Does this look like it means what I think it means?

Apparently the Kurtz of Kurtzness + 20 really WAS posting on Marionette's blog.

And what is more, if you check one post back, he's apparently posting here now as well.

I had actually started this post BEFORE I got the message about the message he left for me. But I see no need not to ask this question here, especially since we may be able to get a straight answer from Mr. Kurtz himself.

I quote from Mari's blog


I found your blog post via Journalista and got interested in the comments because, frankly, Matt Morrison is posting in here. He really makes me chuckle. So, let me address a couple issues directly and see if maybe I can't help you understand where I'm coming from.


So, apparently the Kurtz of Kurtzness freely confesses to having nothing better to do than Google my name and see where I'm posting?

EDIT: Actually, from the proceding post it appears he has truly DOES have nothing better to do today than argue with me. Thankfully, I have a full weekend planned and will be nowhere near the computer until Monday night. See ya all later!

In which I slay a troll...

http://marionetteblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/scott-kurtz-will-get-his-dad-on-you.html

Mari hardly needs my protection but I cannot abide people who continue to miss the point after having it explained to them three times - Once by Mari, twice by me.

I know I shouldn't feed the trolls - battle not with monsters and all that - but there's something in my character that cannot abide people who display a wilful and rabid refusal to use their brains.

It's the librarian in me.

Looking To The Stars: Thank You, Mr. Kurtz!

In the course of writing about comics over the last few years, I have gotten some attention from the creators whose works I critique. Some were thankful, saying that it was nice to see someone who got what they were trying to do and spread the word about their good works. Some thanked me for the criticism, which hurtful as it may have been, ultimately made them think of things in different ways and attempt to be better writers. Some have hurled insults and questioned my manhood, my mother’s virtue and my own intelligence after reading a bad review of their work. But only one man has gone through the effort to make a public stink about a negative review and in so doing inspired dozens of his fans to write me and tell me about what a horrible person I am for not seeing the brilliance of said writer’s work. That writer is Scott Kurtz, and I am forever indebted to him.

Last week Mr. Kurtz linked to one of my columns from about six months ago from his comic’s website, comparing it to a more favorable review at thefourthrail.com. I’m pleased to report that thanks to Mr. Kurtz linking to 411 Comics, our hits on the first day after his news post were triple the usual rate- a trend that continued throughout the week! The editorial staff couldn’t be more pleased and have in turn tripled my salary in response and have given me carte blanche to stir up as much controversy as I want in my future writings. Look for “Reasons Why I Am A Better Person Than Jesus: Part One” next week.

I feel it worth noting that while I did get quite a few unflattering letters from Mr. Kurtz’s fans, not all of them were filled with profanity, poor spelling and poorly spelled profanity. Some of them did make some good points about my original column that showed me that some of the statements I made were slightly inaccurate. Well, in the interest of clarity and fairness, here are some quick corrections taken from the mouths of the fans themselves…

Apparently Mr. Kurtz has made mention, in the six months since my review, that his book was always intended to be an “anthology” of his past work and was meant to give him a chance to go back and improve old comics. PvP #4, for example, was done to allow him to redraw the first few strips featuring teenage female Marcy in her new and improved form. Any fault in failing to advertise this fact to those of us who don’t regularly review the PvP website is therefore the fault of Image Comics, who advertised the comic as new material. I would like to apologize for implying that Mr. Kurtz was intentionally scamming the comic-reading public and applaud him for making an effort to go back and improve his past works.

I stated, incorrectly, that Mr. Kurtz does not archive the daily comments from his main page, regarding various bits of news and complaints about the current story arc – such as the one I noted regarding his anti-Furry arc and his comment that the people sending him angry letters should stay away from his dog. In fact, he does archive these comments. I simply missed the link, which is not on the prominent display bar at the top of his page under “Rants” but in size 2 font, lower down on the page, between a banner ad and the most recent news articles. I would like to apologize for this oversight.

I stated that based on what I had read of some of Mr. Kurtz’s comments and strips that he seemed incapable of taking criticism in any form, negative or comparative. One reader, who agreed with most of my comments, informed me that the very same week my column saw print, Mr. Kurtz saw fit to shut down the official PvP forum on his website, for reasons that are detailed here.

I make no comment upon this, save that you should read all eleven pages here and judge for yourselves the thinness of his skin.

Finally, I was accused by some of bad-mouthing Mr. Kurtz just to get attention and to break into the comics business. Ignoring all issues of the wisdom of trying to break into a business by insulting the people in it, there are many writers and artists with a much larger readership who I could spew bile at in a pathetic attempt to get a few more readers of my work. I could say bad things about Geoff Johns, for example, and expect a sizable amount of hits from the readers of Teen Titans, JSA, Hawkman, Avengers and The Flash. That would certainly make more sense than my attacking a writer/artist who self-published most of his work – assuming my goal was to drum up publicity for my own work.

However, that is not my goal in writing this column. I am not out to destroy anyone’s career nor promote my own. I doubt quite frankly that I have so much power that my word can sway so many hearts and minds as to make a major difference in a comic company’s policies of what they will and won’t publish.

And even if I did possess that kind of power, I would try to use it, not to end careers, but to save them. Like I would dearly like to save the job of Ben Raab, whose work on Green Lantern I was enjoying immensely. Sadly, I seem to be in the minority as DC Comics has announced that Issue #175 will be Raab’s last on the title. Raab wrote to me earlier this week regarding last week’s “Looking To The Stars”, regarding his work on Green Lantern.

Just read your defense of my run on GL thus far and wanted to say "thanks". Nice to see someone gets what I'm doing with these characters and their ongoing stories... Sincerely hope you (and everyone else at 411) will enjoy where I take them in the upcoming months...

I know I will, Ben. I hope that everyone who agrees with me will join me in writing to DC Comics and asking for you to remain on Green Lantern.

Before I go, one final thought. I write this column simply as a voicing of my opinion, which is no more valid or invalid than any other. We all have the right to our own tastes and opinions and should have the right to voice those opinions without having to worry about the negative reactions of other people.

So if you enjoy PvP, good for you. I personally do not, but that is just me. If you don’t like Green Lantern, that’s fine too. I love it, but that’s just one fanboy’s opinion. If you don’t enjoy my critiques, you don’t have to read them. I certainly enjoy the comments I get about my writing but nobody is holding a gun to your head and making you read my work. At least I hope not. If you want to send a letter to my editor demanding that I be fired for my opinions, ask me for his e-mail address and I’ll refer you to him.

Tune in next week. Same Matt Time. Same Matt Website. Assuming I’m not fired before then.

PVP #2 - A Review

Story Title: Lord of the Schwings!

Written by: Scott Kurtz
Penciled by: Scott Kurtz
Inked by: Scott Kurtz
Colored by: N/A
Lettered by: Scott Kurtz
Editor: Mark Walters
Publisher: Image Comics

*RING RING*

Matt: Hulk’s Deli. You order, we SMASH!

Daron: Matt?

Matt: Yeah.

Daron: It’s Daron. I need you to review PVP #2 this week.

Matt: What?! But I had a piece on Hawkman #15 ready to go!

Daron: Sorry, but we’re short on Indie reviews this week and you’re the only person with a free spot.

Matt: Have I not been suffering enough watching Green Arrow and Green Lantern go to heck in a handbasket this past month that I also have to read the least funny gamer comic ever?

Daron: Hey, after the lashing you gave the first issue in your column, I thought it would be funny to have you review the second. Besides, it could have gotten better. And I heard that they were just reprinting strips from the website for the first issue. It could be new material this time.

Matt: Well, I suppose I DO owe it to the fans to see if it got better.

Daron: Exactly. You’re doing the public a service. Heck, in a way you’re a hero! Going places sane men fear to tread and saving us time and money by telling us about what books aren’t worth the trees that died to make them!

Matt: Well, when you put it that way…

Daron: Besides, it could be worse. You could be reviewing Venom #1.

Matt: * winces * A Tsunami title? With a character I hate…

Daron: And Francisco Herrera artwork through the WHOLE thing…

Matt: * thinks * How soon do you need that PVP review?

Daron: Immediately. Now get to writing. I think we’re loosing the readers with this overdone “creators speaking” bit.

Matt: Hey, it worked for Stan Lee!

*CLICK*

*sounds of running to car, car starting*

ONE TRIP TO THE COMIC SHOP LATER…

Not too long ago I made a number of complaints about PVP the comic strip and its’ new book form (such as it is) as published by Image. With that in mind, let us go down the bullet list of my complaints and see what, if anything, has changed.

1. Is It A Comic Book?
While not as fragmented as Issue One and sticking to one storyline, I still cannot call PVP a comic book. It is a collection of comic strips adhering to one theme.

2. Is it new Material?
Reprints of comics you can get for free on the web. As I said before: This is a scam. You are being ripped off when you pay money for this book.

3. Is there gaming content?
Miraculously, yes. The entire book centers on Dungeons and Dragons.

4. Is Jade used as a gratuitous sex object?
Aside from the now standard Frank Cho cover with Jade helplessly thrown over the shoulder of barbarian Brent, Kurtz himself takes a stab at cheesecake artwork with a panel showing Jade in a Red Sonja chainmail bikini. This demonstrates two things: Kurtz whore-like ability to cater to the lowest common denominator among his male readers and why he has Frank Cho doing his covers.

5. Toilet Humor
Skull objects to the smelly troll stereotype and then breaks wind. Nuff said.

6. Insulting the Fans Who Support Him
Limited only to a comic where Brent insults the gaming humor comic industry and a jab at gamers who talk and dress in character.

Final Result
At least this issue was about something, but it is still poorly drawn and unfunny. The book title says it all: Lord of the Schwings. A forced in-joke with a reference to a long dead running gag. And much as I dig that early 90’s slang, daddy-o, it ain’t fly or fresh no mo’. Nobody says Schwing anymore.

Go read Nodwick #20 instead.

Looking To The Stars: PVP? A POS!

Stock characters. Sub-par, unrealistic artwork with a poor grasp of anatomy. Badly written AND chronically late. Written by a man with an over-inflated opinion of his abilities who turned his back on the people who got him where he was for money and fame. Yeah. PVP and Scott Kurtz will fit right in at Image.

I’ve been aquatinted with PVP in the past. It’s hard not to be when you are, like me, a gamer and a comic book guy. It’s even harder when some of the comics you do like featured PVP as a back-up piece or are linked to it off their web site. And you’ve seen me write about “Knights of the Dinner Table” and “Dork Tower” and “Nodwick” and many other comics dealing with “gamer humor” in the past and praise those titles. I’ve written about a few net comics that I read every day and said good things about them as well. And yet, I had a few of you write me and ask “You forgot to mention PVP, didn’t you? It’s a gamer comic. It’s on the Net.”

Well, I’ll cop to being a wee bit forgetful. I have misplaced my keys only to find them in my other jacket pocket. I’ll occasionally leave the house and then run back to make sure I did lock the door. I’ve forgotten names, faces, directions and the answers to test questions I had down cold the night before. But I did not forget to mention PVP among the ranks of the web comics and gamer comics that I enjoy. I didn’t forget this because I do not enjoy it.

Why not, you ask? And by “you” I don’t mean the metaphorical you, the general audience. I mean both of YOU out there, who did ask why I don’t like PVP: Christine and Tony. To answer that, let’s start with a brief dissection of the brand new PVP #1.

My first beef with PVP #1 is that it is, in the purest sense, a scam. It is not, as it has been advertised, a brand new comic book about gamers. It is not a comic book. Most of it is not new. And it is barely about gamers.

I should explain why I don’t consider this issue a “comic book”. Strictly speaking, a comic book has a cohesive plot that carries on throughout the whole of the printed object. A comic strip is a few single panels conveying a single thought. All this issue does is collect several comic strips. It is as much a comic book as your average bound collection of Calvin and Hobbes is a comic book. The PVP title released by Dorkstorm Press was a comic book, with an ongoing story that lasted through the whole issue as well as some smaller strips in the back.

Secondly, PVP #1 is not brand new. With the exception of the strips on the inside cover and back cover, everything in the book has been previously released on the PVP website. In short, you are being charged three bucks for something you can easily get for free off the Internet. And the two original strips, which I will discuss later, are not quite worth a buck-fifty,.

Finally, PVP #1 is not really about gamers. Of the reprinted strips, only a few towards the end deal with gaming in even the most remote sense. Most of the book is taken up with an in-office Nerf-Gun fight and the tired sitcom cliché of a mouse being loose in the office and various idiots destroying the office trying to kill the mouse. I’m not saying that every strip has to be popped-full of gags about Everquest dating and Lord of the Rings jokes. I’m saying that if you’re going to be plugged as a gamer comic, you should darn well mentioning gaming outside of the context of what the characters write about in their office.

And speaking of the characters, let us talk about them now that I’ve gotten all my complaints about PVP #1 out of the way and focus upon the many problems I have with PVP as a strip.

1. The Characters

The basic sitcom cast. Skull is the well-meaning dumb guy. Brent is the pretentious jerk with a heart of gold. Cole is the clueless boss who wants to join in on the wacky antics until he gets screwed over. (Come to think of it, he even LOOKS like Gordon Jump from WKRP with glasses). Francis is Bud Bundy, minus the moral code. And Jade is the standard Ally McBeal package ; “smart, but attractive, independent woman who is smarter than every man around her put together”. And speaking of Jade…

2. Strong, Smart... and damn sexy on a bearskin rug.

Scott Kurtz has no problem with whoring Jade out for the cheap sexual titillation of his male readers. Consider the cover of PVP #1, where all the other characters are pushed into the background so that attention can be played to the curvy posterior of the strip’s main female character, as rendered by Frank “My target audience is the guys too chicken to buy Betty Page comics” Cho.

It is also worth mentioning that Cho did a nude picture of Jade, naked on a bearskin rug as a “reward” for the patience of readers who sat through a week-long story involving a nude picture of Jade that turned out to be… a baby picture. (Hmm… think I saw that on WKRP too.) Now, this would have been pretty funny; a stab at those who were getting so worked-up over nude artwork of a cartoon character. Too bad all those people were rewarded in the end for their lewdness. And speaking of lewdness…

3. Toilet Humor

When sex fails, you can get a lot of mileage out of a story by mentioning bodily functions. There have been several strips based around the poor hygiene and gaseous discharge of Skull, Robby and Jase. In fact, the cast page lists Robby and Jase as having the special skill of “converting beer into pee”. And the back cover of the comic has Jade, who is briefly ensnared by the Witchblade in another cheesecake moment as her clothes are ripped off, wondering how she is supposed to go to the bathroom in her scanty armor.

Finally, there are the problems I have with the man, Scott Kurtz himself. Judging from the “rants” on his web site, I can only conclude that the man is incapable of taking criticism and that in his black and white world, to say that he is wrong is to suggest that the sky is orange and that birds swim north for the spring.

For example, consider the story arc built upon the concept that all “Furries” are deviants who want to have sex with animals.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit being uncomfortable with some people in the Furry community who do seem to be a little too into animals. But I realize that is just a section of the whole group. There are some whom feel a connection to a certain animal and dress like for totemistic reasons. There are some furries who just like dressing up in cat ears and a tail for the fun of it. That’s no odder than like the people who wear all black and like to pretend to be a vampire or put on a codpiece and pretend to be in medieval times. (And let’s not get into a discussion of the mental health of Vampire RPGers or Renaissance Festival attendees right now, as Unca Stars has dabbled in both.)

Kurtz ignores this distinction, however, and in this week long story portrayed all furries as animal-lovers in the physical sense. Moreover, with one exception, all the furries depicted in the strip are overweight and unattractive. Not a sight to be seen of any Playboy bunnies or Julie Newmar-types.

Interestingly enough, there seemed to be a “bug” in the PVP Archives that makes it “skip” over this strip where “equal time” is given to the Furries to defend themselves.

You could not originally reach this strip except by typing out the specific date. Trying to use the previous and next buttons will take you to the comic for Either September 30^th or October 2^nd. And while his daily news comments are not archived, I distinctly remember Kurtz telling the Furries who wrote in to complain that they should shut up and (I am paraphrasing a bit) “stay away from my dog”.

But the peak of insulting your fan base while ignoring their complaints came here, where Kurtz insults the independent comic industry as a whole, the fans of independent comics and, in an indirect but unsubtle way, all those who suggested that maybe he was a sellout after Wizard Magazine reviewed PVP and he started trying to capitalize on the exposure.

Now, I’m there’s nothing wrong with making money off your creative product. Lord knows I’m trying hard to find paying work with my writing. But just because you make it big and are recognized does not give you the right to act like an ass. It especially does not give you the right to try and shoot down those who don’t like your work. Of course that’s just my opinion for what it is worth. I’m sure Mr. Kurtz would disagree with me and that if he ever reads these words of mine, I will probably get a response like this one.

Oh, and incidentally… Mr. Kurtz? If you’re reading this, know three things.

1. Substituting “Comics Urinal” for “Comics Journal” is not that funny or clever. I knew Wizard-reading fanboys who made that joke five years ago and I doubt they were the first.

2. I also wouldn’t start talking trash about comics where “layout is poor”, “anatomy is way off” and the writing “isn’t very polished”. Sinless as you might be, some of those stones might bounce off your plexiglass wall and smite you upside the head.

3. For future reference, take a page from Brian Michael Bendis. It’s only funny to make jokes about being an artistic sellout when you AREN’T an artistic sellout. The other original strip in PVP #1, on the inside cover, where Cole talks about the artistic integrity and hard work being shoved aside for sucking up to Wizard and a contract with Image Comics? A slap in the face to everyone who has supported you since you were a small, self-published comic strip with no readers.

Final analysis? PVP is a P.O.S.

Special thanks to "Great" Scott Smith (The Last Reasearch Assisant From Krypton) and his son, “Beppo”, The Super Assistant Monkey for reading hundreds of PvP strips to find the links to my examples so I didn't have to suffer through reading them all again. You are both Supermen to me.

Tune in next week! Same Matt Time! Same Matt Website!

Note to Scott Kurtz and Image Comics: The Opinions of Matt Morrison do not necessarily reflect those of 411mania.com or the editorial staff. In fact, we can't stand the guy and don't know why he won't leave.

Looking To The Stars is a critique/satire published by 411mania.com, and is not intended maliciously. 411mania.com has invented all names and situations in its stories, except in cases when public figures are being satirized. Any other use of real names is accidental and coincidental, or used as a fictional depiction or personality parody (permitted under Hustler Magazine v. Fallwell, 485 US 46, 108 S.Ct 876, 99 L.Ed.2d 41 (1988)). 411mania.com makes no representation as to the truth or accuracy of the preceding information.