eBay Auctions for Child's Play

Here's the text of the letter I just sent off to the guys at Penny Arcade:

My name is Trisha L. Sebastian and I'm a Penny Arcade fan who has collected toys almost all her life. Circumstances have made it so that I can't keep my collection anymore, and I've been slowly auctioning them off on eBay over the last year or so. However, they aren't moving out of my small, cramped apartment fast enough for my liking and I wanted to be able to get rid of them all at one time.

At the same time, I've been an at-home campaigner for Child's Play ever since the charity began in 2003. For the last three years, I've asked my parents, sister, and extended family to refrain from buying me Christmas presents, but instead to buy toys for the children's hospitals on the Child's Play website. My story, as I've written into every eBay auction, is as follows:

"My own story is that when I was 11, I spent a week flat on my back recovering from surgery to repair a congenital kidney defect. Because both of my kidneys had been operated on, I couldn't use the facilities like a normal kid would and always had to have my arms restrained at night so that I would scratch out the stitches across my abdomen.

"One of the things I remember the most about my stay is that one day, all the ambulatory kids were gathered in the rec center because the hospital was throwing a party. I couldn't go because I was still confined to my bed, and things were pretty quiet in my room without the other kids in it. Then, I heard the sound of voices coming down the hallway, and a doctor dressed up as a clown lead a parade of kids to my room. They had balloons, and everyone was so happy. I remember smiling as the doctor handed me a new Barbie, saying that he had come to deliver it to me in person because he knew that I couldn't get out of my bed.

"I like to imagine that the money you will spend on these auctions can go towards purchasing a new Barbie for a bed-bound kid like I used to be."

I started putting items up last night (seller id: saucypackrat), and the auctions will end in 7 days. I would really love to see all of these items be sold, even if it's just at the minimum bids. I'm publicizing it on my LiveJournal, but if news of these auctions could find a wider audience, that would also be awesome.

Thank you, for creating such a wonderful and awesome charity!

I really, really want to help out the guys this year, and this is the best way I can think of doing it. Plus, a little extra good karma never hurt anyone.

The mid-week grind

It figures... on a night when I'm actually playing poker on PokerStars.net, Dr. Pauly himself came by to leave a comment on my last entry. And it also figures that tonight, I have a very uneven session.

Dealer: Tr1shaLynn has a pair of Kings
Dealer: Game #12402767189: Tr1shaLynn wins side pot (60) with a pair of Kings
Dealer: Game #12402767189: Tr1shaLynn wins main pot (3490) with a pair of Kings

This was the very first hand I was dealt. I had Ah-Kx off-suit to start with, and the flop was all hearts. Can't remember if the King came on the turn or the river, but two people went all-in to make up that pot. I tripled up in this hand.

Dealer: gnulife4me has a pair of Fours
Dealer: Tr1shaLynn has a pair of Tens
Dealer: Game #12402830961: Tr1shaLynn wins pot (555) with a pair of Tens

This was the second hand I was dealt. Yeah, I really had no right to be in this hand at all, starting with 9-10o, and not catching the straight draw on the river. This was pure luck.

Tr1shaLynn: So do you have the straight?
Dealer: Tr1shaLynn, it's your turn. You have 15 seconds to act
Dealer: Player Tr1shaLynn has requested TIME
Dealer: Tr1shaLynn has high card Ace
Dealer: adamg8888 has two pair, Nines and Sevens
Dealer: Game #12402883026: adamg8888 wins pot (670) with two pair, Nines and Sevens
Tr1shaLynn: nh

Ad-Kd, and the flop didn't help my flush. However, I did end up also drawing to a straight. I checked a lot when I should have been stronger, I think.

Dealer: Game #12402996520: Tr1shaLynn wins pot (205)

Caught a flush on the turn, and I realize now that I should have slow-played. Instead, I bet 1.5 times the pot because I wanted to represent uber-strength, and it worked. Thank you, Dan Harrington.

Dealer: billferd has a full house, Nines full of Kings
Dealer: Game #12403065047: billferd wins pot (3170) with a full house, Nines full of Kings

Had 7-7 to start, and was blinded by the kings. Damnit.

Dealer: adamg8888 has a full house, Aces full of Sevens
Dealer: Game #12403169875: adamg8888 wins pot (510) with a full house, Aces full of Sevens

And here I was thinking he'd gotten the third seven... no, he had the third Ace. At least I did accurately call him on it. Me? Just two pair, Aces and tens. Nicely played.

BEST HAND OF THE NIGHT
Dealer: Tr1shaLynn has three of a kind, Queens
Dealer: Game #12403323018: Tr1shaLynn wins pot (1625) with three of a kind, Queens

A-Qo, a raise from last position, I called, and it was called back from the middle. I hit the first queen on the turn, bet half the pot, and was called all-in. Third queen hit, I bet half the pot again, and was called. Textbook, yes?

Dealer: billferd has two pair, Tens and Nines
Dealer: Game #12403564737: billferd wins side pot (3599) with two pair, Tens and Nines
Dealer: keko9 has a straight, Ten to Ace
Dealer: Game #12403564737: keko9 wins main pot (1128) with a straight, Ten to Ace

And this is where I lost 2/3 my stack because I started talking to this guy who kept catching straights. I had Kc-4c to start, and things didn't get much better for me the longer things went on and the queen I needed didn't show up. I hadn't been playing for a while and while I was the one who initiated the conversation, he kept it going. I admit that perhaps I wanted to impress him and solidify my standing at the table? Anyway, lesson learned: Stop thinking with your ego, Trish.

Dealer: billferd has three of a kind, Queens
Dealer: MaranelloW has two pair, Kings and Queens
Dealer: kdh11353 has a flush, King high
Dealer: Game #12403709387: kdh11353 wins pot (3040) with a flush, King high

I was the SB and had Ac-10h and paid $5 to see the flop because why not? Everyone else had only called. The flop comes up more clubs and straight possibilities, so I check. Bill comes back with a raise of 300+ and was called. So I did what any prudent person with only 1k in chips left would do: I got the hell out of the way. Best decision, ever.

Dealer: BigK2007 has a straight, Five to Nine
Dealer: Game #12403950632: BigK2007 wins side pot-2 (950) with a straight, Five to Nine
Dealer: Game #12403950632: BigK2007 wins side pot-1 (1980) with a straight, Five to Nine

Gyah. BK stole my straight. That money should have been mine, except for the fact that someone else had the queen I needed.

And that's it for me for this session, leaving the table with 410 in chips. Argh... and I forgot to get the session stats before I left the table. Oh well, next time.

A $50 lesson learned

For my 30th birthday, my friend Speck bought me the first volume of Harrington on Hold 'Em and I devoured a few chapters in the week before my trip out to Las Vegas. I didn't do any of the workbook problems, and maybe I should have before I hit the casinos on Friday night.

It was fairly late in the evening--or early in the morning--when I stumbled upon the poker room at PH (aka Planet Hollywood). My friend Marc had just arrived from Los Angeles, and we were about to start a heavy night of drinking. Because this was my 30th birthday party weekend, the other people who were with me that night graciously let me set the tone of the evening's drinking and followed me through and around the various winding pathways that can get you lost and alternately dump you as close to as many slot machines to catch your eye as possible. The room itself was small, maybe only 10 tables, half of which were full. I'd had a Jack and ginger at the Heart Bar mere minutes before I went to the desk to ask about the availability of a $1/$2 NL Hold 'Em table, just to check. When I was told that yes, there was a seat free, did I want to take it, I choked. Before I knew it, I had borrowed $30 from my best friend Lewis to make up the $50 minimum buy-in, and sat down at a full table.

To my left was an Asian lady, but I didn't stay long enough at the table to see if she was what Dr. Pauly calls a "Crazy Asian lady." I do remember that she had a big stack and was likely bullying the table all night because the frat boy to my right celebrated pretty noisily when he beat her with a flush draw on the river, and the rest of the table was pretty appreciative as well. I didn't catch any cards at all until I hit J-J on the button. The initial bet was $5, which I called. I knew I was playing short-stacked, but I figured that I should at least see the flop, y'know?

On the next round of betting, I pushed a few people out with a $15 raise, which frat boy called behind me. The turn paired aces, and my next move was to bet $20, which FB called again and even more people got out of the way. Honestly, things were moving so quickly that I wasn't watching the table carefully enough to notice that there was a flush possibility. I think we all know where this is going because when it came time to flip 'em over, he made his flush draw, and I exited the room with grace and dignity.

Hannah told me later that since she subscribes to the A2C (any two cards) newsletter and I was short-stacked, I probably made the right call. My poker mentor Aaron concurs, and he said he'd teach me more when we go to Atlantic City in November. I'm not too upset because I did fully go into that room expecting to lose whatever money I was going to bet because I'm still learning how to play this game. The rounds went faster than I was ready for. Hell, my money went faster than I was ready for. But I think that's something that I'll have to adjust for and get used to if I really want to make a serious stab at this.

Annette Obrestad: Youngest. Female. WSOP. Bracelet Winner. EVAR

Most of the coverage is here, and believe me, I'm going to be devouring it while crunching data today. I want to read more about this 19-year old who has taken her online game offline and proven herself to be a champion. According to Pauly's bio of her, she took $9 against her parents' wishes and built it into her gaming bankroll, starting when she was 15. I can't wait till she turns 21 and can smoke 'em all in Vegas.

This post is such a contrast to my last one. I'm proud to be a female poker enthusiast, and hope that I can one day become good enough to face her and the likes of her at a table.

LIttle landmarks

Pauly's helping cover the WSOPE (which I'm pronouncing in my head as "wuh-soppy") and this is what he wrote about a Brit who pulled down a monster hand (quad 6s):

On the third hand of the tournament, Thomas Bihl busted out after donking off his chips and made some random British hot chick, Sarah Taylor, the chipleader. Taylor limped from UTG. William Thorson called. Thomas Bihl raised to 1,200 from the big blind. Taylor called as did Thorson. I put Bihl on a big pair. The flop was 9d-6s-4d. Taylor bet out of turn and was told by the dealer to take her bet back. Bihl checked. Taylor then bet 1,000. Thorson called. Bihl check-raised to 6,000. Taylor and Thorson called. The turn was the 6h. Bihl checked. Taylor bet 8,000 and sat back in her chair... a signal of strength. She was also shaking uncontrollably. My gut told me that she had 6-6 and turn quads. The chick was shaking for fucks sake. The ever cool Thorson folded and Bihl went into the tank for a minute before he check-raised all in. What the fuck? Taylor quickly called. I expected Bihl to have A-A or at least 9-9 or 4-4 for the full house. Nope. He flipped over Qh-Qd. Taylor tabled 6d-6c for quads. Bihl was drawing dead as the dealer put out a meaningless 5h on the river. Bihl headed to the rail as Taylor dragged the pot and jumped out to an early chiplead. Two days earlier Bihl won a bracelet after he came from behind and beat Jen Harman in the HORSE event as he made history and became the first ever player to win a bracelet in Europe. Then he donked off his chips to an amateur who obviously held a monster hand. I can only assume that Bihl is primarily an online player who doesn't study the physical reactions of players as much as he should. I mean, Taylor was shaking. How could he not know she had a hand?

I don't think I do that anymore. When I held my Ace-high straight against Dash, I was as cool as a cucumber. I kept thinking over and over again what Wil Wheaton said once about being an actor and committing your face and your body into believing that you don't have an Ace-high straight. I wanted to look confident enough that he'd think I had game, but not too confident because I wanted his chips.

I still think back to the second time I played at Doc's house and he said that it was getting harder to read me. That's a skill I definitely need to keep working on.

What interests me is that I'm more upset that Taylor's a woman who isn't covering her tells rather than Taylor being a person who isn't covering their tells. It's like I want to yell at her to shape up because every time she plays in a big game like the WSOPE, she reps us other female players who want to be known for their good game.

All of this is just prelude to me spending $100 at the tables on my 30th birthday party in Las Vegas next week so I can find out how good I've really gotten, if at all. My friend Steve bought me the first volume of Harrington on Hold 'Em and I'm going to be devouring that thing on the plane, along with Positively Fifth Street because I like a good essay.

Wish me luck.

Mornings with "ze Germans"

I'm starting to see how people can try and play more than one game at the same time. When you're not in a hand, things can get boring. I know that I should be watching how people bet, but since this is only for play money anyway it's not like I can expect everyone to take the game seriously. For example, there's this player who came in with the minimum 1k chips and immediately went all-in pre-flop... and other people called him! And what kills me is that he eventually won the pot, and tripled-up.

Playing "right" is also killing me, but as many folks say, it's better to play right than to play stupid. I folded J-x, only to see two more of them come up on the board and I could have throttled myself. But according to this website once you get below J-10 suited, your odds of winning the pot are less than 15% and those aren't good odds at all.

Dealer: Game #11196654068: Tr1shaLynn wins pot (310) with a straight, Deuce to Six

In my pocket was 4-6o, and the flop gave me the 3 and the 5. Two outs meant that I had a 22% chance of catching the straight on either the turn or the river (I think; someone check my math, please?). I realize now that I probably could have bet more when the river gave me the deuce I needed. Any more than the $50, though, might have scared them off and there were two of them in there so that I think that was okay.

Dealer: Game #11196852527: Tr1shaLynn wins pot (290) with three of a kind, Jacks

I did much better reeling the guy in with my Jack in the pocket, catching the third Jack on the turn. I was the aggressor, starting off with a bet of $30, which he called, and then raising it to $50, which he also called.

Summary: During current Hold'em session you were dealt 40 hands and saw flop:
- 4 out of 7 times while in big blind (57%)
- 4 out of 7 times while in small blind (57%) [I choose to auto-post blinds so I don't hold people up and also so that I can see more cards.]
- 4 out of 26 times in other positions (15%)
- a total of 12 out of 40 (30%)
Pots won at showdown - 2 of 6 (33%)
Pots won without showdown - 0

Other than the fact that I play tight and I haven't gotten to a point to where I can say I'm a fantastic online player, I have no idea exactly how to interpret these stats. I remember enough about math to say that I can't compare the 30% that I see a flop is approximate to the 33% of the times that I won because there are several times when I was first to act and I'd check all the way to the river and then fold when someone raised. I can say that I can at least get an hour's entertainment out of an initial buy-in, and that bodes well for me when I go to Las Vegas for my 30th birthday part in September.

I guess I'm just going to have to be content with that for now.

Taking more stabs at poker

Wil Wheaton wrote once that when he's really "on" as a performer, he can't remember what really happened because he's so invested in the energy and it whooshes by like a blur. A bad evening (or what he perceives as bad because I personally think that his "Spongebobvegaspants" story is one of triumph rather than defeat) gets seared into his memory and then later regurgitated in his blog.

My brain is obviously wired differently from Wil's because I mostly remember the best hand I had in the recent cash game I was in. Doc was dealing to the VIPs and other staff members of the local area convention that I volunteer for. My buy-in had been generously donated to me, and I somehow managed to grow my stack to a decent size. Then came the hand that unseated trip sevens as my favorite winning hand of all time.

I can't remember if I'd been dealt Q-Jo or Q-Ko. What I do remember is the flop, coming up with the rest of what I needed for an unsuited straight, Ace-high. In my well-hidden excitement, I didn't think that perhaps Dash had also hit a straight or any other kind of hand that would have beaten my straight when he laid his first $5 chip down. I slow-played the hell out of that hand, raising by only $5 increments each time he opened the betting. There's no way in hell, I thought, that you can have anything that will beat my straight. It's destined for me to win this hand. But I'll keep letting you think I don't have anything.

I don't remember what the turn and the river were. I probably should have been more cautious, but nothing paired on the board and he kept laying those $5 chips down, and I kept raising him by that much. I fell in love with the flop, something that I know can be dangerous. Finally it comes time for us to show our hands and yes, I had his two pair (Aces and something) beat. As I raked the chips closer to me, I even needled him a little bit, saying, "How could you not think that I had the straight from the way I was betting?" (Even now, I think I probably shouldn't have gloated or tried to put him on tilt. It was supposed to be a friendly game after all.)

---

Best hand of this morning:

Dealer: Game #11178369659: Tr1shaLynn wins pot (575) with a full house, Aces full of Tens
schmechschdp: n1
sdscards: #@*@@#*
Tr1shaLynn: thx

I slow-played him, and had the Ace in my pocket. All the while, I'm telling myself that I really shouldn't be in this hand, but we were three-handed at the time and every time I went to fold, the game kept telling me that checking was free. Who can resist free checking? Once I saw that I made my house, I reeled him in by doubling his raise on the river.

And then I ended up giving a lot of it to another player who got a different full house later on.

Bad beat number two came when I thought I could bluff someone out of a pot by making them think I had a straight. I keep forgetting that you can't project confidence online if you're not chatting/talking to someone and his two pair held up. After that, I went all-in and busted out.

Damn full houses. You're too damn shiny.

Where have all the heroes gone?

A little bit of my heart just died today while watching the second half of the coverage of Erick Lindgren's insane prop bet on RawVegas.TV because of Dr. Pauly's interview. All along, because of the way he writes, I was expecting to see someone of Bryant Telfer-ian proportions, a more suave-looking Hunter S. Thompson, or maybe even a lovable rogue like Otis from the PokerStars blog, yes... the one who ate a Keno crayon on a prop bet last year. But no... Dr. Pauly is more Samoan lawyer than strung-out gonzo journalist.

Oh well... at least Change100 loves him.

Blast from the Past: An unpublished interview with Penny Arcade

When I first started reading it, I bookmarked the comic page of Penny Arcade and rarely bothered to read the news post because most of the time, the news post was about things that I really didn't care about or know anything about.

However, over the years, even though the comic is pretty much uploaded in the morning when I read all my webcomics, I'll visit the site twice: first in the morning to see the comics, and later in the afternoon to read the blog entries from Tycho (and Gabe, if he chooses to post).

You may not care about this, but that's just one more sign to me of how I've evolved as a gamer. I may not read all the gaming magazines and webzines (and believe me, I'll get to the print magazines another time), but I do click on pretty much all of the links in a Tycho rant/ramble because I want to know what they're talking about and why.

As a girly gamer, I want to read about games I'll probably never play because I want to know if it's worth it for me to eventually play them. I'm a little upset that they've never covered Shining Force: EXA because that's my current RPG gaming obsession--and the main reason why I started this blog--but I understand now why they don't cover certain games or issues now that they've started doing the podcasts.

That's inner knowledge I didn't have when I conducted this unfinished interview with them, originally intended to be published in Sequential Tart way back in 2004.

Gabe & Tycho: Hanging Out at the Penny Arcade
by Trisha L. Sebastian

I have a confession to make:

I am not a die-hard gamer, I am a woman, and I love Penny Arcade.

What's not to love? Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I faithfully check in on the antics of Tycho and Gabe (a.k.a. Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, respectively) who skewer the best and the worst things about the computer and console gaming world with an irreverance that borders on the BLANK [couldn't find the right word, was hoping it would come to me later rather than re-write the sentence] while making fun of themselves and their kind. Every day, I learn something new about circles and fandoms I don't move in while giggling madly at their often profane and very violent rantings.

At the same time, the two have mastered the art of making money at doing webcomics while starting an entirely new genre of comic strip, brought an everyman's eye to the multi-million dollar industry and have even harnessed the power of the people to raise money for a worthwhile cause.

So when I heard that Tycho and Gabe were going to be at UberCon in Secaucus, N.J. this past February, I jumped at the chance to interview them for Sequential Tart. I cornered them abour an hour before the dealer's room opened and shamelessly monopolized Jerry Holkins' time for an hour after the room opened while Mike Krahulik sketched for an endless number of fans.

Because after all, BLANK [I have a hard time coming up with ending sentences to blurbs or stories].

---

ST: How did you guys come up with the idea of Penny Arcade?

JH: We really didn't come up with the idea. I'd hate to take credit for it. We entered a contest that a really famous and respected video game magazine was holding on its website, Next Generation.com. Maybe they were looking for somebody eventually for their magazine or they just wanted more content for the site but it wasn't even us together at that point. We were living together [and] Mike had done some test comics for them, and after that, it seemed like something really fun to do. We'd been working on different comics but they never really came out, like we were never really able to finish them. And it was perfect, it never occurred to us that we needed to work with a smaller format. We just thought of ourselves as failures, I think. Is that about right?

MK: Pretty much, yeah.

JH: So eventually I wrote a couple [strips] and he was kind enough to draw them. And then they told us not to send anymore. They'd had quite enough of our unique sense of humor.

ST: And what year was this?

JH: That would have been 1998.

ST: How long had you guys been friends and roommates?

MK: Roommates since ... 1994

ST: In college, or ... ?

JH: None of us really went to a regular human college.

MK: Not really.

JH: We met in journalism class and we actually had a small post-apocalyptic adventure comic I think ...

ST: What was it called?

JH: It was called David and Goliath.

ST: So how many PA strips had you done before they told you not to send anymore?

JH: Five? So we were like, "Somebody should probably see them." I mean, we went through the trouble of making them. So we went to other gaming websites that were big at the time. Some of them aren't as big now. Eventually we settled on one called Looney Games which was like a gaming 'zine which we presumed would be bohemian enough to really investigate some of the more racy themes we wanted to touch on. We were quite wrong about that. [The editors] would constantly interfere with what we were trying to do, which was add the f-word to every strip. As you can see we no longer have that level of editorial control.

ST: On average, how many times have you used the word "fuck" in your comic?

JH: My goodness.

MK: We don't really know.

JH: We use it whenever it needs to be used. That is the way we speak. It's that the strip and the post, to a slightly lesser extent, mimic our speech.

ST: I remember one of the comics and/or one of the rants mentioning how you basically take conversations you have and present them in comic form.

JH: Yes, that's true.

ST: How much time does it take you to come up with the next comic?

JH: It varies greatly. Like sometimes the conversation that becomes the comic is multiple hours in the making. Sometimes we're discussing something of import or interest to us that eventually takes on that shape or it gives us a rough outline or it gives us some punchline or something like that. And we need to craft something around that. But it varies so widely that it's not even worth trying to estimate it. Like sometimes it's instantaneous. Sometimes one of us will have an idea already and we'll enjoy it a lot and we'll say, "Well, we need to make a comic out of that." So I guess [the answer is] zero moments in some cases. And then other cases, it's just torment.

ST: What do you think accounts for the popularity of Penny Arcade?

JH: I think that we update when we say we will and we've been doing it for a long time.

MK: I think updating on time is a big thing. People know they'll get a comic when they come on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

JH: Yeah. You'll note that neither of those two things that I've said is because it's awesome. I think that we do good work. I think that we've had some really funny comics, and I don't think that we're the best comic online or anything like that. I think that people can depend on us to satisfy the requirements of the relationship that writers and readers are supposed to have.

ST: You mentioned you were in journalism school ...

JH: No, not journalism school, this is journalism class. [Laughs]

ST: In high school? Oh, okay. [Laughs]

MK: It's not journalism school -- trust me on that.

ST: This is an art question for Mike. It's amazing looking at the strips from 1998 and seeing them now. Tell me about the evolution of the Penny Arcade style. How did you move from one style to the other?

MK: When we first started Penny Arcade, I was coming off of BLANK [one of those thing I needed clarification on] to actual comic book art, so I didn't consider myself a cartoonist, necessarily. My style was pretty much a combination of everyone that I liked at the time in comics [like] Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee, Mark Silvestri, all those guys. And it wasn't until I'd done Penny Arcade for maybe a year that I really started getting interested in comic art and animation. Eventually what I tried to do is use my interest in animation into the artwork I was doing for Penny Arcade. I wanted it to look like still frames from an animated cartoon. And that's still something that I'm [doing]. If you look at it today, it pretty much looks like cels. It's got these thick black outlines, the characters are in sets that you might find in a cartoon.

ST: Is that something you've been toying with? Doing the strip as an animated series?

MK: Absolutely, yeah.

JH: I think eventually we probably will when the deal is right, when we have the right amount of control over it.

ST: Obviously, you guys have been down this path.

JH: We were working with a guy and he certainly had the best of intentions and we appreciate him asking us to work on a pilot. But when we write a scene for you and you send it back to us, only you've taken out all the jokes and put in your own stupid crap, we're probably not going to work with you again. And that's what happened the first time, and we decided we weren't interested in that. Like, we have an idea for a show, a real idea for a show -- we don't need your ideas for the show, we already it ... So unless you want to do a Penny Arcade show that ... you know what I'm saying? [Chuckles] We don't mean to sound imperious but it's sort of ours, so you don't get to make those kinds of decisions.

ST: And you know what's best.

JH: Well, for Penny Arcade!

ST: You mentioned this yesterday at the webcomics panel, but I think that Penny Arcade is unusual in that not only do fans read it, people in the gaming industry read it. Tell me more about that.

MK: We've been really lucky in that it's been well received by people who are actually making the video games we like to play.

JH: Even when we're mean!

MK: Yeah, they seem to take it really well.

ST: What's the best and worst reaction you've gotten from a company regarding your comic?

JH: We've been included in a couple games, or certainly elements from our comic has been included in a couple games.

ST: Can you give me an example?

JH: They say they didn't mean to do it for Penny Arcade, but certainly it's a Penny Arcade element so we like it anyway. In Legacy of Kain there's the Cardboard Tube Reaver mode. That was pretty cool.

MK: There's BLANK STARFIGHTER [another thing I needed clarified], the code to unlock everything is "penny arcade".

ST: What's been the worst reaction from a video game company?

JH: From a videogame company? We don't really get bad reactions now. I think they're smart enough to know that it would be really bad PR to get pissed off at us.

MK: Yeah, it would be really bad PR to get pissed off at a comic strip.

JH: Right. You know what I'm saying? It just doesn't merit -- I mean, many people read it and enjoy it or don't enjoy it, but it really doesn't merit a response by and large. I mean, sometimes we may get some nasty email or something like that, but that's hardly worth mentioning in the context of the other emails.

ST: Considering your standing in the webcomic industry -- because I personally think you guys are one of the key touchstones because it's such a wonderful success story for you guys being able to do this as your fulltime job --

JH: Yeah, you were there at the [webcomics panel] ... There were two other people who were doing it fulltime. They spent their entire moment trying to play down the fact? And it's like ... it's not ... [Long pause] It isn't uncool to be able to do what you love; that's not something you need to play down. I don't understand that.

I guess "success" ... I guess that's sort of uncool because then you're like a "sellout," a "poser." I'm ready for that [pause] hipster bullshit to go by the wayside. It's actually perfectly satisfactory. I think that Penny Arcade pretty much proves that you can do what you want and stay true to the way that you want to do things, and you can still garner traffic and you can still make it work.

ST: As a member of the comics community (something that we talked about at the webcomics panel), do you feel a responsibility towards that community at all?

JH: I think that we're reviled by many people in the webcomics community.

ST: Why?

JH: I think because they say that they revile us.

ST: [Laughs]

JH: They mail us and tell us they don't like us.

MK: Right.

JH: You don't understand, this all uncommon. When we came out -- Like now, there's thousands of webcomics. But when we came out, there was like ... four. PvP, User Friendly, I think BLANK TOWN [yet another thing I needed clarification on] was doing some stuff already and Sluggy Freelance. Those were the ones that I know about anyway. Our third or fourth comic was a comic ripping on User Friendly. You have to do it. It's just a part of making your comic. You have to come out and do that kind of stuff. And so when I see people doing it to us -- as strange as that is -- [there's] no problem. I understand. And I know why they do that.

ST: I wanted to ask this yesterday and I didn't know the best way to put it. You're obviously gamers and now you create comic strips. Have you ever wanted to jump into regular print comics?

JH: Oh, you mean like books?

ST: Yeah.

JH: Sort of. I mean, comics books ... I didn't grow up reading comic books, and so for me comic books ... I do not see comic books as some end point. Like, I have a trajectory and it's like, "Oh, when I'm actually successful then you have the comic book." Like that's how it happens. That is the recognition. Like being "Spotted." I've heard friends of mine that are currently on Keenspace who talk about being "Spotted." And that's just ... I just --

My goal is actually to make comics, so we were succeeding when we uploaded the first .gif. That's actually my goal. The rest of this stuff is sort of ancillary to that.

ST: Jerry, what are your comedic influences or your writing influences when it comes to writing the strips?

JH: I like Kevin Smith.

MK: Yeah.

JH: [He's] not really a conscious influence, but just the idea that friends spend hours talking about this sort of thing. Certainly you can say that's drawn from Kevin Smith, but I'm sure Kevin Smith did it because people do that. Singular interests start to take over.

ST: Art-wise, what would you say your influences are?

MK: Art-wise, my biggest influence is an artist named Stephen Silver. The Clerks animated series was the first thing I saw of his and then after that he did Kim Possible.

ST: What are your favorite comics right now?

JH: Oh, well right now, [Mike] actually brought a bunch of them in and they were great. Like we just read the first trade of Invincible, Wanted -- In fact he was drawing a picture [from that]. I mean, that's really, really good. I'm not sure why it took so long to make this gritty comic that focuses entirely on what would be the antagonist in any other book. I love Powers ...

MK: Fantastic Four.

JH: Fantastic Four is great.

MK: The new Punisher ... fantastic.

ST: So are you Marvel fans or DC fans? Or do you not care?

JH: We just like to read whatever is cool. I mean that is probably a reality for comic readers that spend more time with that medium. But for people who are essentially coming in after a hiatus, we just don't differentiate. We don't have those kinds of allegiances built up. Now if you want to bring us over into gaming or something like that ... !

ST: That's one of my next questions: what are you playing right now?

[THIS ANSWER WILL BE ENTIRELY NEW]

ST: What is your "guilty pleasure" game? As in, you're afraid to admit that you like this game.

JH: I had kind of a Magic: Online phase. I mean, it's one thing ... Over there [in Japan] you have Star Chamber. That's an online card game that you can only play online. Then over here, there is Chron X which is another online card game. [But] you can actually play Magic in the real world, like you don't need to buy these imaginary cards that do it. And eventually it got so ridiculous and I had to stop doing it.

ST: What about you?

MK: Lost Kingdoms was the last game I was embarassed to tell people I was playing. Well ...

JH: It made you feel bad.

MK: Not that it was a bad game. I loved it.

ST: What did you love about that game?

MK: It was the first collectible card-style game that I ever got into. I never played Magic, and I don't do anything like that, so the whole collectible card game was new to me. I think that was part of it.

ST: One of the recent strips that had continuity was where Tycho brought Gabe to a role-playing game. Jerry, how long have you been an RPG fan?

JH: Forever. You have to understand that I would have been an RPG fan for even longer, but I had to find a role-playing game that would not activate my mother's really intense religious prejudice. Obviously, D&D's not going to work. Many of them are these dark, gothic affairs that incorporate demons, ghosts and so forth. So what had to happen was Palladium kicked out their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game and so for years we played TMNT, and then eventually, we said, "We'll play it in secret." It all started when I was 13.

ST: So, I'm a woman and Sequential Tart is obviously a 'zine staffed by women. Do you think you have a responsibility towards the women who read your comic?

JH: No. But understand that we don't think we have a responsibility to a reader as a sort of theoretical entity. We believe our responsibility to our readers is to make the best comic strip we can make, according to our own specifications. Not to be insulting, but we actually have a comic concept that we want to make and enjoy making.

We don't actually target the comic. The comic tends to hit with people who game a lot, right? But that's not a choice of target. It just happens to be the people that we are and that's the way the comic manifests itself. Sometimes I'm not sure there's anything specific to the female experience of the comics. It's very rare ... Sometimes we'll incorporate our wives as foils; that's because we're intimidated by them, they're a lot smarter than we are.

ST: What was the reaction from your girlfriends (and later wives) when you brought them into the comic?

JH: It depends on what we're doing to them.

ST: [Laughs]

JH: Most of the time, it's alright. Sometimes [it's] a new character design for them ...

MK: It took me a while to [do that] ...

ST: I was going to say that while your characters have stayed the same, the girls have gone through so many different design changes. What accounts for that?

JH: But the guys haven't stayed the same. If you go all the way back from the beginning, their shapes have changed a lot. The reason the girls' changes are so obvious is you only see them once every two months, max. His style is still developing in a linear fashion, so the sample points when the girls come in are so diverse that you really notice the difference in the way that [Mike] thinks in an aesthetic sense [and] those things pop up.

Do you think that we should actively be courting the [female audience]?

ST: Not at all.

JH: 'Cause I'm curious about that.

ST: I like you just the way you are.

JH: Awww. That's sweet.

ST: I do! A lot of the times, though ... I remember it was the PvP comic where Francis had posted a comic strip, and then he put up the pages of text in order to understand the comic. I'm like that. I read the comic first, and then I read the rants to find out what the hell you guys are talking about.

JH: Sure.

ST: And from a female point of view, it is intimidating to review your strip because again, you don't understand what's going on ...

JH: [Laughs]

ST: I'm a casual gamer, I'm a button masher. But again, I learn so much about the gaming industry by reading your strip. So, for a new reader (and this was the question I wanted to ask last night at the webcomics panel, but we ran out of time), for someone who's never read Penny Arcade before and wants to understand what you're all about, what do you think the best jumping off point is and why? What's the most accessible to a new reader?

JH: That would be a pretty daunting task. We don't have continuity as such, but certainly we have elements that carry sometimes from one strip to another, so we have a sort of quasi-continuity. But ... that would be a very daunting task. It's hard for me to put myself in the mind of a person who's trying to come at it for the first time, because we're so intimately involved with it. But yeah ... God ... they have a long road to hoe. That would be very difficult for them, I'm afraid.

I guess they could start from the beginning, but in the beginning there really weren't news posts. You know what I'm saying? We were running [the strip] somewhere else; we really didn't have a news post portion.

You say that you read the comic and then you read the posts. Internally, we don't distinguish those two things.

ST: Because you basically create both at the same time?

JH: That's true. They're both being produced at the same time. Typically, the post itself is inspired by the strip. For us, that distinction seems arbitrary. You know they're on separate pages, but they're certainly on the same site. It isn't confusing on purpose. It isn't a hostile act. But now that you say it, it does seem impenetrable.

This is sort of why I don't see comic books as an end point. It is perfectly satisfying what we do [putting] video game comics on the web. Because you don't have to make comics that everybody likes. You don't have to do things that people are going to enjoy. If somebody doesn't get it, that's okay. It's hard to say. It's not as if they'll want for comic strips.

[INTERVIEW PAUSED SO INTERVIEWER COULD MOVE AROUND THE TABLE AND GET THE TAPE RECORDER CLOSER TO JERRY]

I never finished this for a few reasons:

1. I needed clarification on those blank spots, and after sending a few emails to both Jerry and Robert Khoo without response, I gave up. Not a good trait for a journalist.
   
2. I hate transcription with the heat of a thousand burning suns. How the hell do secretaries manage to do that?
   
3. I had just been fired from Anime Insider and was trying to find a job that would let me stay in New York City. Job hunting in this city is one of the most soul-degrading things a person can go through, and I was on a timeline.
   
4. I think I was also working on the Wil Wheaton interview at the same time, and that one was coming along much easier.
   

In the end, I'd love to interview the guys again sometime because so many things have changed. They're making their own videogame, they've published print collections of their strips, opened up their own online store, collaborated with the industry on numerous projects (with many more that are too numerous to link), created their own charity organization, created their own freaking convention...

Jerry's absolutely right in that they have every right to be damn proud of what they managed to do for themselves in the last nine years since they first started posting comic strips online. I know that I can't say the same for myself, and for that I'm a little bit envious. I hope that in the next nine years, I'll have as much to say for myself.

Here's hoping.

You spilled your political correctness in my joke!

In an effort to come closer to making a decision on whether or not to continue playing FFXI, I'm reposting some old entries from my LiveJournal that I really enjoyed:

So after an eternity killing Orcs in the Ghelsba outpost with my boyfriend, I finally got all three of the keys you need to get an airship pass to Kazham and caught my first party. I'm so freaking glad I was able to get that done because my first time there I went up two levels and am now a 26WHM/12BLM. (The game plan is to ride WHM all the way to 30 and then go back to Selbina and take BLM to 20 so that I can put off going back to those freaking dunes as long as possible.) Anyway, the party I was with and I were discussing crafting and the relative merits of each one in terms of how much it costs to gain levels and which crafts are the most useful. I mentioned that all the clubs and staves I make with Jeynabie get sent to my new Bastok mule character Lynabeh (see the naming trend?) and I can make anywhere from 800 to 1K gil a pop. And then I said, "It's like the triangle trade, except without the rum!" Which predictably received a few "lols" and a "But why is the rum gone?" response.

However, what I had initially wanted to say was, "It's like the triangle trade, without the slavery!" And I fully admit that it wasn't the most sensitive thing to say (which is why I didn't say it) and I also recognize that worrying about being sensitive in an MMORPG is kinda silly because most of the people playing are young teenagers and college kids and they let profanity fly and they also hit on me (sometimes) and they're made of sterner stuff, yeah? That's the confusing thing about trying to make people laugh: You never know if and when you're going to piss someone off.