Penny Arcade, originally uploaded by mjp3000
Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik (a.k.a. Tycho and Gabe) are probably best known for making the online comic Penny Arcade. What doesn't get much press is that the two men are also parents, both having fathered a child with their respective wives in the past few years.
Obviously there's a reason they don't talk about it much--their comics are mostly about video games, not parenthood--but sometimes their sons come up in conversation. As you might expect from guys who make a living by finding humor in every occasion, they usually say something interesting. On a recent podcast, Jerry recounted the following conversation with his son Eliot:
He began to move his hand in a way as though he had a sword in it, and he said, "daddy," and I said, "yes Eliot," and he said, "what is a weapon?" ... all the while slicing the air with this imaginary blade...
I said, "Eliot, a weapon is a tool, that you can use to hurt someone." Accurate, no information--you know what I'm saying--no contextualization, but that's what it is. "What is a weapon?" Where the fuck did that come from?
Jerry reliably dishes out abstrusity in his blog posts, so it is to be expected that he would have such profound discussions in his daily life as well. On the funny side, Mike wrote this great rant on Lego fruit snacks (scroll down a bit). "I just spent the first three years of my sons life trying to get him not to eat blocks," he says, "and now you're telling him they taste like fucking strawberries. Thanks a lot assholes."
It would be great if these guys could do a great podcast that's just about fatherhood. I might be the only one to listen to it, but I bet it would be awesome.