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UsaSatsui's Youtube Channel · Posted: Sep 11 2009 08:38 am

Turns out there was at least one confirmed case of H1N1 at the Penny Arcade Expo. Scott Kurtz , who draws PvP, is in the hospital, and Gabe is sick enough that Penny Arcade apparently has to rely on guest comics for the first time in ages (though a guest comic by Bill Amend is pretty awesome as guest comics go).

According to this Twitter log, a lot of other people are catching it there too.

Going after our webcomics and gaming population? Hamthrax, you've gone too fucking far...

Posted: Sep 11 2009 08:45 am

NOOO! I shall defeat the evil Flu of the swine!

Posted: Sep 11 2009 08:51 am

Bill Amend!? Holy fuck. That's amazing.

Posted: Sep 11 2009 10:12 am

It's actually a pretty good guest comic. He does have a thing for video games and one of the FoxTrot books had one of the kids dressed up as luigi on the cover. Not only that he did do an AYBABTU foxtrot.

Banned Joined: Sep 13 2008 Posts: 3129

This sucks. But at least they have a good guest comic guy

Posted: Sep 11 2009 11:06 am

Just out of curiosity, I know Scott Kurtz does PvP, but did he join up with the guys at PA or is he just affiliated? Granted I know that Kurtz went to all the PAX events so it makes sense, but what's the beef?

UsaSatsui's Youtube Channel · Posted: Sep 11 2009 11:20 am

Slayer1 wrote:

Just out of curiosity, I know Scott Kurtz does PvP, but did he join up with the guys at PA or is he just affiliated? Granted I know that Kurtz went to all the PAX events so it makes sense, but what's the beef?

I think he's a friend and was a guest. I don't think he's affiliated officially.

And I like Syd's reaction. "Hundreds of people sick, blah, blah...holy shit, the FoxTrot guy drew a comic?"

If I remember correctly, he referenced Penny-Arcade in a comic once too.

EDIT: Yep. Cute little xkcd gag there too.

Posted: Sep 11 2009 11:56 am

In my defense, Bill Amend is far more interesting than Swine Flu. He has also killed more people.

Posted: Sep 11 2009 12:13 pm

Syd Lexia wrote:

In my defense, Bill Amend is far more interesting than Swine Flu. He has also killed more people.

Syd does have a point... at least when it comes to bill we don't have to wear masks around the school but we do have to look out for a crazy guy with pencils....

Posted: Sep 11 2009 12:41 pm

Damn, I hope they both recover soon. :/

Posted: Sep 11 2009 01:51 pm

SoldierHawk wrote:

Damn, I hope they both recover soon. :/

They will. They're young, healthy men, and it really is just the flu after all. In fact, it's not even nearly as dangerous as the regular flu. Well, unless you have a very specific genetic makeup, but that's a million to one chance.

Gallery 2 · Posted: Sep 11 2009 02:00 pm

UsaSatsui wrote:

Scott Kurtz , who draws PvP, is in the hospital.

Yay!

UsaSatsui's Youtube Channel · Posted: Sep 11 2009 02:08 pm

Pandajuice wrote:

In fact, it's not even nearly as dangerous as the regular flu.

This is wrong. It's not really any stronger than the seasonal flu (which is a nasty sonofabitch as it is), but it transmits very easily and quickly, there's no vaccine for it, and it has a tendency to attack people who don't normally get the flu. And the faster and further it spreads, the more likely it is to become something lethal.

A disease doesn't have to kill you to be dangerous. Just putting a significant percentage of the population down for the count for an extended period of time can be disastrous .

Posted: Sep 11 2009 03:56 pm

UsaSatsui wrote:

Pandajuice wrote:

In fact, it's not even nearly as dangerous as the regular flu.

This is wrong. It's not really any stronger than the seasonal flu (which is a nasty sonofabitch as it is), but it transmits very easily and quickly, there's no vaccine for it, and it has a tendency to attack people who don't normally get the flu. And the faster and further it spreads, the more likely it is to become something lethal.

A disease doesn't have to kill you to be dangerous. Just putting a significant percentage of the population down for the count for an extended period of time can be disastrous .

Not only that, but with the mutations of influenza, they expect the virus to be even more deadly this year after the flu season starts. What really sucks is for my generation (Generation X) we are the prime targets for this disease apparently...

UsaSatsui's Youtube Channel · Posted: Sep 11 2009 04:42 pm

THANK you, Slayer.

The super-paranoid and stupid precautions that some were taking earlier in the year were laughable, but it's a little irritating that people seem to think this is a big joke. It's not a worldwide disaster, but it is something serious.

Posted: Sep 11 2009 05:23 pm

the only twist of irony, the mountain range my school is in was known for the TB clinics throughout the 1800's-early 1900's is considered to be one of the more hard hit parts of NY aside from the city.
If a student get's ill here, they either can leave for home with thier parent's and risk thier exposure or stay in a quarentine area which will have four people to the room with the same degree of the Hiney virus. In addition to this, they have instituted a "Mask emergency" system which once a confirmed case is acknowledged, everyone on campus must wear a mask for 5 days until either the situation has been cleared or we have a state of emergency and we must even sleep with them on.

Posted: Sep 12 2009 11:31 am

It's only as serious and deadly as the regular flu Usa, and in fact, less so. It's not some super mutated death sentence that everyone seems to think, and nothing worth panicking over. Sure, it spreads quickly and sucks for the week or so you have it, but that doesn't make it deadly. And deadly is what people are scared of.
And when I said "dangerous", I was referring to people's health, and lives taken, not the impact on the GDP, potential for spread, or whatever you were referring to.

The fact is regular old influenza that no one cares about kills about 60,000 Americans every year, whereas the Swine Flu so far has only claimed just over 3,000 worldwide, despite how quickly it has spread, in the 6 months since it was discovered. So, basically one tenth the death toll of normal everday flu.

No one panics about influenza which is the 7th leading cause of death in the US, but Swine Flu is armageddon. That was my point.

Gallery 2 · Posted: Sep 12 2009 12:11 pm

But is has to be deadly! They actually added SWINE to the word, and everyone knows swines are filthier than birds! So it must be deadly! The end of the world has arrived early! We're doomed I tell you, DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED....

P.S.:
This Is A Joke

Posted: Sep 12 2009 01:23 pm

I think it's instinctual to panic over things and blow them out of proportion. Think about it, if humans weren't hyper aware of every possible threat to life and limb we would have all stumbled in to tar pits thousands of years ago. Plus nothing gets better ratings on infotainment than panic, except for maybe sexy sexy scandal.

Posted: Sep 12 2009 01:33 pm

Just wash your hands and you'll be fine. Very Happy

UsaSatsui's Youtube Channel · Posted: Sep 12 2009 01:49 pm

Pandajuice wrote:

It's only as serious and deadly as the regular flu Usa, and in fact, less so. It's not some super mutated death sentence that everyone seems to think, and nothing worth panicking over. Sure, it spreads quickly and sucks for the week or so you have it, but that doesn't make it deadly. And deadly is what people are scared of.
And when I said "dangerous", I was referring to people's health, and lives taken, not the impact on the GDP, potential for spread, or whatever you were referring to.

The fact is regular old influenza that no one cares about kills about 60,000 Americans every year, whereas the Swine Flu so far has only claimed just over 3,000 worldwide, despite how quickly it has spread, in the 6 months since it was discovered. So, basically one tenth the death toll of normal everday flu.

No one panics about influenza which is the 7th leading cause of death in the US, but Swine Flu is armageddon. That was my point.

The "regular flu" (I'd like to point out there's no such thing, there's several strains of it) doesn't spread as quickly and easily as this seems to. The worry isn't so much that it's a holy-shit-it's-the-end-of-the-world Super Disease!...it's that it's a new disease, it can kill, and it's spreading rapidly through a population that doesn't have any immunity to it. And there's no vaccine yet.

In addition, influenza tends to pick off people who, let's face it,were going to die anyway. H1N1 is going after the young.

I agree with you, it's not as big of an issue that people to make it out to be. It's not the end of the world. But as I said above, I'm just sick of seeing it treated as a joke. It's a new deadly disease running unchecked through a population. I'd take it seriously.

That 3000 deaths, BTW? It was half that number last month.

Joined: May 22 2008 Location: Goshen, VA Posts: 6544

I'm reading "The Stand" right now, so talk of super flu is scary.

I don't think people are treating the virus itself as a joke. I think people are making fun of the alarmists who are treating this as though 20 Ebola monkey's killed a class full of 3rd graders. High levels of stress can lower your immune system, that is proven. So the people who are purposefully freaking people out about it should be slapped in the jaws.

Posted: Sep 12 2009 04:31 pm

Here's the data I was going from when I said "3,000" from the WHO itself. And yea, we're all in agreement that it's the alarmists and media that we're rolling our eyes at, not the disease itself which is deadly in the right conditions, but not something a 30 year old comic artist should be worried about.

Edit: Forgot the link to my source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jQFSkHL1Ij-9QJvxRfj-CBGueBfw

UsaSatsui's Youtube Channel · Posted: Sep 12 2009 05:09 pm

Pandajuice wrote:

Here's the data I was going from when I said "3,000" from the WHO itself. And yea, we're all in agreement that it's the alarmists and media that we're rolling our eyes at, not the disease itself which is deadly in the right conditions, but not something a 30 year old comic artist should be worried about.

So we've come to an understanding. Ham sandwiches for all!

Anyways, I'm not minimizing the suffering of anyone who gets the flu, porcine or not. I had the flu once, put me out of commission for 2 weeks, I was unable to get out of bed for 3 days. Got bronchitis afterwords, too, which held on for another month.

Posted: Sep 12 2009 05:47 pm

I even got the flu in the summer with a 103 degree fever (yes I'm hot blooded check it and see). It hit me hard because of the contract workers from the south remodeling our hell-mart.