What the fucking hell is up with PvP?
Look, I’m not so naive as to think that the strip is as good as it was three or four years ago, when Kurtz was arguably at his peak, and when the comic was genuinely good. The art’s gotten worse, Kurtz has gotten lazier, and nowadays it’s actually funny maybe one strip in five, if that. But over the last few months, the comic has just cratered. It has entered that special realm we in the Comic Strip Lookin’ At profession call “worse than Garfield.”
I mean, seriously: “The Jade Fontaine Mysteries?” Really. Let’s just take a look at this in detail for a second: it’s a two-and-a-half-week-long storyline. With not one, but three introductory strips (four if you count the “he’s dead” strip). Half of the strips don’t even have punchlines, which last I heard is kind of important in a gag-a-day strip. (Unless this sort-of-alternate-Rockford Files-reality where Jade is a hobbyist detective is something you find innately funny. Kurtz might. I don’t think most people do.) Most of the punchlines that are there aren’t that good (the CSI gag is worth a chuckle, but the rest… yeah, you’d have to be really generous to call this warmed-over 80s-sitcom hackwork “funny”). The storyline isn’t even particularly clever: it’s predictable and just plain dull.
“Bing, bang, bing, popcorn” is not a fucking punchline.
This is terrible, terrible stuff, and it’s all the more disappointing because this is a comic that at one point was reliably entertaining – not Schulz or Watterson or Kelly, but usually pretty witty and clever (even if Kurtz’ grammar and punctuation were never and have never been, ahem, airtight).
Let me say, firmly, that this isn’t the “why isn’t PvP a gaming comic any more” rant that’s been blustered out a million times. There is no reason that Kurtz has to do a gaming comic. (Indeed, I read his Wedlock strip that he did on Modern Tales a few years ago, and it was better than most of his work on PvP by a country mile, and again, this is when PvP didn’t suck.) There are tons of shitty gaming comics out there, and even a few good ones like Penny Arcade and… uh… okay, there’s Penny Arcade, I guess. If Kurtz doesn’t want to make XBox jokes, there’s no reason he should feel obligated to make XBox jokes.
But when PvP was a dedicated gaming comic, as opposed to the generic kinda-geek culture comic it’s become, it had focus. Not everybody would get the gamer jokes, but those who would could appreciate the quality thereof.
One of the most basic lessons any comedian can tell you is this: the wider you spread your sights, the better you have to be. Comedy is hard, and in order to avoid being banal you have to be able to bring a fresh observation to the table. There’s a reason comics idolize guys like Bill Cosby. If you haven’t seen the documentary Comedian (which is worth a watch), there’s one segment where Chris Rock, in complete awe, recounts to other comedians how he watched Cosby kill two sets, back-to-back, “with no repeats” – meaning Bill Cosby did two killer ninety-minute sets without repeating a single joke, gag or story. I’ve done standup, a few times back in the day, and after doing one five-minute set a half-dozen times got it to the point where I could – well, not kill, but at least entertain reasonably. I cold-opened a few beginner’s shows and managed to successfully warm up the crowd, and I was happy with that – but that was the same set every time, refined over the course of a month or so. That’s not three hours of material, you know?
I’m getting away from my point here, which is that someone like Cosby – or Bob Newhart, or Woody Allen (who did legendary standup back in the day), or Bill Hicks, these guys can/could rock out fresh material in a heartbeat about anything, because they were just that good that they could find a fresh, original take on any subject that crossed their mind. Other people, on the other hand, aren’t quite at that level – so they find themselves a niche that’s unoccupied. Jeff Foxworthy does redneck jokes and good ol’ boy humour. Denis Leary does “common-sense” rants. Sarah Silverman has her “cute Jewish girl who says absolutely dreadful things” shtick. Dane Cook goes up on stage and spazzes out like a fucknut.
And all of this is fine (well, except for Dane Cook), because it’s better, in the world of professional laughery, to be funny about something than unfunny about everything. You winnow down until you hit that sweet spot, where you’re as funny as possible with as broad an appeal as possible. Scott Kurtz used to be in that zone, and he sure as hell isn’t now. I can’t help but suspect that it’s because he wants to widen PvP‘s commercial appeal. (Remember when he offered PvP to newspapers for free and pretty much everybody passed? That had to sting, and I wonder if it in turn affected his creative mindset.)
Anyway. Moral of story: “Bing, bang, bing, popcorn” is sucky and I would please like less of that. Thank you.
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PvP has been awful for quite some time now. Before, when it was good, it was about nerd culture, and gamer jokes. At this point, Kurtz is wrapped up in his own characters, and the story/jokes are about as one-dimensional as they get.
See, and that’s the problem: most of his characters aren’t really that interesting. Brent and Jade are the only ones that aren’t completely one-dimensional, and they’re not that well fleshed out.
Is there a name for this other than “the Cerebus problem,” when a comic strip goes from being one gag a panel to having Continuity and Meaning and shit?
(I’ve never read panel one of Cerebus, so I don’t know if the quality dropped off. But I know that was one of the first and biggest to make that jump – from thinly-veiled knockoff to Epic Metaphysical Tale)
I stopped reading PVP back around 02. I can hardly recall why anymore, but I think Kurtz was picking on some sub-sub culture like furries or goths, and being a total jerk about it both in the strips and in his blog. At around the same time Dork Tower was doing honestly funny strips about the same topics, which served to highlight how much of a hack Kurtz was.
I decided that I no longer wanted to give Kurtz even a few hits to his site per week, so I called it a day. I’ve never missed the strip, and from the looks of things I made the right choice.
My hat is off to you, MGK, for doing what I lacked the guts to do: calling Scott Kurtz a lazy hack.
To my way of thinking, his biggest sin isn’t a lack of funny punchlines; it’s that he’s a *professional webcartoonist* and his strip is *late* more often than not. True professionals, like Howard “Schlock Mercenary” Taylor and Gabe & Tycho never EVER miss a strip. I can set my watch by how regularly they update. That Kurtz doesn’t adhere to this same schedule tells me that he’s complacent, lazy, or overwhelmed… and a true pro in the field doesn’t let that happen.
Crap, I don’t get paid to blog and I still manage to post on a regular basis. If I made my living it at there’d be new posts every day, maybe multiple ones. Sorta like you do now, MGK.
I think it’s safe to say that at this point, Kurtz no longer deserves his success.
It’s true that Kurtz is a prick as well. There is another rip on PvP on that blog MGK linked a while back.
http://badwebcomics.blogspot.com/2007/07/pvp_26.html
It’s pretty hilarious.
The worst part? Kurtz is a NICE GUY. The kind of guy you might have a few interesting things to chat over with, the one you have cool things in common with or maybe even the same enthusiasms. NICE GUYS suck twice as hard when their work turns sour because it’s a lot harder to complain to someone like that.
Then again, some people built a website strictly for getting that job done. Sadly, they are on hiatus.
http://badwebcomics.blogspot.com/
I’m not really sure that Kurtz is a “nice guy”. Back in November 2004, he had a bad time at a con because of a band called “Court Jester” next to his booth, and had a bit of a feud with them. As the story goes, the people at CJ (from Kurtz’s telling) were rude and not particularly compliant with the polite requests from Kurtz. Kurtz then posted on his blog, *from the con* that the Court Jester folks were being pests and that his legions of fans “could visit the CJ website and download some songs, though he wasn’t sure their bandwidth could handle it.”
A day later, he retracted his statement, saying that his fans “shouldn’t have raided the CJ forums and spammed the site.”
The only evidence that I could find easily is at: http://3dgpu.com/forums/lofiversion/index.php?t1643.html
So, I do think Kurtz is a prick, and not a “nice guy”.
Okay, well if the best ‘not a nice guy’ story you have is that he got crabby at some jerks and felt bad about it later, then he must be the nicest guy alive.
While not particularly clever, the ‘popcorn’ line does tie up the numerous “Grosse Point Blank” references strewn through that particular story arc.
I haven’t read PvP regularly ina year and a half, but I had to find out if that was his target film. It was. Sort of.
No no, you misunderstand salmo. The “not a nice guy” story is the one where he incites legions of his fans to crash the offending party’s website.
It’s sort of like a dude being annoyed that someone is in line ahead of them at the doughnut shop, and then ordering a goon squad to mess up their house. In other words, inexcusably not nice.
Palette – Kurtz failing to get things up on time isn’t that big a deal to me, really. He gets a strip out a day, most days. I don’t see where reasonable professionalism is something to be celebrated in the absence of other elements of competence, however. If Scott Kurtz puts out a shitty comic every day, why exactly am I expected to cheer that?
Carla/Salmo/Imp: Kurtz isn’t a super-nice guy and he’s not the spawn of Satan. He’s just a guy with a large public presence, and as such his good deeds and bad get overblown sharply by his admirers and detractors.
Jonathan – Grosse Pointe Blank was actually entertaining. Referencing it a whole lot instead of actually writing jokes is not, which is why the arc sucks.
Yeah, I get that, but it’s not like he had his fans go and smash up their table. I just can’t get worked up in the same way about fake internet violence.
Sure, it’s not like he eats babies wrapped in kittens, but I think that padding someone’s bandwidth bill because you don’t like them is the equivalent of slashing someone’s tires or smashing their headlights. I’ll understand if your opinion differs from mine. I happen to think he’s an arrogant self-important shit. Your mileage may vary.
If Scott Kurtz puts out a shitty comic every day, why exactly am I expected to cheer that?
You’re not. I guess I worded it poorly, but:
1) I agree with the general unfunny-ness, but I had nothing else to say in that matter other than “me too!”
2) Your post gave me the courage to speak my mind about something else Kurtz does that bothers me.
3) I guess what I’m saying is, if he got a comic out on a regular schedule I would be less personally offended by what I feel is undeserved success.
I don’t think Cosby’s approach was necessarily more “universal” than Foxworthy’s… he came up in a time where being a “nice and black comedian” was as much of a niche as “redneck humor” was for Foxworthy. Jerry Seinfeld can supposedly do jokes about every subject, but his brand of observational humor is what keeps people coming back.
Every feature should have a theme, something that it’s supposed to be about, and when you’re not sure what that theme is, you’ve got COUNTDOWN, I mean a problem.
For a good webcomic about video games you should check out Ctrl-Alt-Del at ctrlaltdel-online.com. Updates 4 times a week and is pretty funny.
Ctrl-Alt-Del is the opposite of funny. It is anti-funny.
Jerry Seinfeld is also anti-funny. He is a humor vacuum.
He is now, which is sad.
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The thing about PVP is that yeah, it’s not what it used to be. The Jade/detective storyline, I have to say, was no fun at all to get through.
But I think the potential for PVP to be really fantastic is still there. And I think Kurtz can definitely rally. Shunting aside all the negative stuff, and there is plenty of it, PVP can still be stripped down to the bones and built from the ground up.
I still read in hopes of seeing that.
Most of what you’re writing is your personal opinion. It’s subjective, and there’s really no need to argue to try to make you feel differently, no matter how much I can’t understand how we’ve both read the same comic and come away with opposing viewpoints.
However, there’s one thing you mentioned that I’d like to clear up, and that’s the free-to-newspapers issue you bring up at the end.
I can’t speak with authority on much, but on this, you just gotta trust me: The fact that that many newspaper editors didn’t rush to get PvP into their comics pages (regardless of price) says more about the newspaper industry than it says about the quality of Scott’s work.
Well, although the relative quality is arguable, the fact that this is a free strip, and the fact that the guy is trying to make a living with this, is not. So maybe he owe’s us jack shit. And maybe we should enjoy what’s been given for free.
If you want to debate on quality of strips that’s fine, but there is no need to be rude in that. But I don’t expect somebody who names themselves the mighty god king to understand any of that, in all his 1337ness.
Well we all take comfort in the fact that the only reason you’re doing this is because you WANT pvp to be better. Well join the club.
Seriously, I should consider making a website that flames everything, I could make easy money, and I wouldn’t be a lazy hack myself AT ALL.
I think it’s hilarious that people can bitch and moan about how they waste time on PVP every day because it sucks. Scott Kurtz doesn’t make money off the site just for it being there, like a syndicated newspaper comic. He gets money from the hits and the links and all that other internet shit. The moral of the story being, if you don’t like the guy’s work, cut the comic out of your bookmarks and show it by giving him 1/10000 less of a penny a day.
Is Kurtz the best comic ever? Nah. Do the relationship story arcs and shit like that make me wish he’d get back to the damn game references and fart jokes? Yeah. The final and most important question: Have I in the past cut off comics that I thought got just plain sucky, and sucky on a regular basis. Definitely.
At the moment, I think PVP is still worth 1 minute of my busy, busy day. It’s how I found my way over to this particular free exchange of information. But whatever. If you don’t like the guy’s work, go read something funnier. Or, Actual God forbid, write and draw something funnier yourself and take his place in my bookmarks.
Interesting takes.
I kinda wish Scott would do more game humor – and I think you’re right to say he was more focused, which translated to more funny.
I DO wonder at the sudden trendiness of having blogs that bash Kurtz. This one (admitedly NOT just for that) coming on the heals of the Fake Scott McLoud – seems like it’s trendy to bash PvP right now.
I don’t know why all these stories about relationships are bothering people. They might not be perfectly executed or funny, but I like that he’s addressing things that actually happen to people and not just makinf Dukes of Hazzard and Panda jokes. Every cartoonist has ups and downs, but for Kurtz I think that the ups outweigh the downs. I agree with everyone here that the Jade Mysteries story arc was really… REALLY hard to get through, but at least it’s over now.
I watched a video Kurtz put out about escaping bad habits and becoming less lazy. It sounded like he wants to make his strip, as he said, “more interesting to look at, and (…) more interesting to draw.” So, I guess at least *I’ll* see what happens, because I visit PVPonline.com every day to check out the strip!
As for Kurtz’s character, I can’t legitimately attack or defend him, because I don’t know him. That thing he did to that band is unkind, but to be fair, he didn’t offer free stuff to the people who went and screwed with their site. My guess is that he was just speaking his mind, bitching about some people who upset him, and he forgot that what he says has an impact on many of his fans. It’s a big responsibility to have admirers who are that… well…. weak minded; because their stupidity is not his fault, but he’s forced to take it into consideration every time he expresses his thoughts.
Just for the record…. I LOVE the Dukes of Hazzard and Panda jokes. And maybe the reason I like to read about real situations in comics is because I also love the comics that Kurtz poked fun at—For Better or for Worse, The Boondocks, etc. But let’s remember something about writers: Their characters don’t always reflect their own opinions! He’s got a Mac freak, a PC freak, a Pac Man and D+D freak, and an RPer as the 4 main characters. Each of them has their own passion, and sometimes their opinions might clash with his own. GASP. That’s the secret to writing believable characters: They’re not carbon copies of YOU.
I understand where you’re coming from. Kurtz has swung really far away from the ‘joke-a-day’ format and pushed longer storylines in recent years, and for some people that’s just not their thing. The same people who can read the first few years of his archive and laugh at all the little gaming jokes aren’t going to be nearly as enthralled by the newer parody storylines about semi-obscure 70s and 80s TV shows. Part of that may be that they simply don’t get or enjoy that kind of humour, part of it may be that they’re just too young and that the reference material for these stories is well before their time.
Here’s the thing, though: Comics aren’t necessarily about being the same formula. Readers of Calvin and Hobbes will know that that although at first glance the comics seem to be about childhood and the rigors therein, once you’ve read enough you realize that there are multiple aspects to Watterson’s humour that some people just wouldn’t understand. Some people would laugh at Hobbes pushing Calvin into the mud one day, and shrug the comic off the next when Calvin and Hobbes ride around in their wagon, discussing philosophy. The formula of comics isn’t the same as that of stand-up comedians. While a comedian usually sticks with a certain kind of story or niche, and can repeat their jokes, cartoonists must develop new material almost daily, as well as draw interesting images to accompany it. They can run out of ideas quickly if they focus on one area, so diversification is important. Even Penny Arcade doesn’t do video game comics contantly, and they do only post three comics a week.
Scott Kurtz had his PvP comic started as a simple enough joke-a-day format, with short stories running no more than a few days, but with consistant gamer-related punchlines at the end. And that works, and I can see you enjoyed that, and miss it.
But Kurtz decided somewhere along the way to expand the universe of the comic. Games and geek sub-culture are great, but he decided to move beyond that medium. It may have started as a comic about gaming, and the title suggests that it still is, but titles can be deceiving, and all we really have is that Kurtz starting making a comic about things he found funny one day, shared it with the rest of us, and a lot of people agreed. Now he’s sharing other jokes he thinks are funny. Plenty of people will lose interest, but others will take their place. I personally enjoyed the Jade Fontaine Mysteries, but that’s because I grew up with those kinds of shows. I liked Rockford Files, and after that I liked Murder, She Wrote. I still like them. And I know plenty of people who would shrug off those kinds of shows, and seeing comics about them would make them roll their eyes and surf away to a different site. But the fact that I liked the old mystery shows (Before the newer CSI based stuff took control) is what endeared the Jade Fontaine Mysteries to me. I enjoyed a parody that reminded me of something aside from how awesome Pacman was or how the levels in Halo repeat themselves.
My point is merely that just because the focus of PvP has changed over the years doesn’t mean the humour has started to suck. It just means Kurtz is trying different jokes that you either don’t like or don’t get. This may be hard to believe, but there are even people out there that think Bill Cosby sucks. Maybe they just haven’t had the advantage of sitting in front of a record player and listening to LPs about Old Weird Harold or Fat Albert or Noah talking with God. Or maybe they just don’t have a compatible sense of humour.
Maybe the jokes just don’t sing for you anymore, but then that means they don’t suck, it just means the humour doesn’t cater to you.
I still check to see if pvp is up every day and have read the archives. I am okay with the personal character development rather than nerd culture jokes. And yes the detective arch was poor, but I think the idea behind it was interesting and I will give him credit for that. And the fart jokes that I hate (yes, you can curse me now) have decreased.
That being said, what bothers me could be called many things: a noticeable inflated ego, changing priorities from making a great comic to making great money, or just general prostitution of the name and previous talent. My point is that I’ve found that the comic has dipped when his general energy went to something else, namely maximizing profit. Signing every book to be mailed or sketching a character on an inside cover for extra dollars, limited runs of old books, or the one that pissed me off so much it snapped me out of passive browsing and shaded my view, the ‘pay us money and we’ll pretend to be your friend for a few minutes’ phone call plot. Now, I understand that artist signed copies and rare runs are great and treasured at times, but having it run constantly? Especially when the quality dips or flat out falls in some minds? Not exactly helping to increase the value, worth or the respect of the product even if it increases profits.
I also find it odd that they are focusing on a ‘how to make a successful web comic’ book and tips (which is the classic, pay money to learn how to make money problem) at a time when pvp’s popularity is wavering. So many people are notably unhappy or flat out leaving that it seems ironic.
But those are just my two cents.
Look i see where you are coming from Mr MightyGodKing guy. My question is if you hate is so much why are you still reading it? So you can blog about it to all of us? What about the people who do enjoy it?
If you could just link your own webcomic so i can see what you mean and how YOU go about keeping the whole of YOUR fanbase happy, that’d be great.
PVP is Kurtz’s webcomic. He draws it as he wants to draw it and he makes the storylines as he wants to make them. It is up to us whether we like it or dislike it. I respect your opinion, but i disagree with it.
WELL SCREW YOU I READ STARSLIP CRISIS BITCH
I made this very complaint over a year before you did. The fact that the strip has continued to tangibly degrade is fascinating.
By contrast, a recent Mallard Fillmore strip made me giggle. I’m afraid something might be wrong with me.