Penny Arcade: Epic Legends of the Magic Sword Kings

In personal terms, 2001 was probably the first year I realized how huge Penny Arcade had become. Keep in mind that this was a time when we were all still stuck on 56k modems--well, most of us anyway--and it often took anywhere from 5 seconds to a full half minute to view a PA strip. Anyway, strips seemed to be linked, referenced, and posted on message boards I frequented with growing regularity until at some point everybody stopped doing it. Because hey, we figured, we all read it anyway. And that seemingly eternal wait was always worth it.

Epic Legends of the Magic Sword Kings is the second Penny Arcade collection. It contains every strip posted in 2001, a time when the comic's Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule was set in stone. In addition to that, Epic Legends includes an introduction by J. Allard (of Microsoft), an introduction by Tycho, commentary on every strip as well as select blogposts by Tycho, 34 full color pages of illustrations from the Penny Arcade card game, and a section of various projects/side projects that Gabe and Tycho worked on over the years. For sheer volume, Epic Legends is the best bang-for-your-buck of all the PA collections.

Going only by gaming terms, 2001 was something of a watershed year for the industry. The Dreamcast and PS2 were out, with the former reaching its peak and the latter slowly building momentum toward the world crushing juggernaut it would become. At the same time, the year saw the launch of a full three platforms: the Gameboy Advance, the original Xbox, and the Gamecube. With all this material to work with, and the usual assorted rumbles on the PC and tech sides, you can be sure that 2001 was also a very good year for Penny Arcade. Though every time I flip through each of the collections (or go through a given year via the online archives on their website) I end up thinking it's my favorite year or has the most of my favorite strips, I would definitely rank 2001 as being one of the top years. That's not to say that the other years are necessarily bad or worse for it, but in my mind I think of 2001 as the first time the full breadth and depth of what Jerry (Tycho) and Mike (Gabe) could do with Penny Arcade was first fully shown.

You really can't go wrong with Epic Legends of the Magic Sword Kings if you're any kind of fan. Not only are the strips themselves great, but Jerry's commentary on each is almost always hilarious. That's to say nothing of the handful of concurrent blogposts from that era, which--if you've never bothered to read his more modern posts on the website nowadays--demonstrate what a brilliant and memorable writer he is. Of course I also have nothing but nice things to say about Mike's art, something you also get a full taste of with the full color card game artwork section.

To put it succinctly: go buy this.