Penny Arcade: The Warsun Prophecies

In the first sentence of the introduction to this, the third volume of Penny Arcade webcomic collections, Jerry Holkins (aka Tycho) says that 2002 "might be [his] favorite year of Penny Arcade." He then closes by saying "[e]very good thing that has ever happened to me has been the result of your enthusiasm, your kindness, and your support." These two statements are fairly significant, taken together, and represent something about this year in particular.

The 'something' I refer to is the fact that this was the year when--apparently--Penny Arcade became fully reader supported. The introduction also mentions the advertisers, but Tycho seems to be specifically talking to the readers, especially when he thanks them so graciously. You really get the feeling that through these statements, and the very strips themselves, 2002 was the year where Tycho and Gabe realized they had an audience and began to write toward their own whims because they knew hundreds, thousands, indeed, millions of readers would eat it up.

It'd be easy to make a case for this being one of the best Penny Arcade years, too. Setting aside the origins of the ever popular Fruitf*****, Cardboard Tube Samurai, and Mr. Period characters, 2002 also has a lot of my personal favorite strips, such as the paint huffing one, Claw Shrimp, the Space Devil, the surge protector/"harmful Martian Rays" one, and Tribes 3/4/5's "beating a dead horse." While I suppose it's true that the strip became more insular, vulgar, and "you might need to read the newspost to get the joke" during 2002, that's always been the big appeal for me, anyway. Furthermore, I often find that violence and gross out humor are done best when they are written by very intelligent people, and to that extent, Penny Arcade's creators are two of the most intelligent, critical, and sharp minds in the whole videogame industry. And they like to swear.

Other than all the strips from 2002, The Warsun Prophecies contains Tycho's commentary on every strip, his introduction, an angry and funny introduction by PvP creator Scott Kurtz, and a few pages of concept art from the forthcoming Penny Arcade game. While this isn't the wealth of bonus content that the second collection had, it's still enough for any fan to appreciate and want to buy. In my opinion it's worth the price of admission just for Tycho's commentary, which, as always, is funny, informative, and other words that mean 'funny' and 'informative.'

If you're a fan, you simply must have this.