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Tycho from Penny Arcade writes an excellent post on communication and offense (penny-arcade.com)

13 points by The_Sponge ↗ HN
Some backstory: They put out a comic in which they made a secondary joke that involved rape (you should probably read the comic, it's not necessarily ABOUT rape). Readers thought the concept was funny enough and a "Dickwolves" t-shirt was sold. Eventually, the shirt was pulled but that didn't stop criticism.

A few months of anti-rape blog members and Penny Arcade members "interacting" eventually resulted in death threats.

Original Comic: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/8/11/

3 comments

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The_Sponge
Some backstory: They put out a comic in which they made a secondary joke that involved rape (you should probably read the comic, it's not necessarily ABOUT rape). There was some backlash, and some readers thought the concept was funny enough and a "Dickwolves" t-shirt was sold. Eventually, the shirt was pulled but that didn't stop criticism.

Penny Arcade never issued an apology as they felt they weren't obligated to, but at the same time acknowledged that there were people who were offended.

A few months of anti-rape blog members and Penny Arcade members "interacting" eventually resulted in death threats.

Original Comic: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/8/11/

jdp23
> Readers thought the concept was funny enough

Some readers did. Some readers thought the concept was offensive, that Penny Arcade was throwing gasoline on the flames with the Dickwolves t-shirt, and that there still hasn't really been an apology.

trafficlight
I don't find it offensive at all. In no way can that comic be taken as pro-rape.

And frankly, all of their comics are of this nature. Why someone would be offended by these 3 panels in particular and not by any of their other work is beyond me.