Petition For Giant Bomb to Fire Patrick Klepek

nickname

/ #34 Well

2014-05-06 14:51

Technically Patrick is canonical to the beginnings of Giant Bomb, on the old Arrow Pointing Down podcast with Jeff & Ryan (proto-Giant Bomb) Jeff speaks of a feverish games journalist known as "Scoops" who shuffles the show floors of bustling industry events such as the one in question (GDC '08 I believe) and picks up hot "scoops" (anecdotes, breaking news, and interviews or "Dumptrucks" as they are known the canon of the site.) This vision met with the fruition of hiring Patrick Klepek, an invariable counterpoint to Jeff (in that they both have layered ideas of the commercial and artistic history, future, structure and nature of games), a fledgling first mate in horror and action films, as well as journalism to the late great Ryan Davis (Ryan was a liaison as much as he was an entertainer, his humor & knowledge coupled into an invaluable ingenuity, while Klepek does not come close to this level of charm, he attempts to bring in discussion through interviews and writing, an obvious specialty of Ryan's.) An old buddy of Brad's (they are both legendary anime editors), and an unlikely trickster companion to goofball maestro and production bard Vinny (Cry of Fear QL and other similar though albeit more dispersed and obscure outings and moments.)

In the end, while Patrick's tone of voice can brush up against they fragile egos of some, ultimately his subject matter is not far off from the ideals of Giant Bomb (push boundaries while still in the realm of the identifiably genuine in the form of casual yet poignant over-arching critique and referential, serendipitous comedy.) The issue is his execution, he lacks the body language and "glue" of the others, his method does not always sit well with vocal sections of the audience, despite on a technical level his contributions are admirable and he is close friends with the rest of the staff. The aesthetic side of his work disrupts some, obviously.

P.S. I cannot tell if this is serious (much like my myth-like posturing over GB here) but yeah it was kind of entertaining.