Penny Arcade Controversy

What's your take on the recently revived controversy over Penny Arcade's "Dickwolves" panel? 

I don't get it. 

Want to fill us in a little on the controversy?

You mean the one that is 5 months old?

Oh joy, Penny Arcade. >.>

It’s true that we have decided to remove the Dickwolves shirt from the store. Some people are happy about this but a lot more of you are upset. You think we’ve caved into to pressure from a vocal minority and you’re not entirely wrong. let me at least break down why we did it though.

First of all I would never remove the strip or even apologize for the joke. It’s funny and the fact that some people don’t get it, or are offended by it doesn’t change that. People complained about the strip and that’s fine with me, my response as always is “if you don’t like it don’t read it.” It is very easy not to log on to Penny Arcade and read our bullshit. We’ve always made offensive comics and that’s not going to change anytime soon. If jokes about violence,rape,aids,pedophilia,bestiality,drugs,cancer,homosexuality, and religion bother you then I recommend reading a different webcomic.

PAX is a different matter though. We want PAX to be a place were everyone feels welcome and we’ve worked really hard to make that happen. From not allowing booth babes to making sure we have panels that represent all our attendees. When I heard from a few people that the shirt would make them uncomfortable at PAX, that gave me pause. Now whether I think that’s a fair or warranted reaction doesn’t really matter. These were not rants on blogs but personal mails to me from people being very reasonable. It’s how they feel and according to them at least, removing the shirt would make them feel better about attending the show. For me that’s an easy fix to the problem. I really don’t want to have this fight and if not having it is as simple as not selling a shirt then I’ll do it. Contrary to what they might think I’m not a complete asshole.

Now for some people removing the shirt isn’t enough. They don’t want to come to PAX or support PA because of the strip or because they think Tycho and I are perpetuating some kind of rape culture and that’s a different matter. First off it assumes a lot about us that simply isn’t true but more importantly it’s not something I can fix. I’ve gotten a couple messages from people saying they are “conflicted” about coming to PAX. My response to them is: don’t come. Just don’t do it. In fact give me your name and I’ll refund your money if you already bought a ticket. I’ll even put you on a list so that if, in a moment of weakness you try to by a ticket we can cancel the order.

So there you go. It’s not a simple decision. No matter what we do we’ll have people mad at us. If you want to talk more about it we can chat at PAX.

-Gabe out

I was raped by Dickwolves, it's no joke.

" @DonutFever:  Because they joke about rape? Or am I missing something? "

Um...see no controversy,or humor for that matter.

I don't like Penny Arcade but this is just bullshit.
 
What are they even mad about? Rape? Dickwolves? Get over yourselves.

There was a bit of an upset when they released that comic. A bunch of people found it really offensive, saying PA shouldn't make light of rape and all that. PA's response was along the lines of "Wait, since when have we been PC about anything? Ever?" They even wound up making a T-shirt based on the strip. Then recently, in this post Gabe said that cause people said they'd feel uncomfortable at PAX if they saw the T-shirt, they've taken it off the store.

" @CrazyChris: I'm not sure why it was this panel specifically (Perhaps because they sold merch about it?), but people were really offended by them joking about rape.  "

" @NoDeath: People were also offended by their apology, because it made the people who were offended out to be the bad guy. "

 "That dickwolves shirt makes me very unconformable!" :(
 
"OH WOW GEARS OF WAR 3! YEAH CHAINSAW HIM OPEN YEAH STOMP ON HIS HEAD!"

Christ I hate people. Anyone who got offended by something stupid like that needs to fuck off, call their ISP and tell them to disconnect their internet. I can understand in a way agreeing to the not selling the shirt at PAX thing, but anything beyond that is just dumb.

I don't even get it. I mean, I actually thought that was the funniest PA comic I've seen (I don't consider them that funny though so) because It's always amused me how you can save 5 slaves or whatever in an MMO then just leave all the others ones because FUCK YOU I FINISHED MY QUOTA, but I don't get dickwolves. Like I don't get that. Is it just a funny word? is it a reference to something? 
 
Who the fuck would be offended by that anyway? 
 
I hope they get raped by dickwolves.

To quote the beautiful Jim Sterling 
"I hate people who think tasteless humor is fine until it touches on their one personal pet issue. Fuck you, you self-serving cunts."

lolrapelol

" @Pinworm45: They're not offended by the Dickwolves part, it's the part about rape.  While I'm totally fine with the comic itself, the apology seems weird to me. Something about it does sound really dickish. "

" You mean the one that is 5 months old? "

I want one of those shirts now. Don't people have better things to get upset about?

That's probably the lightest rape-related comic I've seen from them in about a decade...  I don't see how anyone could be offended by that.

What are people getting upset about? The fact that it mentions slavery? Ohnoes! PA is shit anyway.

what does the shirt look like?

" @imsh_pl said:

" You mean the one that is 5 months old? "

Yeah, pretty useless making a thread about it now. "

Considering how much time people who read Penny Arcade probably spend on the internet, it's really weird that they would get offended by this...

People are inconsistent and stupid. 'Nuff said.

People are seriously upset about this????  PA don't give these people another thought, anyone doing this kind of comedy has to deal with these over reacting people just ask south park, family guy, ect...

This is why you can't say anything nowadays without it being seen as a bad thing by someone.  Just how I can't criticizes a black guy without being called racist, and I can't question religion without being called a self centered asshole atheist, can't think any one of the conservative views isn't bad without being called a Sarah Palin loving dipshit, and can't have sex with lots of men without being called a homosexual.

PA deserves the audience that it gets

It's all fun and games till someone gets raped by a dickwolf.

In an older podcast, the PA guys mused something along the lines of the PA readers being a "Wheel of Misfortune".  I think it was Jerry who said that eventually, it's going to land on your issue and "you will be made to suffer for the amusement of the rest of the wheel".  Some people just aren't very gracious about it.

I just really feel like people missed the overall joke.  The point of the strip was not rape or dickwolves, it was satirizing the quota mechanic of certain games, mainly MMOs.  They could have used anything else as the "macguffin."  If they had used something else like, the captors chopped off heads and hung them on stakes for some reason that would be ok.  That is disgusting in its own right.  We play video games in which we kill things all the time, but we are not offended at that??  Penny Arcade is making fun of the video games not the act of rape.

" @DonutFever said:

" @Pinworm45: They're not offended by the Dickwolves part, it's the part about rape.  While I'm totally fine with the comic itself, the apology seems weird to me. Something about it does sound really dickish. "

I get that, I just don't get what a dickwolf is. A wolf made of dicks? It's irrelevant I guess, then.  Also, being offended by the apology kinda proves what the apology was trying to say. "we like being offensive, if you don't like that kind of humor, respectfully, this isn't the comic for you". seems reasonable for me. Personally, I don't think any apology was owed at all. Not even close. "

I guarantee many more people are going to wear that shirt to PAX now. 

So I went to check. 
 
The cartoon drawing isn't of a girl so I'm not offended. My arbitrary line is in a different place than the arbitrary line those guys have.  
Can we just be honest? This is a manifestation of Penny Arcade Readers feeling guilty that they masturbate to rape hentai constantly. Much like closest pedos end up congressmen who make tougher child porn laws.

I thought the strip was implying Dick Wolf's family is a pack of rapists.

Dumbass American cultural sensitivities rear their ugly head again. 
 
Sure son, you can slice open that minotaur and watch his innards spill out. 
Wait, SEX? And it's not consensual?! Get that filth out of here.

" @Pinworm45 said:

" @DonutFever said:

" @Pinworm45: They're not offended by the Dickwolves part, it's the part about rape.  While I'm totally fine with the comic itself, the apology seems weird to me. Something about it does sound really dickish. "

I get that, I just don't get what a dickwolf is. A wolf made of dicks? It's irrelevant I guess, then.  Also, being offended by the apology kinda proves what the apology was trying to say. "we like being offensive, if you don't like that kind of humor, respectfully, this isn't the comic for you". seems reasonable for me. Personally, I don't think any apology was owed at all. Not even close. "

I think its just a wolf thats a dick, since the wolf in a character in the strip. Its not literally a wolf made entirely out of actual dicks. "

I've never really liked Penny Arcade in general, I feel like the writers think they're a lot funnier than they are  but this is just ridiculous. Anyone offended by a god damn T-Shirt doesn't belong on the internet to begin with. I mean, it's a T-Shirt. A fucking T-Shirt!!!
 
EDIT: My bad for associating those guys with such a shitty game name.

 (DEATH SPANK LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL)

" I've never really liked Penny Arcade in general, I feel like the writers think they're a lot funnier than they are (DEATH SPANK LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL) but this is just ridiculous. Anyone offended by a god damn T-Shirt doesn't belong on the internet to begin with. I mean, it's a T-Shirt. A fucking T-Shirt!!! "

" @Everyones_A_Critic said:

 (DEATH SPANK LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL)

I haven't been keeping up with Penny-Arcade, so fill me in.  They had nothing to do with the game, so, did they praise the title a lot or something? "

" I've never really liked Penny Arcade in general, I feel like the writers think they're a lot funnier than they are (DEATH SPANK LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL) but this is just ridiculous. Anyone offended by a god damn T-Shirt doesn't belong on the internet to begin with. I mean, it's a T-Shirt. A fucking T-Shirt!!! "

 I rarely find Penny Arcade funny, but I respect what they've done for the industry. I didn't find the initial comic offensive, but I could see where people were coming from with the merchandising stuff. Was this the logo?