Penny Arcade Vol. 1: Attack of the Bacon Robots by Jerry Holkins & Mike Krahulik

Penny Arcade is the most hermetic of the gaming webcomics, tightly wrapped in a ball of references to itself and to whatever geek passion blazed highest on the day that particular cartoon was made. I'm only a mild gamer, and on the "wrong" platforms, so I often don't really know what PA is about. I can usually translate it, though it sometimes takes a bit of thought and work.

So, even though I do enjoy reading Penny Arcade every day, I'm not in the target demographic, and I figured it wasn't a good idea to spend my own money on the collections. Luckily, a library near me had this first volume -- though no libraries I can get books from have any of the later books -- so I at least got to see the beginnings for free.

Attack of the Bacon Robots collects the PA strips from the beginning (11/18/98) through the end of 2000, with commentary by writer Jerry "Tycho" Holkins. (Holkins's preferred essayistic style is a variation of the overly-clotted, snarkier-than-thou, random-pop-culture-reference style beloved of his and my generation...and I'm not that far off the template myself, so I shouldn't talk.) The commentary does help to put the strips into context, such as it is -- except when Holkins has completely forgotten the context, which happens pretty often.

If you were a huge computer/console gamer in those years, these strips will bring back memories of your own gaming times. If you read the strip now, it'll be interesting to see how far they've come, though they were intermittently quite good all the way in the beginning. And if you're me, you'll be confused by the lack of any actual Bacon Robots.