Penny Arcade talks to Computer Gaming World

Computer Gaming World chatted with Jerry "Tycho" Holkins and Mike "Gabe" Krahulik from the webcomic Penny Arcade this week on a variety of topics, including a run-in they had with Harlan Ellison at a local convention called Foolscap:

So we went to this thing, and I didn't know what to expect. And we watched him sit in on a couple panels, and knew immediately that he was exactly sort of like us, in that he was an a**hole. [laughs] It's just that we're assholes in the comic, and not in real life. He maintained that shtick even to his fans, which I thought was sort of weird. A lot of times people will come to meet us at a show, and ask me to flip them off or something, and it feels weird. I try to be nice to people when I meet them. But Harlan, that's not his gig. And I told Jerry, I said, "You know, we're going to have to be onstage with this guy here in a little bit." Because we were co-guests of honor, I guess, if you can have that. And just having watched him for a couple minutes, I knew that he would not like that. I knew that once we got onstage, he would try to do something to belittle us. Somehow he would just have to take the spotlight; that's just the kind of guy he was. And I told Jerry that that would happen and I told him a couple ideas I had to sort of diffuse that situation when it happened. [To Jerry] And I think you offered me a hundred dollars-

JH: I offered him a hundred dollars if he told Harlan Ellison that he loved his Star Wars fiction. [laughs]

MK: Yeah, that was the insult I came up with, and I was like, "Nah, I shouldn't say that. He's an old man. These are all his fans." And Jerry said, "I'll give you $100 if you do it." And so we got up there on stage, and I was just waiting for it-it was just a matter of time and I knew it. I knew the sort of person he was. And they handed us these pads of paper-they handed him a pad of paper, and they handed Jerry and I these jester caps. Fools caps. And I guess this type of paper they gave Harlan is also referred to as foolscap. I didn't know that. And so he looks at me, and he says, "You know, this is foolscap, too." And I said OK; I didn't know what he was talking about. I thought he was just a crazy old man. And he said, "Did you even go to college?" And I'm like, "I don't know what that has to do with anything." And so that's when I decided to-

JH: No, and then he went on to ask if you had been to high school.

MK: Oh yeah! I said no, I didn't go to college. He said, "Did you even go to high school?" And I said, "You know, man, I just gotta say, I really loved the Star Wars stuff you wrote." And his audience there erupted and he glared at me like he wanted to choke me onstage.

CGW: Maybe a "Force Choke?" [laughing]

MK: [laughs] Yeah! And then for the rest of the event, he was just a total dick to us. Which, I don't blame him.

They also talk about Scott McCloud and PvP; go check it out.

(Link via Joystiq).