard tube being used as a weapon by Gabe originates from the comic ""I need to write more on this segement. Basically Gabe is an awesome cardboard-tube-wielding samurai.

Over-Easy

Uhhhh so not much is really known about this alternate universe/spin-off as it was an exclusive to Club PA in 2002 and hasn't been properly archived. What IS known, or at least what i could gather from the few stuff that I and a few others have dug up from various niche archives and personal sites, is that it was essencially a parody of those generic buddy-cop movies that were everywhere at one point in time (wtf happened to those anyways?!). I think that Tycho is the normal officer and Gabe is the guy who's just been brought on for the mission. As you can tell we know literally nothing. If you or someone you love has screenshots or downloaded versions or hell, even photos of these comics from the second volume of printed PA please contact me at grossion5z@gmail.com and LET ME READ THEM ARTRGRHRHHRHR

On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness

On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness (abbreviated as RPOD or ORPOD), is by far the most developed alternate universe or should I say... PREVIOUS UNIVERSE! Unlike the rest of the Penny Arcade media, the story of RPOD is told through the medium of 4 videogames, called "episodes". Picture this, Gabe and Tycho have a paranormal detective agency in 1922. They chase random cases and somehow end up killing a few gods. Tycho also has this thing where he like has the ridiculously strong urge to kill all 4 gods and put the rebirth of the universe into motion, because of his freaky family. If you wanna know more just go to my shrine of it... which I still haven't finished... OR PLAY THE DAMN GAMES THEY'RE AMAZING AND I LOVE LOVE LOVE THEM!

"Why does this seem so... familiar?"

Well apart from the comic itself PA has appeared in many other notible places. Ever wondered what PAX stood for? It stands for Penny Arcade Expo, though nowadays that's just a niche fact. The second main chaarcter, Tycho Brahe is also known as "the weirdo on the right end of the table" in Poker Night At The Inventory.

Extra fun facts n stuff:

There was a Penny Arcade theme song by Mc Frontalot released in 2005, which was later remixed by Renard that same year. The Cardboard Tube Samurai had a cameo in Tekken 6: Bloobline Rebellion as an outfit for Yoshimitsu The main cast of PA is somewhat based on real life people. PA has been on-going for 26 years with no end in sight. Fact: I ran out of things to write here and its blatanly obvious.