It's actually kind of interesting how pathologically backwards PVP has become. Everything that Kurtz said would help him improve as an artist has either come to nothing, or gone backwards. "I'm going to develop a buffer" - he's still always late and now misses a day here or there. "I'm going to work on my writing", the writing gets worse. "I need move to Seattle, to associate with other artists and reap the rewards of bouncing ideas off other creative minds" - he makes strips like that, that no other person could possibly have read and said, "Yes, you should definitely post that for your readers." And even worse: "I need to work out of a studio so I have a place to concentrate on my art and experiment with different things." Instead, he admits that he traces, this is cut and paste, and apparently he doesn't draw except for the strip at all any more.