Hey, we know that guy!

Scott Kurtz has pointed out that he was reviewed by Matt Morrison. Yeah, THAT Matt Morrison who wrote for Fanzing and is now a columnist at 411Comics. Matt is a good writer…and an opinionated guy, with whom I must once again disagree (as I had to in the last issue of Fanzing when discussing the politics of superheroes).

His reviews of PvP #1 and PvP #2 (for Image Comics) are scathing and inaccurate.

I review Matt’s reviews and give some in-depth assessment of PvP in the extended entry.

Matt states in both reviews that they are a scam, a ripoff, because they are just collections of previously-released strips. This is wrong, as they are quite clearly a mixture of old strips and new strips, assembled into one plotline.

I’ve noticed that Scott also redraws some of his old strips, rewrites dialogue (to remove typos and/or bring them up to date), and will pop a new strip in-between a number of old ones.

It’s not as though there are aren’t things to criticize, such as the drawn-from-template characters and minimal changes in expression on a number of strips which make you think you’re watching a Ruby-Spears animated show sometimes. Oddly enough, Matt doesn’t even mention this. I think some of Matt’s comments are even valid, such as the reliance on Jade’s sexiness and stereotyping of her personality. (Frankly, Jade has actually lost character development over time!)

But Matt goes into hyper (and I do mean hyper) drive over a lot of sniping issues that make me wonder if he’s been one of the e-mailers at whom Scott pokes fun at times. PvP has always been a comic that satirizes geek culture. The earliest strips making fun of web comics that consisted of gamer screenshots with funny word balloons added.

I thought one of the best thing about being a geek is that we can laugh at ourselves. In 1986, William Shatner was very worried that his Saturday Night Live sketch about Star Trek conventions was going to get him into so much trouble; instead, his “get a life!” line became history and there wasn’t a word said against it. I think we all recognized something of ourselves in it; even if we aren’t buying programs for the 1975 convention for $80, we know people who do.

PvP is clearly a geek making fun of geeks. Those hardcore fanboys who just cannot take a joke about the incestuous little world of independent comics need to wake up. On Free Comic Book Day, I got a copy of an absolutely unfunny b/w comic about anti-social dairy products, and I know the makers of the comic are probably perfectly fine with my not “getting it.” So many of the small press people rejoice in being avant garde and cutting edge…so why should they be upset when Skull’s incomprehensible, Xeroxed, stapled “Graphamaximo” comic parodies that?

As for the Furry storyline that Matt complains about..come on! You mean Scott Kurtz can’t make fun of people who like sexy animals with humongous breasts? Can’t we admit that that’s a little weird? Our own Brothers Grinn do that stuff with Supermegatopia and their Evil Inc. story in Job Wanted, and I can attest that the Brothers are weird. Loveable, but weird. But they know they’re weird and rejoice in it, or they wouldn’t be putting out characters like the All-Stripper Squadron for all to see.

Both of these storylines caused a furor by people who heaped a lot of crap upon Scott for trying to make us laugh, and I can’t blame him one bit that he tries to poke fun at this dynamic as well.

As for the complaints that Scott has sold out, etc. … I think too many people hve forgotten what that means. These days that term gets thrown at anyone who makes a bit of cash doing what they love to do and previously did for free.

Sheesh…by that definition, I’d love to be a sell-out. I think Matt would, too. Until someone can show that Scott has compromised his beliefs in the hunt for the almighty dollar, though, Scott is not a sell-out.

There’s a reason PvP has been written about extensively and linked from Monitor Duty since day one: I love the strip. I see a lot of myself in Cole, and I count on PvP for my daily laugh.

And Scott has even decided to work harder on the typo thing. God bless him.