I considered not posting this because I honestly don’t want to get a rep for being Scott Kurtz’s personal stalker or anything like that.
And before I say anything else, let me say that I thought the strip about Francis blathering about spit was pretty goddamned funny, despite A) being an old gag I’ve seen before and B) having some weird art issues with Marcy’s face. And I thought the face work on the creator’s panel strip was definitely a step up for him.
But today’s strip is just…
What the hell?
I have boiled this down to three distinct possibilities:
1.) Scott Kurtz is making fun of obsessive nerds in a horrifyingly un-ironic way.
2.) Scott Kurtz is drawing his “inner child” and forgot that he writes a comic strip and therefore is kind of obligated to write a joke somewhere.
3.) A confused, grotesque combination of A and B.
Discuss.
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this doesnt really have a footing in the strip, but I stopped reading his webcomic early last year for precisely this reason. He stopped being funny way before I stopped reading it, plus I think his focus on the point of the strip has changed.
I remember reading that he was going to start writing it with panels missing from the webcomic but included in the “collections” (if you want to call them that), and if he is that MIGHT (though probably not) explain why none of us are getting the joke.
It’s a shame he’s gone downhill imo, but such is life. Some of us get better like wine, some of us peak early.
I think (C. Just because of a feeling I get from the strip. /shrug
Perhaps he’s just fond of taking shots at easy targets.
This is one of the reasons I took PvP out of my favorite/daily viewing list. This isn’t a Kurtz bashing session, but I just honestly feel like he’s lost track of what made PvP such a good comic in the first place. It hasn’t been, IMO, consistently funny in a long while, and his attempts to do storylines, etc. just tend to miss the mark more often than not (and I take it from his blog that he intends to make that an even heavier focus of the strip). Yes, it’s his strip. Yes, he can do what he wants with it. Yes, it is free. Doesn’t mean I have to like it and can’t have an opinion over it’s quality. (For all the Kurtz apologists about to remark.) Speaking of quality, the lisp thing just comes off awkwardly written and when the kid first said his name my initial response was “What the hell?”
It’s also worth noting that he doesn’t write the lisp consistently.
Stanley is a character I believe Mr. Kurtz created to amuse his Iron Man fan and friend Kris Straub, and I have to admit Kurtz’s rendition of ‘Stanley’ is kind of funny when he’s doing it live on his Daily Affirmation podcast. Still, this did seem a little out of left field. When PvP is funny, it’s quite, quite funny (Iron Thor lives), but I do agree that the strip seems to be searching for a new voice, a new scenario, a new something. Maybe these sudden shifts in tone and style are Mr. Kurtz’s way of trying to find new ways to keep the strip fresh for him. I’m not going to bash a guy for having an off day or two, but I do agree that lately the strip feels like it’s reaching for that extra something.
Stacy
I think that it is a decent strip. I didn’t read it back in the day, when it was apparently much funnier due to the comedy that can only come from Brent’s mouth six inches lower, but I like it well enough. Not my favorite, but good enough for a daily read.
It is the easiest thing in the world for us inter-dweebs to sit in out virtual rocking chairs and prosetlize about how good things used to be, and how much they suck now, pausing periodically to tell noobs to get off our lawn. It’s hard to defend something you like without sounding like a fanboy and losing your cyber-dignity.
The strip in question is’nt funny, but that doesn’t make it Garfield. It’s an off day. Maybe there are more off days, and maybe when you were a kid the internet was paved with solid gold webcomics that were so bladder bursting funny every day that you suffered permanant damage to your urethra.
(“urethra” is a funny word)
Maybe, however, you gotta give props to people who can pull this stuff off every day, even if a ball doesn’t make it to the plate once in a while.
I can sympathize with the point. I know I’ve gotten angry with the people who talk about a halcyon past of superhero comics when heroes acted like heroes.
But seriously? No. The previous comic is yet another jab at the newspaper folks that Kurtz had such a hardon to join being comprised entirely of old people who aren’t hip and with it. Before that, some kind of . . . I don’t know. Cheesy exploitation nostalgia gag?
I just went through a month of strips, and no laughs. No chuckles. No grin.
And I still laugh at Penny Arcade. Still laughing at Bigger Than Cheeses (even though, RIGHT NOW, there’s another black and white Batman strip up). I still laugh at Scary Go Round and Shortpacked! and Questionable Content and Overcompensating and I’ve been reading those for years. Heck, I laugh at VG Cats.
PvP and Kurtz are free. They don’t owe me anything. But I don’t him anything either, including biting my tongue if I want to say that that shit just isn’t funny.
To GoatToucher,
The nice thing about coming late to the party (figuratively speaking), is that you have no baises (biasees?)
about earlier content. Most of the webcomics, let you go to their archive and read it all, and last time I checked PvP lets you do that too. So take an hour, hit First on the wesites archive, and read through. You’ll form your own opinions, and it’ll be good for you to get a grounding in the strips history.
Or not, whatever. It’s your life.
“The strip in question is’nt funny, but that doesn’t make it Garfield. It’s an off day.”
The only thing consistent about the strip the past year or two is its “off days”. When it’s off more often than on there’s a problem. Around the time that Kurtz started firing at fans that just weren’t happy with the direction he was going with the strip was the time I decided I was ready to say goodbye. Sure, the strip is free, but our traffic is what fuels his advertising, which in turn makes (some of, at least) his money. If the strip hadn’t have been popular there’s a good chance Image never would have touched him. I’m not taking away from the things the guy has accomplished, but I have every right to feel the way I do about the quality of the strip and Kurtz’s ever changing attitude towards things. It’s his creative property, he can do what he wants with it. Doesn’t mean I have to be a sheep and keep going to the trough every day for the slop, hoping to get an apple every once in a while. Andrew put it well: “PvP and Kurtz are free. They don’t owe me anything. But I don’t him anything either, including biting my tongue if I want to say that that shit just isn’t funny.”
I haven’t read PvP in ages, don’t really intend to start again, have thought for years that it’s turning into lazy filler for geeks (sort of the geek-culture equivalent of ‘Dilbert’), thought that the strip linked to in this post was almost totally humor-free, and have no intention of defending Kurtz at all…
…but dude, “a sheep going to the trough every day for the slop”? That’s not a mixed metaphor, that’s what Doctor Frankenstein would write if he was an English major.
I’ll tell you this, those Bulldog and Cooch comics are always hilarious, and I don’t care how repetitive and formulaic they are.
That was kind of weak, and the lisp was pretty inconsistent.
I realize I may be alone in a sea of lisp-spit here, but it’s a comic, and it’s never really dipped below a pretty decent baseline for my reading purposes. It’s neat to me to watch the characters actually change rather than get frozen, and that means they may do stuff that isn’t ‘like the old days’. Well the old days are still back there, you can re-read them, and then you won’t even have the problem of Kurtz drawing stuff differently.
Oh and I DO remember when Brent’s mouth was in that hysterically different position… wait, no, not really. The artist grows too. Remember when Snoopy looked like a beagle? Oh man, those were the days…
When one says that one does not owe him “holding your tongue” one forgets that complaining is an active, rather than passive, process. You have to choose to expend your energy complaining. You don’t have to hold your tongue, but why complain? Why assume that your disdainful opinion of how the stip has gone downhill is anything more profound than the curmudgeonly old man lamenting about “these kids today”?
As for those newer (I’ve been reading it for three years) to the stip going back to review old strips: Why? What convoluted mindset does it take to go to the archives of a strip you like in order to find a reason to not like it? I might go back to read and laugh at strips I haven’t read before, but the idea of going back for the expressed purpose of seeing how much better it was then than it is now seems counter-productive at best. Why actively seek a reason to complain?
As for what artists owe us: they owe us precisely dick. Which is to say that they owe us precisely what we owe them. If we stop liking the strip, we don’t continue out of a sense of loyalty, so why should we expect artists to cater to us if we don’t like what they do? If all artists did was cater to the majority in order to get maximum bang for their advertising buck, where would we be?
Look at broadcast television for the answer to that one.
“…but dude, “a sheep going to the trough every day for the slop”? That’s not a mixed metaphor, that’s what Doctor Frankenstein would write if he was an English major.”
I was half asleep when I wrote the response, and therefore not paying as close attention as I should have. I re-read it afterwards and realized I typed “sheep” instead of “pig” (it was after 4 AM, give me a break), but unfortunately we can’t edit our posts. I just knew someone would say something about it. :-p So allow me to correct the statement:
Doesn’t mean I have to be like a pig and keep going to the trough every day for the slop, hoping to get an apple every once in a while.
I appreciate the time you took out of your Marvel-saving schedule to correct me, John. It’s nice to know that you haven’t forgotten the little people. 😉
“When one says that one does not owe him “holding your tongue” one forgets that complaining is an active, rather than passive, process. You have to choose to expend your energy complaining. You don’t have to hold your tongue, but why complain? Why assume that your disdainful opinion of how the stip has gone downhill is anything more profound than the curmudgeonly old man lamenting about “these kids today”?”
Few points here:
1.) This is a place for discussion/expression about thoughts and feelings on subjects. Those thoughts and feelings aren’t always “positive” nor are they required to be.
2.) We’re discussing/critiquing a creative work that’s being put on display in a public domain. If it’s free or not is a moot point. If Kurtz didn’t want people discussing his work he shouldn’t bother putting it out there in the first place.
3.) We’re not just complaining for the sake of complaining as you’re suggesting with your old man example. We’re critiquing a creative work. It was suggested that you go back and read all the strips so you’d have a better idea of where the rest of us are coming from- not to find crap to complain about, but just so you’d have a better idea of what you’re talking about before you feel the need to comment again. The quality of work has gone downhill the last few years, and as fans (former or otherwise) who supported the work, and Kurtz, for years we at least care enough about it to comment.
4.) As for who owes what, it could be argued that he does owe us, at least in a small way. Why? Without him we’re out a daily comic strip. Without us he’s out a career that pays his bills and supports his family. It’s the fans that have supported the site, many from day one, that: spread the word, garnered him traffic, which in turn lured larger and larger advertisers, which made him more and more money to the point where he could do the strip full-time, which also helped him get to the point in popularity to have Image interested.
As a creator you do have some amount of responsibility to the fans. The fans make or break you. It’s most definitely a balancing act, and I’m in no way saying that you should sacrifice creative integrity/quality of work to appease the masses (T.V.) but at the same time you should still remain aware of what’s working and what isn’t- and that means you don’t live in your own creative bubble and completely ignore the people who are helping to pay your bills. Especially since, and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, the strips on the site are what ends up largely in his published comic. It’s his testing ground. I’m not saying that Kurtz ignores his fans, I’m just making a point for why we offer feedback, positive or negative, and why that’s important (or should be). The strip is a product- offered free or not it makes no difference. Without his consumers Kurtz would be dead in the water.
I don’t read that strip, but I was mildly disappointed when he talked about the movie rather than Civil War.
I guess when you’re writing a daily comic strip, every day better be gold!
Less you want more posts like this.
Hey, if Kurtz wants to be sloppy and mediocre, that’s his business. But I’m not going to tolerate Kurtz being sloppy and mediocre, then hypocritically complaining that the newspaper cartoonists he so painfully envies are sloppy and mediocre.
I vote A. Seemed to have that vibe to me. Seems like he’s suggesting that kind of obsessive fan behaviour is a pointless and silly waste of time. Which… okay? There are bigger things to make a point against in art, but whatever.
It’s just a gag, and not one deep enough to read anything into.
Kurtz has been trying to stretch himself as an artist recently. I think he is running low on ideas (judging by his lack of storyline closures lately) and is looking to incorporate new characters to his array of silliness – Especially since Shecky, Turtle’s ghost and Scratch Fury always arrive to luke warm receptions by his fans.
You know what drives me batshit? When a writer attempts to use a speech impediment (in this case a lisp) and fails to apply it consistently. Nobody who says “repulthor” would be able to pronounce “Stark.”
My only encounters with Kurtz have come when he’s been linked to here.
I’m not following anymore. Because, seriously, that’s, like, five seconds of my life I’ll never get back, and Kurtz didn’t deserve them.
“I guess when you’re writing a daily comic strip, every day better be gold!
Less you want more posts like this.”
No, you’re missing the point.
“Hey, if Kurtz wants to be sloppy and mediocre, that’s his business. But I’m not going to tolerate Kurtz being sloppy and mediocre, then hypocritically complaining that the newspaper cartoonists he so painfully envies are sloppy and mediocre.”
Ah, there’s the point! Kurtz has no qualms with being vocal about things he doesn’t like, doesn’t think was good, etc. Yet when the spotlight gets turned in his direction he acts like everyone is attacking him. Yes, there have been some major jackasses that comment- the ones that attack him personally about his weight etc. or who are just being a douche. But when I started having an issue was when he started railing against the folk who had legitimate gripes, or called him on his hypocrisy. Yes, the quality of the strip, IMO had been going downhill for quite a while, but when his attitude started going downhill with it is when I stopped visiting the site on a daily basis. I understand trying to stretch yourself creatively. I was willing to stay with him as he tried to work that stuff out, but I honestly just got tired of the attitude.
“Questionable Content” has never been funny, just want to chime in. I also never saw the appeal of PvP. Never actively hated it, just never bothered to follow it ‘cos I never found the strips I read funny. At all.
Not everyone is Tony Millionaire, and that’s okay.
As a note, today (Saturday) I did laugh out loud when Brent got slapped upside the head by his dad.
I think I’d be MORE worried if Kurtz *didn’t* care what people said about his baby, to be honest. Even if it’s really probably better for him to let the work speak for itself and ignore the critics.