Jerry Holkins

Since both Gabe's art and Tycho's writing improve nicely in this second tome, featuring collected strips from the year 2001, and the inclusion of the occasional original post from the website ups on the hilarity, I was going to give this one four stars.

But then again, a quarter of the book is dedicated to showing the images of some card game they did. Now don't get me wrong, the art is great, but nearly forty pages dedicated to this in a 160 page book, without any commentary whatsoever, is show more a bit too much. At the very end, they show some projects that they did outside of the main comic, which is nice, but still, three stars for this effort. show less

Merideth says: Gabe and Tycho are gamers. Hardcore gamers. No demo goes unplayed, no system goes unpurchased. They make their frequently opinions about games, platforms and the gaming industry known to all in these funny, frequently profane comic strips.

These are comic strips, in the truest sense of the word. Each stands alone; continuity is rarely present. This first collection shows the evolution of the strip from its earliest years. This is particularly evident in the artwork, which has show more moved from rough caricature to a much more polished, animated style. Violence, crude sexual humor and profanity prevail. These books appeal to a very narrow segment of the population; those who geek and game will find them hilarious -- every one else will struggle to care. show less

I realized when I picked up the recently published collection of Penny Arcade comics that I've actually been reading them in real time for nine years.

When I first found Penny Arcade they'd been making comics online for a couple years, and I was madly in love with this fancy new "webcomics" thing. Funny how my dedication hasn't faded.

Containing the comics from 2005, The Halls Below is as much fun as I remember. We get the first appearance of Annarchy and The Elemenstor Saga. And Merch. The show more comics are irreverent, snarky, occasionally vulgar, and always funny.

Someday I'm dragging my husband to PAX. He doesn't get to say no. show less

The real joy of reading this collection is Tycho’s commentary. The comics collected were originally published in 2002. The commentary dates from 2006, and is already, as it were, dated. So we have a book with ephemeral cartoons from the last, accompanied by ephemeral commentary from the slightly more recent past. I like it... http://icantstopreading.wordpress.com/2008/06/09/the-warsun-prophecies-by-jerry-...