I Fought the Law

Keep in mind that many forum-dwellers live in dark, damp caves also known as their mother's basements, and only come out to get the occaisional doughnut or energy drink. These people make themselves feel better about their lack-of-a-life by bashing things and getting others to agree with them. They're basically still living in high school, where that kind of thing makes you "cool."

Are you an actual lawyer or just a sad, sad idiot?

Hey, doesn't it make sense that someone who's never been in the legal field would choose to draw an in-jokey webcomic about lawyers? That is a question worth asking.

Those guys are losers. You don't need to be a law student to infer the point of the doc review joke. Half the problem is that your jokes fly over their heads. What's with the guy who doesn't get the Luna bar joke? That's on him, not you.

The other problem is that once someone puts down a joke by sarcastically breaking it into its component parts ("Ha ha, 'shot' has two meanings"), it's very, very hard to put it back together again. Beyond having an army of laughing people to back you up, there is no defense for it ("That's right. Shot has two meanings. And it *is* funny."). It's cruel, unfair and very satisfying. The problem is you can apply the technique to good jokes and its brutal effectiveness remains intact.

To be fair to the forum dwellers, though, your comic is pretty terrible.

It is worth noting, though, that for the sarcastic breakdown to work, you have to correctly identify the crux of the joke in question, as the guys mocking the doc review joke repeatedly fail to do.

I went and stood outside those forum guys' houses and yelled "oh yeah? so's your FACE!" for a while, so I think your back has been gotten here, holohan.

whoops, I'm not the internet anymore. sorry.

So wait, commenters on a Penny Arcade forum are making fun of your comic for being less than completeley accessable? Honestly. The great Gabe and Tycho would not stand for this!

as a wise person once told me,

illegitimis non carborundum

(Don't let the bastards grind you down.)

Wait a minute! IFTL is supposed to be funny? I always thought your goal was always to be less unfunny than law school. Seeing very little humor in many many long nights in Boalt's libraries, I've always thought you were succeeding swimmingly.

WHAT HAVE I DONE?

I added a new page to keep track of public opinion, yeah:

Jacket quotes

They're insane. I'm just some random guy that found your comic on the internet, but I love it. I had a few strips on my wall at college, and my friends also enjoy your strip. It's witty, a little offbeat, and most of all you've got something original.

PA forums are largely a group mentality and I guarantee that Gabe and Tycho would not agree with their sentiments.

awwww. all publicity is good publicity, right?

Besides, this is the best law and peanut allergy comic I've ever read.

The PA forums are as clannish and self-congratulatory a group of nerds, dorks, and geeks as you'll find on the web. I'm surprised there hasn't been a mini-exodus of the trolls here to post crap like "QQ more, nubsauce, you got WTFpwned."

Anyway, somebody took the time to make a collage for you. It's tough love. Sort of.

The PA forums are the worst I've ever seen by far. The biggest mystery to me is where they all came from. The vast majority of them will tell you they don't really care for Penny-Arcade and think that its absolutely hilarious to constantly point out that they forget that theres a comic site attached to "their" forums. For some reason its always been like that over there. I remember Gabe just up and deleted the boards completely a couple of times and left them down for quite a while just to try and flush the a-holes out figuring that they'd find some where else to inhabit in its absence. Obviously it never worked. Really tells you something when Gabe and Tycho won't even post there. I even read an interview with Gabe not to long ago about how they were giving him hell about breaking some stupid signature rule they made up for HIS boards! That was the first time he deleted it he said.

Anyway can you tell I don't like those guys over there? I am big PA fan and it just really bums me out that you can't have a discussion about the comic and PAs other exploits (with the good fans that I know exist) on their own site.