Penny Arcade (Webcomic)/Headscratchers

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Is it just me, or is there nowhere on the Penny Arcade forums to discuss the actual comic itself? I've looked, and I swear to you there isn't a place for it.
    • The strips are discussed in the Social Entropy++ forum. The comic itself can also be discussed there, you just have to start the thread.
    • You are not alone that in that IJBM. I know/knew where to go but it still bugs me it's in SE++.
      • Update: Comic threads are now in the Penny-Arcade Hub, and can only be started by moderators. Somewhat more conveniently located.
  • Why is this strip and this strip exactly identical?
  • In an old strip, the main characters were named Jack and John, rather than Tycho and Gabe. That's not what bugs me. However, in this strip, Gabe's full name is revealed as John Gabriel. However, I cannot, for the life of me, get "Jack" from Tycho Brahe.
    • Come to Australia. It will make sense once you get here. Example: My dad calls his brother Jack. My uncle's name is Douglas.
      • My boyfriend has an Uncle Brian whom everyone calls Sedgewick.
    • Originally, the characters had no names, "Jack" and "John" being jokingly suggested as make-shifts -- their genericness and similarity a reflection of how little interest the creators had in naming the character- and were immediately abandoned. Over time, the characters began to increasingly reflect the creators (or, at least, to parody them), to the point where they gained the creators' names. Giving Gabe "John" as a forename was a Continuity Nod, of sorts, to the earlier strip, which was retained and eventually became canon.
    • Incidentally, it's currently "Jonathan Gabriel". As a Jonathan myself, I've had it mistaken for "Johnathan" lots of times. If he goes by "Jon"....
  • Is the tube of the Cardboard Tube Samurai a shipping tube or a wrapping-paper tube? (Edit: I ask because a shipping tube or a newsprint [or fabric] bolt tube would be a viable weapon the way he uses it, but a wrapping paper tube repurposed as a[n imaginary] sword seems to have been what the Cardboard Tube Samurai was originally referencing.)
    • Seeing as it didn't unravel after three hits, I'm assuming a shipping tube.
    • It could also be one of the serious tubes that bolts of cloth are wound around. Some of those are 1/4" thick.
    • Sturdiness is hardly the biggest logistical problem with the CTS. In-universe, the tube *slices people neatly into pieces like a katana*. It's safe to say that the tube's deliberate silliness renders any discussion of its realism moot.
    • The first appearance of the tube, seen here, suggests that the tube was based on a real tube Gabe found in the dumpster outside of their apartment. He used it more like a baseball bat. It was a few months later that they decided to marry the tube with the samurai motif. So it is clearly of shipping tube sturdiness.
    • Then again, maybe it only seems that sturdy to Gabe because of his Weaksauce Weakness to cardboard.(Which might actually make it Fridge Brilliance.)
  • So are Gabe and Tycho roommates? 'Cause there are strips like this one where they talk about our epic weapons, but then there's this one where Gabe tells Tycho something that Tycho would know about if they lived together. What do you guys think?
    • Probably they started as roommates, then after they got married (in and out of character) they're not anymore.
    • Another possibility is that the first example takes place in their work office, and by the time of the second example (two years later) Gabe had moved frostmourne to his home (possibly because it was too awesome for his office?).
    • These two among others seem to suggest that the Duo and their wives live in one house. At least that's what I get from it.

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