Some of you have probably already heard it, since I put it up yesterday - but we're trying new hosting for the podcast, and I wanted to make sure everything made sense before I dropped it on the front page.  The podcast is for Wednesday's strip, "The Ungift, Part Two."  You can download it here, or subscribe to the feed here.  The levels are a little crazy in a couple spots, for which I apologize.  I think we've got those ironed out, now. 

(CW)TB

The Penny Arcade Battle Academy Will be meeting next Tuesday the 8th at the Comic Stop. We're an official Pokemon TCG league now. Those of you in the Academy who haven't done so already, should register with Go Pokemon.com. Once you have a POP ID you can post it in this thread and Joe will get you added to the roster. As always, new players are welcome. Just grab a starter deck and be at the Comic Stop around 6.PM. There will be plenty of people willing to walk you through the game if it's your first time. For our regulars, if you're looking for a place up north to get cards and boosters I highly recommend the Cardhaus in Lynnwood. He's got some singles in stock but he also has the best price on boosters I've been able to find. Also, Kiko and I picked up some great tips and a few interesting rules that we did not know about while at the tournament. We'll share our "key learnings" with you all on Tuesday. It should be a fun night, hope to see some new faces.

-Gabe out

Orcs and Elves for the DS has a fairly strong mobile heritage, which is to say that some of its presentation is a little two-frame and raw. If you crave gold and adventure - a common affliction among our people - I think you'll slip past it, and into the retro dungeon crawler at its heart. It's been reviewed much better on the mobiles than it has been on the portable, but I imagine that people who review games that you play on a phone have a more forgiving palette.

I've gone through all the Dickerdoodle pictures I received and I've got some good ones to share. It was too hard to pick just one winner so I ended up picking a top three and they will all get a brand new Nintendo DS.

First let's start with the runners up though.


This mans fervor is impressive.




I know I didn't ask for vagaina cookies but come on, that's awesome.




The "Barbra Walters" filter on this one makes it look so classy.




Is cookie porn a real thing?




He just seems so Innocent. Like maybe this is his first dickerdoodle.



See! Size really doesn't matter.



Sadly he choked to death shortly after this picture was taken.



She's ambitious and I respect that.



I'm pretty sure this was actually their Christmas card.




Alright now on to the winners. Remember each of these chefs will receive their very own Nintendo DS.

-3rd Place -

These guys win for sheer size. That's just a lot of Dickerdoodle.



-2nd Place-

This one is just awesome. The presentation alone is great but then you start seeing little details like the penis reference photos.



-1st Place-

I fucking love this photo. We can tell by her shirt that her dad has forced into helping make these cookies. We can also tell that she is not amused. His expression is actually unreadable. Is he confused? Is he angry? I have no idea what he's thinking but it's priceless. I also love that with some extra dough he made the Quake symbol. So rad.



Thanks to everyone who entered. I hope you all enjoyed your Dickerdoodles. Winners, I'll be getting in touch with you so I can get your info for the prizes.

-Gabe out

The enforced revelry period has finally come to a close. Thank Christ.

I had planned on making a couple posts last week but I ended up getting some kind of devil virus. It was the sort of sick where you don't really sleep. You  just curl up in the bathroom and hallucinate that wolves are encircling you. I'm feeling better now though.

I had wanted to talk about some stuff but I forgot almost all of it during my spirit quest. Let me see if I can remember anything. Sorry if this is sort of scattershot.

I did go to the Pokemon Tournament and I ended up taking fourth. It was my first tourney and I was using a pretty crazy deck I'd built just a few days prior. Kiko also went and he took fifth even though we had the same win loss record during the day. They used some special Pokemon math to push me in to the final four and give him fifth. I pretty proud of both of us. It was a new level of competition that we'd never seen before and I think we played really well.

If you're a fan of Transformers I highly recommend the new animated series on Cartoon Network. Some people might be turned off by the look but I think it's incredible. It's got a very Teen Titans look which makes sense seeing as it's by the same people. Even in vehicle mode these transformers are expressive and full of character.

I read Amulet over the weekend (don't believe the date on his site, it is already in stores) and if you are a fan of comics I suggest you do the same. I don't want to say too much about it. I think that Kazu is one of the most talented individuals working in comics today. With Amulet he has created something timeless.

I've collected all your Dickerdoodle pictures and there's some pretty great stuff in there. Give me some time to sort through them and I'll start posting my favorites soon. I'll get Tycho to help me pick a winner and we'll find something cool here in the office as a prize.


-Gabe out

I was in a guild with the guy who started FigurePrints, and when he extended coupons to the old crew I snapped them up and gave them as Christmas presents. None of my characters ever reached the highest echelons of Azerothian Fashion, so it seemed like they were better invested in Gabriel and Keek, who poured night after night into Battlegrounds and Active Volcanoes fighting dragons and whatnot.  The coupons I have described are difficult to secure, only available in random drawings at random intervals, or if by some twist of fate you happen to have been guildmates with a cunning entrepreneur. It's really a way to ennoble the lost years you plowed into that game. It's the sort of thing you'd think a person would appreciate.

Gabriel had Kara call me to say he wouldn't be in the office to do the strip, a tactic that showed wisdom on his part, because if he'd talked to me himself I would have told him to put his big girl pants on. We'd written the strip already, so we were halfway there.  It was far, far, far outside his comfort level, but I asked Kiko to execute the strip visually.  He excelled - but, then again, he is Kiko.  

When we were working on our first serious comic project, a comic about angels in high-school that would probably have made us wealthy beyond mortal imaginings, we got into our first real fight about religion. Shaking with rage, he essentially threw me out of his house. He called me up a few hours later to play Duke, but still. We never talked about the comic again. We try never to discuss anything of substance if we can help it, though we do allow an annual fracas as a gift to one another. Oh, and here's a Gabe tip: never end the Lord's Prayer with "Psyche." Never.

I'm getting a lot of positive mail about Gabe's Dickerdoodles. I want to see people actually making these things. Send me some pics of you making/enjoying dickerdoodles. I'll post the best ones and I'll even send the winner some kind of prize. Let's see those dickerdoodle pics!

-Gabe out

***Pokemon Crap***

This is a reminder for those of you in the Arcadia Battle Academy. We are an official Pokemon league now. Starting at our next meeting on January 8th we should all be earning points towards our first gym badges. In order to do that though you'll need to register with Go-Pokemon.com. You can find a thread with the information in our forum here. Post your POP ID once you have it and Joe will add you to the league roster. We've got a great batch of regulars and it's been awesome to watch the decks evolve from the basic starter pack into some really interesting stuff. We still have plenty of room for more people though. If you're interested in joining the league just grab a starter deck and come down to the Comic Stop on January 8th between 6 and 8pm. We've still got plenty of beginners so don't feel like you need to be a pro. We're even happy to walk you through a couple games if you've never played before and don't know the rules. I've gotten a lot of mail from people telling me they used to play the Pokemon TCg a long time ago but eventually got tired of it. I think it's worth mentioning that WOTC who originally published the game no longer makes it. Back in 2003 the rights shifted over the the Pokemon Company and they now manage the game themselves. They are really doing some great work and I think breathing new life into the game. If you haven't seen it in years I think it's worth checking out the new expansions. Like I said, grab a starter deck and come join us some night. We'll be happy to show you the game and if you get hooked like the rest of us all the better.

In related news I will be attending cities tomorrow in Mill Creek. This is one of many city wide tournaments held in Washington and it will be my first real sanctioned tournament. Those of you in the Battle Academy know what a pain in the ass the Gallade/Gardevoir combo has been. It's a very popular deck and I expect to see it tomorrow more than once. In trying to decide how to beat a deck that uses your own support cards against you to set up incredibly fast I went through about twenty different deck ideas. Finally last week I hit on something that seems to work. I thought if the deck is using my support cards against me, what if I don't use any support cards? Can a deck built entirely around a simple Pokemon line and carefully chosen trainers even work? It's done extremely well against Kiko's Gallade/Gardevoir deck and I'm hoping it performs just as well tomorrow. I'll let you know how I do on Monday.

***End Pokemon Crap***

-Gabe out

We were discussing the (almost nonexistent) Duke Nukem teaser that hit recently, and really, truly coming to understand that there are many gamers who probably have no idea what we're even talking about. Even if they were able to track down a copy somewhere online, it's unlikely that they'd be able to play it without nausea, similar to what people experienced with the recent Marathon port.  It's unfortunate, because the utterly unprecedented levels of interactivity, the crisp resomolutions, the real-world environments and the creative equipment vivisected the genre.

We're only a few missions into the Unreal Tournament III campaign, not tremendously far, but far enough to have heard a speech from series regular Malcolm that plunged beyond parody and irony into some bizarre b-boy timewarp.

Did you know that the Penny Arcade store now features a new "Accomplice"? If so, did you know that the accomplice is none other than Internet subculture phenomenons Mega 64? If so did you know that the last day to purchase anything from our store using standard shipping and receive it by Christmas is tomorrow? If so, did you know that the last day to order things from our store using rush shipping and get them by Christmas is the 19th? Did you also know that Tycho was supposed to make this post because I'm busy working on strips for a game that I can't tell you we're making strips for yet? Did you know that instead of making this post he's eating Nachos? Did you know that I hate him?

-Gabe out

***STAR WARS NERD CRAP!***

I've been meaning to mention Karen's new book in the Republic Commando series for a while but I wanted to wait until I finished it. I'm a ridiculously slow reader so I didn't actually wrap it up until a few weeks ago. If you're reading the series "True Colors" is out in stores and it's great. If you're not reading the series you should start at the beginning. Karen is essentially covering the Clone Wars like a real war correspondent would. Seeing as that was her previous job it makes sense. She's looking at the war and asking the questions a real journalist would ask. "Why do we all of a sudden have a clone army? Don't they take ten years to grow?" "How are we paying for this?" "Why doesn't anyone ever see veterans or wounded clone troopers returning home?" She is cutting through the Galactic/imperial propaganda and showing the war from the point of view of the soldiers. Star Wars fiction tends to be about Jedi. All the movies are about Jedi and almost all of the books tend to revolve around Jedi and their lives. Republic Commando is refreshing because it's not about Jedi. It's about soldiers fighting a war that the government will never let them win.

The newest book also happens to introduce my new favorite Star Wars characters. Gaib and the Tk-0 droid are data bounty hunters. Essentially hackers for hire.  So fucking awesome.

*** END OF STAR WARS NERD CRAP***