You seem to be talking about one specific gap of updates, and you're right, sometimes he says something before (like Kurtz does sometimes as well), but not everytime as far as I can tell. For example, where did he say that there was only going to be one update last week?
[Webcomic] PVP Discussion
- Thread starter Dei
- Start date
Wouldn't specifically know - I don't read his comics 
He tends to be better about keeping people informed, anyway. I'm not saying Straub's perfect
Go look at the Goblins comic. Plenty of sympathy for Thunt, but there's still annoyance about not getting a clear "we're on hiatus 'till I feel decent enough to draw again" (until he did post that). Kurtz partially certainly gets more flack from some peopel here unjustly, but he really is the king of self-proclaimed "professional" webcomic artists behaving very unprofessionally. I think there was a table someone made, earlier in this thread, about the number of updates that were late/not - it was more than 1 in 5, despite using guest artists and not counting announced delays or breaks. You tell me if missing 1 day out of 5, besides sick/vacation/holiday leave and some guests stepping in, is "professional".
He tends to be better about keeping people informed, anyway. I'm not saying Straub's perfect Go look at the Goblins comic. Plenty of sympathy for Thunt, but there's still annoyance about not getting a clear "we're on hiatus 'till I feel decent enough to draw again" (until he did post that). Kurtz partially certainly gets more flack from some peopel here unjustly, but he really is the king of self-proclaimed "professional" webcomic artists behaving very unprofessionally. I think there was a table someone made, earlier in this thread, about the number of updates that were late/not - it was more than 1 in 5, despite using guest artists and not counting announced delays or breaks. You tell me if missing 1 day out of 5, besides sick/vacation/holiday leave and some guests stepping in, is "professional".
My point is not that Kurtz doesn't have problems, but how this forums responds to them compared to others.Wouldn't specifically know - I don't read his comics
Go look at the Goblins comic. Plenty of sympathy for Thunt, but there's still annoyance about not getting a clear "we're on hiatus 'till I feel decent enough to draw again" (until he did post that). Kurtz partially certainly gets more flack from some peopel here unjustly, but he really is the king of self-proclaimed "professional" webcomic artists behaving very unprofessionally. I think there was a table someone made, earlier in this thread, about the number of updates that were late/not - it was more than 1 in 5, despite using guest artists and not counting announced delays or breaks. You tell me if missing 1 day out of 5, besides sick/vacation/holiday leave and some guests stepping in, is "professional".
Also, if you're paying attention to PVP and not Broodhollow? I think you're making the wrong judgement call.
I haven't either, other than a bit of Chainsaw Suit which I find to be soundly meh. That said, Broodhollow has been charming and clever from the beginning. He's suprisingly deft at blending humor and horror elements.
Yes, this!
Sometimes they are late (no wonder with that schedule), but I enjoy them for some time now, ups and downs of course but generally good stuff. I just avoid the forums there, very!
I haven't looked at Kurtz' stuff for some time now and am not even tempted when it's called out to be good (or extra bad). I loved PvP, really loved it back then, it more or less brought me into webcomics as a whole, and even loved it despite the occasional unreasonable Kurtz outburst, but the quality went downhill as did his work ethos while his ego went up even more.
So, no more PvP for me since the Brent/Jade wedding. I don't even care enough anymore to rant about it or look it up.
The reason Kurtz gets so much stick is because he's done so well, and been so successful - webcomics are literally how he earns his living, he's won awards for his work, he gets jobs with major brands for promotional material. Those are things to be proud of, but he uses them as a shield against criticism, rather than an incentive to do better. And it's just become painfully clear that he's lazy about PVP. He loves the perks that his webcomic provides, but can't be bothered working consistently on it. Arc plots are suddenly miscarried, he misses days frequently (outside the few conventions he attends) despite having way more resources than most people at his disposal (a dedicated studio instead of the dining room table, guest artists, etc), silhouettes as a time saving device rather than to convey tone or mood --- you can't tell me he used the silhouette in this comic here for another reason than, "I don't feel like drawing Rip and Joyce from the front again. Quick outline, shade the background, BOOM! Silhouette frame. I'm a tastemaker." And then there's his fallback responses when people don't like things he does: "Fuck you, it's funny," and "Feel free to keep enjoying my free webcomic!" (implying that since you didn't pay for it, you don't have a right to complain). The problem is, it's *not* free. He gets paid for his readership through ads and merchandise. It's only free in the same way that a network TV show is - yes, the audience may not *directly* pay for it, but still provides the revenue to the creators.
Then of course there's the delicious irony of his twitter account:
Scott Kurtz @pvponline Apr 22
The worst part of being a deadline-based cartoonist is the guilt when you get behind/miss days. I hate it and I'll never be free of it.
Well, Scott, maybe you should maybe make more than 1 comic a day every now and then, so you have a fucking buffer, so you don't have that problem every goddamn week!
Then of course there's the delicious irony of his twitter account:
Scott Kurtz
The worst part of being a deadline-based cartoonist is the guilt when you get behind/miss days. I hate it and I'll never be free of it.
Well, Scott, maybe you should maybe make more than 1 comic a day every now and then, so you have a fucking buffer, so you don't have that problem every goddamn week!
Also, the Mad Hater is basically a strawman of everyone who points out problems with his comic - in essence, us.
I just decided to go through this month's archive and see how much he's missed lately.
Comics were posted for (not necessarily on) the following days in April: 1,2,3,4, 7,8,9,10, 15,16,17, 21, 23. That's 13 comics so far for the month.
Now, 5,6, 11,12, 19, 20 are all weekends, so those obviously don't count against him. PAX was also in there somewhere, but he didn't announce it, so it still counts against him.
So for this month, Kurtz's only legitimately missed an update on the 11th, 14th, 18th, and 22nd. That's 4 days out of 17 possible for the month so far, or a miss rate of 23.5%.
Going back to March, the comic was updated on the following days: 3,5,7, 10,11,12,13, 17, 20,21, 24,25, 31. That's 13 comics for the month.
Weekends included 1,2, 8,9, 15,16, 22,23, and Emerald City Comic-Con (which he announced on his site, and which he didn't have to travel for) was the 27th-30th. So those don't count against him.
Legitimate misses for March are the 4th, 6th, 14th, 18th, 19th, and 26th. That's 6 days out of 19 possible, or a miss rate of 31.6%.
So if you take just March and April, that's 10 misses out of 36 potential updates, for a combined miss rate of around 27.8%.
I just decided to go through this month's archive and see how much he's missed lately.
Comics were posted for (not necessarily on) the following days in April: 1,2,3,4, 7,8,9,10, 15,16,17, 21, 23. That's 13 comics so far for the month.
Now, 5,6, 11,12, 19, 20 are all weekends, so those obviously don't count against him. PAX was also in there somewhere, but he didn't announce it, so it still counts against him.
So for this month, Kurtz's only legitimately missed an update on the 11th, 14th, 18th, and 22nd. That's 4 days out of 17 possible for the month so far, or a miss rate of 23.5%.
Going back to March, the comic was updated on the following days: 3,5,7, 10,11,12,13, 17, 20,21, 24,25, 31. That's 13 comics for the month.
Weekends included 1,2, 8,9, 15,16, 22,23, and Emerald City Comic-Con (which he announced on his site, and which he didn't have to travel for) was the 27th-30th. So those don't count against him.
Legitimate misses for March are the 4th, 6th, 14th, 18th, 19th, and 26th. That's 6 days out of 19 possible, or a miss rate of 31.6%.
So if you take just March and April, that's 10 misses out of 36 potential updates, for a combined miss rate of around 27.8%.
Last edited:
It was hard resisting the urge to reply to that tweet. I also feel guilty for missing my work 22% of the time.
If I missed my work 22% of the time, I'd be fired before I could blink.
There doesn't seem to be any sense of urgency to get work done on time. There doesn't appear to be any risk. There's always people ready to apologize for him. If there was a chance he'd lose his car/house/wife/other maybe he'd take it a little more seriously.
Not to mention all the delays in people getting merchandise they ordered? How many here had to wait extra months for stuff they bought from him?
How the fuck are you late with a comic deadline when it's all you do for a fucking living?
Kurtz basically fell into the lifestyle that most of us of the geek culture can only dream about. He gets to play video games, board games, and RPGs whenever he likes and thinks that he owes it to the community to do so.
Kurtz basically fell into the lifestyle that most of us of the geek culture can only dream about. He gets to play video games, board games, and RPGs whenever he likes and thinks that he owes it to the community to do so.
It is sad, because I liked her on PvP.I have no idea why, but this strip makes me hate Gwen even more.
Meanwhile David Willis has a buffer for Dumbing of Age all the way up to AUGUST THIRD. He has a buffer for almost 5 frigging months. No wonder he can maintain three webcomics at the same time. The man is a machine.
And he even manages some porn as side projects...
Even Jeph Jaques with all his problems works a daily schedule, and if not there's always Yelling Bird, a guest strip or at the least an axcuse! He also does his music stuff and still only rarely misses a day, usually with conventions, and then he lets his readers know.
Or the woman who does Menage a 3, among the what, 3-4 other comics? Granted she doesn't do much writing, it's mostly the art, but her art is solid consistently and there's barely a missed day between all of her projects.
5 comics, plus actual comic book work on occasion. And if she's going to miss a day, we at least get a cute sketch or something.
Jennie Breeden over at The Devil's Panties has been amazing about updates for years. She's a 7-days-a-week updater, although Saturdays are a one-panel gag, and Sundays are usually some sketches or random art, but still. There was a contest years ago between a bunch of web cartoonists on who could go the longest without missing an update. (I believe Kurtz was in it, too.) I don't remember who won, but Jennie was one of the last people standing. It is VERY rare she misses an update.
Yeah. He has NEVER missed an update. Including when the server farm his comic was hosted on literally exploded. Bear in mind, for the early years of the comic, he had a full time (60+ hour a week) job at Novell which involved a lot of international travel. Now he makes his living off Schlock Mercenary, giving him more time to be a dad to his stienman of children. He was recently worried that his buffer was below 4 weeks.
Howard Taylor never entered. Felt like it wouldn't be a challenge, because for guys like him it's practically axiomatic. Actually just checked, it's still going on. Guigar's the only guy I recognize that's still in the running.
For the record, Kurtz lasted a little over 4 months.
For the record, Kurtz lasted a little over 4 months.
Are you sure that's updated? R. Smith's comic ended a few years ago.
New PvP was pretty nice, not that funny but still pretty good.
Trenches on the other hand confuses me, so Gwen has college students making her rip-off game for extra credit...is that illegal? This sounds very very VERY illegal. She goin' to jail prob'ly.
Trenches on the other hand confuses me, so Gwen has college students making her rip-off game for extra credit...is that illegal? This sounds very very VERY illegal. She goin' to jail prob'ly.
It's only illegal if she provided them with code or design documents from the game they are copying... or if she used her knowledge of the game from her time at work, which would make the game property of the original company and not Gwen or the students.
So yes, she needs to go to jail.
And if the police interrogate her, maybe they'll find out what cult programmed into such a terrible person instead of the cool one she was in her PvP days.
Except that legally, if a program is created with the code of another without the express written permission of the original code's owner, it's legally owned by the original code's owner. This is why game companies license engines... and why Silicon Knights are out of business when they stole code from another company for Too Human. A judge ordered all copies of that game destroyed and a massive punitive fine.
So no... the students don't own anything unless they can prove they replicated the code independently from the game company... and once they see Gwen was working there, it will be impossible for them to do it. They'll get sued, the college will have to pay up, and Gwen is probably going to get fired/sent to jail if anyone finds out.