The Trenches

[Chromascope3D]

Anyone else read this comic? It's by the Penny Arcade guys (who, obviously, need little introduction), and it actually has a long-running story. Other than that it seems to fly under the radar for most people, which is a shame, since I actually kinda enjoy it.

Basically, it's about an ex-indie developer (think less Notch and more Phil Fish) trying to break back into the industry from the bottom. The very bottom.

Caution: Office Humor

[Lethologica]

I sort of read the comic, but I'm mostly there for the Tales.

[Landis963]

I've long since stopped reading it. Too much of a Seinfeldian "all the protags are d**ks" feel to it, and not enough funny.

[danelsan]

I used to read it in a "OK, since I'm here for Penny Arcade and Camp Weedonwantcha, might as well read this one" way. And the tales could be entertaining as well. Unfortunately the comic took a nosedive from OK to pretty bad recently in my opinion, so I'm not reading it anymore.

[Chromascope3D]

Yeah, I can see that. I dunno, I guess since I haven't been reading it for so long that I haven't gotten fatigued from it yet, but then again, I'm a sucker for any semblance of running story. Even though the story here more crawling than running. Also, if you looked at it from a technical standpoint, they technically haven't really gone anywhere, have they (Since, y'know, they're right back where they started with just about nothing to show for it)?

But I still enjoy the humor, so, there's that. :P

[-D-]

It's pretty bad.

I don't like them, but it fills the Tuesday void so I don't have to resort to reading Menage a 3. I essentially only read Berserk and everything else is filler.

[turbo164]

The Tales are great.

The comic has its moments, but is less interesting than the Tales.

Also Scott Kurtz of PvPonline helped the Penny Arcade guys with the original comic, but I'm honestly not sure how much any of the three actually contribute anymore; the art has been done by various barely-credited Strip Search contestants for quite a while.

[-D-]

The Tales are great.

The comic has its moments, but is less interesting than the Tales.

Tales are excellent. Too bad the comic is sooo below it, it's barely readable. If the comics actually visualized the stories, it might have been great.

the art has been done by various barely-credited Strip Search contestants for quite a while.

Wait, so the Trenches, are in a their own way exploitative. Talk about hypocrisy.

[turbo164]

Wait, so the Trenches, are in a their own way exploitative. Talk about hypocrisy.

Heh, yeah. Like if you just look at the names on the strip itself, it just lists Mike/Jerry/Scott. But a while back they announced on either the PA or PvP news post (maybe both?) that someone else would be handling the art...

Not able to find that post through archive searching, but apparently Ty and Monica are credited on the Trenches site, just not the main page:

http://trenchescomic.com/about


But still, like I said the strip has its moments. The "devspeak" strip has some NSFW language but has definitely been emailed back and forth a few times at work when similar situations occur IRL And Crunch Time, the "f-world" arc, the Olive Garden code, etc were funny.

[Anteros]

It's pretty bad.

I don't like them, but it fills the Tuesday void so I don't have to resort to reading Menage a 3. I essentially only read Berserk and everything else is filler.

I agree that it's terrible. Honestly, all of their stuff is pretty bad when they try to flesh out a world or maintain long term continuity. They're great at one-off gags, and coming up with ideas, and I still enjoy the main comic, but I've yet to enjoy a single one of their "projects".

[Lethologica]

I liked most of the PA side stories. I don't know what length cutoff we're talking about, though.

[Anteros]

I liked most of the PA side stories. I don't know what length cutoff we're talking about, though.

I think they're pretty good when they're a concept. Most of the stuff they introduce in the main strip and only carry for 3 or so comics is fairly solid. It's the side comic stuff that continues on that I think is weak. Stuff like Lookouts or Automata are interesting as a concept, but the longer stories about these concepts are usually pretty bad.

This is all just my personal opinion of course.

[-D-]

I think they're pretty good when they're a concept. Most of the stuff they introduce in the main strip and only carry for 3 or so comics is fairly solid. It's the side comic stuff that continues on that I think is weak. Stuff like Lookouts or Automata are interesting as a concept, but the longer stories about these concepts are usually pretty bad.

This is all just my personal opinion of course.

Huh, I liked them actually, especially Automata. But as far as I know it never told a full story. Only the latest chapter of Automata actually finished its story (somewhat). And possibly Lookouts.

[Typewriter]

I enjoyed this when it first came out, but the update schedule seemed wonky (breaks between stories, transitions between artists, random 2 week breaks between comics) and eventually I just sort of stopped looking. It doesn't help either that the characters, themes, and writing seem woefully inconsistent between arcs.

[Rodin]

I like Automata enough that I'd like to see a full comic-length story done in that universe.

Lookouts is interesting, but I always get the feeling that to understand it you have to play the P&P RPG, read all the extra material, etc. The comics themselves fail as stories because you don't have any of the background required.

As for the Trenches, it kinda fell into that weird space where the characters aren't evil enough. 8-bit Theatre, Xykon, Belkar, et al. all pull it off by being absolutely cartoonishly evil. The Trenches on the other hand isn't funny because that workplace really is like that. Heck, the stories that they run below the comic are far worse than anything that actually happens in the strip!

They basically tried to pull a Dilbert...except Dilbert's already out there and Scott Adams is a better joke-writer than them.