Fri, October 14 2005 - 4:30 AM
by: Tycho
Jack Thompson really did call him, but I should tell you how that came to be.
As I've suggested in this space before, Gabriel's "super power" (if you will) is to suss out the exact thing that will drive a person out of their fucking minds. He's only utilized this ability on me twice, and it stings to recall them. They're actually too cruel to relate. It's important to me that you sort of like him, even in the abstract.
He felt certain that the over half a million dollars raised by Child's Play would jab him brutally. He was not wrong.
So certain was he that this knowledge would barb the codger into wild madness that he included his phone number in a hastily composed "sig." He was not surprised in the least when a number he did not recognize appeared on his cell. I was trying to collect the Iron Golem soul, I was busy at the time.
Gabe turned to look at me, not just with his head but his whole body, a single motion that had a mechanical look. He asked if it was really Jack Thompson, and it was at this point I knew he had done something wrong. I don't doubt that his adventures, both online and off, are a source of amusement for a percentage of the readership. Secretly, I delight in them - but he must not be allowed to know. His glee in these endeavors is already a kinetic force.
Conversation one is where Jack Thompson asks Gabe if Gabe has ever donated to charity. Of course, we have - it's usually a couple Gameboys a year for Child's Play, but the "take" from the distributed gamer metamind is over five hundred thousand dollars in two years. This answer did not satisfy him. He suggested that if Gabe mailed him again, he would be sued so fast that his head would "spin," and that he, Jack Thompson, had given more to charity that Gabe could even imagine. Gabe isn't very good at math, so he may have a point. I'm told that humbers larger than ten give him a headache. What's more, his donations were more valuable, because he wasn't some flush-with-cash game company. Which I guess is relevant to us, because... Well, I guess it's not relevant.
Then he hung up.
Usually when a person threatens us with a lawsuit we don't really pay attention. The fact of the matter is that rude people and idiots often try to threaten people by gesturing wildly at the edifice of the legal system. But this man is actually a lawyer, and also demonstrably crazy, and he apparently has time to call random people who mail him on the phone so maybe he's looking for something to do. In any case, we aren't a flush with cash game company, so at the very least my cohort wanted to excise this erroneous statement from the record.
This next mail elicited a second call, which we have detailed in the strip. Gabe's own voice rose triumphantly throughout this phase, I thought perhaps he was just getting into the rhetorical spirit of the thing, but the reality is that Jack screamed at him the entire time. The point he submitted went without answer: if a company made his reprehensible game, he would literally have to sue himself and talk about what a bastard he was on national television. Of course, he's not serious. Machination is too glorified a word for what he's doing. Ruse would make it seem debonair. He's essentially holding money hostage from charity, and if someone did make it, even as a joke, he would say that it didn't conform to his "design." This sort of thing is usually called a shell-game. The song license itself he mentions - Lawyers In Love - would probably run anywhere from ten to fifteen thousand by itself.
This vile "challenge" Jack Thompson has put to the supposedly monolithic "game industry" is like a topographical map of the twisted fantasy realm he inhabits. I could excerpt it, but I don't want to be accused of selective editing. The reality is that what he suggests is grotesque. I mean that it is literally disgusting. Of course, the violent acts he's cobbled together here from other games are robbed of a narrative context in which they make sense. Killing Gamestop and EB employees, though? That's not metaphor. He's not being metaphorical. He is batshit fucking loco insane.
In the games I play, I've spent the last week performing surgeries and saving lives - whenever I wasn't in court defending the wrongly accused. You know what I'm saying? Just steeped in subversive moral messages.
(CW)TB out.
Mon, October 17 2005 - 10:47 AM
by: Gabe
Perhaps you read the letter from the National Institute on Media and the Family in which they distance themselves from Jack Thompson. Well Jack has responded to that letter with two letters of his own. He makes some vague legal threats which I have come to discover are sort of his bread and butter. You also get the impression after reading his letters that he believes he was cut loose simply because he is too 'hardkore'.
I think we can all agree that young kids should not play violent videogames. I think we can also agree that they should not watch violent movies or read pornographic magazines. That's a job for parents not Jack Thompson.
You're all asking me for Jack's Email and or phone number and I respect that. The problem is that I can't give that info out. The fact is that Jack had time to call me after I sent him a sarcastic email. I have no doubt in my mind that he would try and pull some legal bullshit if I post his phone number.
Did I ever mention how much I like VG cats?
-Gabe out
Mon, October 17 2005 - 12:04 PM
by: Tycho
It was only a matter of time until a mod team took Jack Thompson's disgusting revenge fantasy and made it flesh - and, just as I suggested, it was deemed insufficient.
Thompson now claims that his repellent suggestion was "satire," and we must conclude that his financial offer was also satire, some new breed of satire apparently that I'm sure is just hilarious to people in need.
You know what, Jack? We're going to be the men you're not. You said that your insulting, illusory ten thousand dollars would go to the charity of Paul Eibeler's choice. We've got a good guess that he'd direct your nonexistant largesse toward The Entertainment Software Association Foundation, a body that has raised over six point seven million dollars over the last eight years. We've just made the donation you never would, and never meant to. Ten thousand dollars' worth. And we made it in your name.
(CW)TB
Mon, October 17 2005 - 4:39 PM
by: Gabe
I thought you might like to see the mail I got from Jack this afternoon:
This story is completely false and defamatory. Take it down or else.
And my reply to him:
****This is an automated response****
Thank you for contacting Penny Arcade. I'm sorry but I am simply not able to respond to all my fan mail. I want you to know that I'm glad you enjoy the comic strip and I appreciate you taking the time to mail me.
-Gabe out
Mon, October 17 2005 - 6:00 PM
by: Tycho
You might have read somewhere that Jack is contacting our police department and trying to get us arrested, which is quite true. Here is the document he faxed them.
The "campaign of harassment" he is describing is the natural result of a public figure making statements that people disagree with, and letting him know their thoughts on the matter via his publically available contact information.
It is critical to establish that this letter isn't anything to worry about. We've been sent worse by better.
(CW)TB
Mon, October 17 2005 - 6:05 PM
by: Gabe
Jack puts a nice spin on his case in that letter to the police chief. Here's a picture of the real reason he's pissed off at us.
Obviously he didn't mention anything to the police department about his 'Modest proposal' in which he asks that a game be developed in which players urinate on peoples brains and murder kids who work at game stores. He never mentions that he offered ten thousand dollars to charity and then said it was just 'satire'. He doesn't tell the police chief that Jerry and I just donated the ten thousand for him. I wonder why he left that part out?
Our man Robert is cashing in some frequent flyer miles and heading down to San Francisco today. He'll be attending the ESA's charity dinner this evening and will be presenting them with our check. Hopefully he'll take some pictures for us. I guess Jay Leno is going to be there!
-Gabe out
Mon, October 17 2005 - 7:00 PM
by: Gabe
Jack was on CNN tonight to talk about Midway's new football game. Like I said in my news post above , this is why Jack is scary. Because he has no fucking clue what he's talking about yet they put him on CNN to talk as though he was an expert. This is a quote from him:
"The NFL wouldn't allow it's name to be used, so that tells you something."
He doesn't understand that EA purchased the rights to NFL games and that Midway's new game is a direct response to that. Like I said before the time for ignoring this coot is over. He can't be allowed to pull this kind of shit anymore.
-Gabe out