Jon22: The Website of Jonathan Dobres

Penny-Arcade is hilarious. It doesn’t matter that I haven’t been a serious gamer since high school. When I read their site, which I have done nearly every day for the past—and here the math shocks me—eight years, I feel like I’ve still got my finger on the pulse, if you will. More than keeping me immersed in a lifestyle that I no longer have the time to pursue in the way I did in high school, Penny-Arcade is, as previously mentioned, hilarious. These guys are so consistently on the ball with their funny that it’s hardly ever worth pointing to a specific comic and saying, “This is really funny.” It seems redundant, like making jokes about evangelicals.

Not so with last Friday’s “The Broodax Imperiate,” which I think perfectly represents the succinct absurdity that has, in part, made Penny-Arcade so popular. I haven’t been able to get the lines from panel two out of my head. Apparently the Broodax has a similar hold even on its own creators’ brains, which resulted in a small etcetera for yesterday’s comic.

As luck would have it, there’s also a podcast for “The Broodax Imperiate” that reveals how the comic came to be. For me, the funniest part of the whole thing is that the Broodax’s terrifying alien herald of, “We are Broodax! We are born in flesh,” is the result of honesty. He bursts from Gabe’s body because he feels compelled to answer the questions in panel one, namely the tried and true, “Who are you, and what have you done with Gabe?” Well, there’s your answer.