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Penny Arcade Volume 7: Be Good, Little Puppy (2011)

by Jerry Holkins(Favorite Author)

4.22 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0345512286 (ISBN13: 9780345512284)

languge

English

genre

Humor

publisher

Del Rey

series

Penny Arcade

review 1: It's hard to give a cohesive review to the Penny Arcade collections, since you're really just looking at a snapshot of a year in the life of the webcomic. This volume, like the last, falls within my favorite years of Penny Arcade's run, and includes the launch of the Nintendo Wii (before anybody knew about the coming impact of casual gaming on the industry) and the hilarious layered meta-satire, Song of the Sorcelator.For some reason, it felt like the included bonus material wasn't quite as substantial as it was in the previous volume. Holkins' commentary on each strip is still present and still funny, but the text both throughout the strips and in the Sorcelator stuff in the back is scaled back in favor of unreleased comic strips. Which is arguably better, but also reads ... morea lot quicker.Not much else to say; this was a great, lazy read, and as much of a technophile as I am, it's nice to be able to flip through some solid pages at random for a bit, instead of clicking through PA's comic archive through their site.
review 2: When I was younger, I used to dabble more with console gaming. We were a Nintendo family and we owned everything from the original Gameboy to the WII. There was also a brief period where we owned a SONY and we used to gather around, taking turns playing Wonderboy. Video games were a communal event in my childhood, believe it or not. However, as we got older and things got cheaper & smaller, we started to break away to play our own. My brother would still host raucous parties where the boys would spend HOURS playing Mario Party, Donkey Kong, or Mario Karts. I transitioned over to single player PC games where my all-time favorite was Star Trek: Birth of the Federation. Penny Arcade launched in 1999 when I graduated from high school and I started reading it when I was in college. I lost track of it after I got my degree, but I stumbled across the first volume in the bookstore one day. Gabe and Tycho, as their alter-egos are named, talk a great deal about video games and other geek pursuits. Even though I am very far removed from the gaming culture at this point, I enjoy their blend of snark and common sense. Both of them are married and, while their wives make an occasional appearance, women are very rarely seen in the strip. It's really just about the two of them, shooting the shit. It's almost an editorial comic in a way, if you tilt your head and squint a little. I enjoy the strip, but I gave this collection three stars because I don't think it was their finest year. I read the volume last night by flashlight and thinking back now, I can't really remember a lot of the strips. There was a rare series, with continuity no less, about zombies invading a mall. Other than that, I got nothing. I don't regret purchasing it, but the boys are their best when they're outraged. 2006 must've been a boring year. less

Download links for: Penny Arcade Volume 7: Be Good, Little Puppy

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