This one stirred up a hornet's nest on the Penny Arcade forums.  Of course, that was the intention, because we were the ones that posted on there about it.

You see, early in our strip's life, we thought it might be clever to 'attack' another successful comic strip in an effort to start a bit of a 'flame war'.  We imagined that our barbs would find the mark with the creators of the comic strips, and incite them to rally their fanboys to defend their good name(s).  Of course, not knowing WHO to attack, the fanboy army would require information to target us through the use of some links to our own page.  Meanwhile, as their horde would storm our walls, some of the innocent bystanders of their readership may glimpse us from afar, and wander over as curiosity would get the better of them.  Before you know it, they'd be scouring our archive to see what all the fuss was about.

In theory, it made a good strategy.  However, our downfall was our implementation - when you launch a "campaign" of this nature with only 6 comics to peruse in your archive, there isn't a whole lot there to hook a new readership.

 

In the end, we took our licks from some overzealous fanboys, and never received a reaction from the creators themselves.

 

However, once in a while they will post a picture of themselves on their site and sarcastically comment, "TH4T'S N0T WHUT G@BE AND TYCH0 L00K L1K3!!ONE"  I can't help but feel as if I'm just the slightest bit responsible for that.