PA & PVP versus old media comics

[Triforcer]

 PA's existence and everything bad PA has ever done (if anything) is justified by the "sing the song that ends the earth" comic.  Seriously, I would forgive them anything after that.

[schild]

PA's existence and everything bad PA has ever done (if anything) is justified by the "sing the song that ends the earth" comic.  Seriously, I would forgive them anything after that.

I Hope You Like Text.

Like I said, their best comic. By far.

[apocrypha]

PA succeed for the same reason nearly all small businesses succeed - a smattering of talent combined with a fuckton of hard work.

[Ironwood]

Today reminded me that I am actually a big fan of Mr Period.

[Khaldun]

I think PA is on the whole pretty good. It's not quite Perry Bible Fellowship good or anything, but it's solid. PvP I read but it's much more a kind of eh, ok, fine.

Otherwise the whole discussion is the same as the one taking place between online writers and print media journalists. There are a few functions of print media that can't flourish on an Internet model, primarily high-quality reportage. There are other aspects of print media which online media do better and do for free to the end-users (classifieds, cultural criticism, opinion writing). The online readers need to develop skills to find the content they want, as opposed to paying editors to carefully select content as in print media, sure.

I think it's absolutely right to say that editorial cartoonists who complain that a webcomics model isn't suitable for them are missing the point: the real problem is that 95% of them couldn't build their own audience under any circumstances because they're talentless hacks. Much as some music-industry people started shitting their pants when they realized they'd have to make money by selling individual songs rather than making one ok song and selling it packed into an album full of suck. When I look at a great editorial cartoonist like Paul Conrad, and realize that much of the time Conrad's work (especially his anti-Nixon cartoons) didn't require stupid little labels on figures to tell you what news story he was representing, I realize that there are almost no editorial cartoonists practicing now who have even a smidgen of visual imagination. They deserve to fail: it's got nothing to do with a "webcomics business model" or anything like that.

[Sky]

PBF is the only web comic I've enjoyed. I read most of the print comics, because they're in the paper every day. I'll read a shitty comic in the hopes of a minor chuckle or at least escape from the maimed rape victim on the opposing page. I'll not read shitty web comics, because I have to go look for it and it's not worth that 2 seconds of time.

Also, I don't my computer to the break room or sit out on my back porch with it. Nor do I take a computer to the shitter.

Print is dead lol.

[Teleku]

I really like PA.  They are the only consistent web comic I can come back to and be usually sure I'll at least get a smile from it.  They are hit and miss, but even when they miss, it's rarely something bad.  PvP, on the other hand, is just fucking annoying, and even when it hits (oh so rarely), most it gets is a smile.

[Yegolev]

Nor do I take a computer to the shitter.

Get a DS and you can drop your newspaper addiction.

[Nonentity]

I've always enjoyed PA, sometimes they get a hearty chuckle out of me.

I guess this is the wrong venue to bring up Achewood again, though...

[Kail]

When I look at a great editorial cartoonist like Paul Conrad, and realize that much of the time Conrad's work (especially his anti-Nixon cartoons) didn't require stupid little labels on figures to tell you what news story he was representing, I realize that there are almost no editorial cartoonists practicing now who have even a smidgen of visual imagination.

IANAL and all that, but I was told that the labels all over everything are for legal reasons.  I had an instructor once who was an editorial cartoonist, drew a picture of the Prime Minister pulling the wings off a fly, and got in shit for it from his editor ("he could sue for slander").  Write "Health Care Bill" or something on the fly, though, and it's fine (as it's more clearly satire or something).

[Lantyssa]

I guess this is the wrong venue to bring up Achewood again, though...

Any time is the wrong time.

[Hindenburg]

IANAL and all that, but I was told that the labels all over everything are for legal reasons.  I had an instructor once who was an editorial cartoonist, drew a picture of the Prime Minister pulling the wings off a fly, and got in shit for it from his editor ("he could sue for slander").  Write "Health Care Bill" or something on the fly, though, and it's fine (as it's more clearly satire or something).

His editor was a paranoid pussy.

[NowhereMan]

There are a few really good web comics but like got said in that thread they generally are ones that sell on through word of mouth. If you're producing a quality product fairly consistently and are willing to put work into it people will pass your site on. Since we're mentioning comics we read Dresden Codak and Something Positive are both fairly regular visits for me even though the former is a pretty infrequent updater. Neither of those would have a chance in print the first because you can't do large, high-quality, niche products on an occasional basis and expect to ever get published really. The second simply because I don't think any editor would ever actually publish what amounts to a lot of geeky and semi-offensive humour.

[Khaldun]

When I look at a great editorial cartoonist like Paul Conrad, and realize that much of the time Conrad's work (especially his anti-Nixon cartoons) didn't require stupid little labels on figures to tell you what news story he was representing, I realize that there are almost no editorial cartoonists practicing now who have even a smidgen of visual imagination.

IANAL and all that, but I was told that the labels all over everything are for legal reasons.  I had an instructor once who was an editorial cartoonist, drew a picture of the Prime Minister pulling the wings off a fly, and got in shit for it from his editor ("he could sue for slander").  Write "Health Care Bill" or something on the fly, though, and it's fine (as it's more clearly satire or something).

That would work as an explanation if there weren't cartoonists who do otherwise. British bullshit libel laws not withstanding.

[AutomaticZen]

PvP is pretty meh.  But sometimes so is PA.  As an experiment, pick up any PA comic -- can you understand it directly?  Very often PA panels are just like editorial cartoons, it's just that you have to be aware of the latest issue in gamer culture or the latest title.  They don't often stand on their own without the walls of creative vocabulary from Tycho.  But FWIW I do like Gabe's artwork and think a lot of his work is superior to the majority of web strips out there.  Mike is definitely the talent there.

I actually read for Tycho's rants more than the comic itself.  I get annoyed when they put the comic up first and there's no rant.

[lamaros]

Pictures for sad children is the webcomic I enjoy most often. Not games related, though that's hardly a handicap.

[ashrik]

Were the newspaper meanies really so cruel and dismissive to Scott Kurtz 5 years ago, or is he just the most bitter of dicks? I can see getting off to the schadenfreude as you watch all them rich people on the Titantic go under, but he seems nearly doubled over in vitriolic glee.

[Quinton]

Were the newspaper meanies really so cruel and dismissive to Scott Kurtz 5 years ago, or is he just the most bitter of dicks? I can see getting off to the schadenfreude as you watch all them rich people on the Titantic go under, but he seems nearly doubled over in vitriolic glee.

I think it's a bit of both.  As I recall, there have been several instances of the newspaper comics folks being highly dismissive of the webcomics people, but also Scott Kurtz has always struck me as a bit of an asshole.

[Mazakiel]

From Wikipedia:

At the 2004 San Diego Comicon, Kurtz announced that he would offer to newspapers the entire PvP series to reprint for free,[8] but only if the strips were reprinted without any changes made. Kurtz said he made this offer because of his dissatisfaction with the terms offered to cartoonists by syndicates. As of yet[when?] no major American newspaper has agreed to regularly pick up his strip, even though it is free. One newspaper, The Kansas City Star, briefly ran one PvP comic per week in the fall of 2004.

From his blog post about it:

The exposure and prestige of PvP appearing in daily papers would more than pay for itself in a months time. In exchange, I can offer the papers a comics feature that's tried and tested, funny and best of all, free. They have nothing to lose or risk financially. They can see, in advance, a years worth of strips so they don't risk me flaking out on them. Most of all, I can provide them with yet another bargaining chip against the very syndicates. This is the perfect climate to take this step.

In short, he was going to revolutionize how the comics pages worked, and ended up not being able to give it away for free.  The response from people who did have contracts with the syndicates also weren't too supportive of his idea.  He never really got over it. 

[lamaros]

More people would care what he had/has to say if PvP wasn't, you know, entirely shit.

[ashrik]

People should care what he has to say since the success and ability of his business is entirely predicated on not being shit. And he is successful, at least outside of the internet curmudgeoncrowd, isn't he?

[Merusk]

He's also got an axe to grind because he's been denied entry into some comic artist's association.   You see references to this in that thread.   Yeah, its a combination of things, some if not all of which due to his abrasive personality, that gives him plenty of glee to flip them all the bird and say "Figure it out yourselves, assholes. You shunned me when you thought things were good, so fuck you now."  To be honest, I'd get a kick out of it if I were in the same place, too.

[Kail]

Were the newspaper meanies really so cruel and dismissive to Scott Kurtz 5 years ago, or is he just the most bitter of dicks? I can see getting off to the schadenfreude as you watch all them rich people on the Titantic go under, but he seems nearly doubled over in vitriolic glee.

They were somewhat diskish about it, yes.


(Non-Sequitur, ran Dec 04, I think)

[schild]

Non Sequitur is funnier than PvP.

[Khaldun]

Some of this is demographics, too, in a way that's highly unfavorable to newspapers and newspaper-syndicated comic strips. Their last solid audience is basically old people (55+). Whenever they make any move to try and have a comics page that has strips which were created after 1945 and retire the legacy strips, the old people howl in anguish and deluge them with letters. PvP is fine, it's nothing great, but it's a fuckton better than 95% of the strips on the average newspaper comic-strip page. On the average newspaper page, there's about five or six strips that are worth reading for fun as opposed to reading to mock a la the Comics Curmudgeon. But the newspapers can't make a move because of who their audience is, and because the syndicates play to that audience. So webcomics aren't just about the delivery medium, they're also about trying to do something with the idea of the comic strip that might be amusing or relevant to anybody whose point of cultural reference is post-1965. Sure, a great many suck, but if you skimmed the ten best, put them in newspapers and killed ten legacy strips or ripoff strips, you'd instantly have a pretty good comic-strip page.

[RhyssaFireheart]

A lot of the legacy print comics seem unable to tell continuing story in any sort of logical fashion.  I'm like Sky, I'll read all the comics in the newspaper because they're there, not necessarily because I like them.  I'm looking to see if the story moves along (How stupid does the creator of say, Dick Tracy, think people are?  In a four panel strip, 2 are usually repeats/recaps of the day before), or if something new happens (Geezus, how fucking retarded is Brenda Starr?  Those story lines essentially repeat ad nauseum) or if there is a modicum of funny somewhere.  Usually some of them will get at least a smile, but rarely anything more these days.

As for webcomics, I have a fair amount that I've bookmarked and I used to read religiously, but lately time's been tight and I haven't kept up with any of them.  The only reason that I read the newspaper is because it's my downtime off the computer during breakfast or lunch.  Sometimes, it's just easier to read print not on a computer screen.

[IainC]

Non Sequitur is funnier than PvP.

A lot of things are funnier than PvP, it doesn't make Scott Kurtz wrong when he talks about the webcomic business model. Whether he's any good or not he's made it work in a way that very few others have.

[Merusk]

Y'know, some of this reminds me of how often I've heard DJs and Radio Personalities talk-down about Blogs and Podcasts.  I didn't realize it until I read that bit Kail linked to.

[Khaldun]

If you want a strip that is basically gentle, would be completely at home on your average newspaper page and is often amusing, Sheldon would fit the bill. That's as good a demonstration as any that the problem is at least somewhat a creative and editorial problem: if newspapers cared about comics pages as a site where standards of excellence applied, they'd be working out deals with people making great webcomics that are more or less suitable for newspaper publication. They don't care, so it's Beetle Bailey and other strips that regularly necro their own work with no shame. Without any of Scott Kurtz' abrasiveness, Dave Kellett basically spelled out the reality of comics a couple of years ago: http://www.sheldoncomics.com/archive/070701.html  . He once wanted to be in newspapers; now he realizes both that the web is better for him aesthetically and economically AND that newspapers have made terrible decisions about comics (and much else).

[HaemishM]

5 years ago Kurtz offered an olive branch between syndicates and webcomics, a way for syndicates to look more relevant and for webcomics to get more "mainstream" exposure. And it would have cost the syndicates fuckall to do it. They laughed at him. Now as he continues to make revenue and the syndicates are sinking faster than a concrete balloon, he laughs at their idiocy. I'd fucking laugh my ass off too.

The syndicates took a great idea and forced artists into slave labor contracts, and the artists, when offered an opportunity to improve their lot, chose to be dismissive and dickish. Fuck them in their tiny earholes.

[Samprimary]

I think it's a bit of both.  As I recall, there have been several instances of the newspaper comics folks being highly dismissive of the webcomics people, but also Scott Kurtz has always struck me as a bit of an asshole.

Scott Kurtz actually legitimately has behavioral anger issues and they are the reason why he is fading out in terms of web relevance, one bitter self-inflicted wound (or self-inflicted vindictive immolation of his own forum) at a time. These days he's a terrible example of 'how to do the internet right' despite having been a guy who was groundfloorin' the webcomics scene for years.

The Penny Arcade guys are on the other side of the coin. They do everything right, and they have extraordinarily wise policy in terms of handing their own image and success. One policy which has served them well is to keep their friends close, and Kurtz closer.

[Ironwood]

 

[Polysorbate80]

They do everything right

Except for actually being funny.

[Samprimary]

See, I don't know what to tell you if you don't find Penny Arcade to be a well-made offering in terms of content, except to note that one's internal critique of their offering on a creative level does not impact my point about their creative success overall. One can say that pollock just looks like a bunch of technicolor vomit, but that don't change the fact that he got his shit to sell real, real well.

[schild]

One can say that pollock just looks like a bunch of technicolor vomit, but that don't change the fact that he got his shit to sell real, real well.

Pollock was too insane to sell his own shit properly. Bad comparison. Calling Shenanigans.