This Week in PvP...

How did the week begin? "If you'd bothered to call ahead I would have put on a pot of coffee." And how did it end? "Glee!" What did we learn in-between? Cole has daddy issues to go along with his myriad of other issues. Brent Sienna has an insatiable appetite for Cole Sr.'s ice-cream sandwiches. Cole's dad was the super space cadet, and he enjoys a little time with the ole' pipe. Finally, it was COLE who broke the Hummel figurines, wrapping up an obscure plot point from the beta season of PvP Online, and Brent suspects that Cole Sr.'s kitchen is magical. An investigation by Skull may be pending. What's Up Next Week? The BanthaCon, inevitable disappointment for both Cole and his father, shenanigans involving Brent and Jade. Francis discovers he has a clone? __________ In semi-PvP news; check out the PA/PVP/WW DND podcast (Wow that's a lot of initials) which you can find right here: Listen And Learn From It. Or, learn why Scott Kurtz would rather you didn't do spec work here: Angry Comments! ___________ Comic of the Week: Circle of Life

Misty Watercolor

So, I was going to wait for the Friday comic to be posted, but I'm heading out for Friday night in a bit and I wanted to comment on Thursday's opus at least. Let's start with the beginning, where Cole's father sets up the strip with a little exposition. It's clear that Scott has the voice of Cole's dad well in hand. Curmudgeonly, indignant, a bit old fashioned with the 'silly-boy' it's in character and it sets up the realization in the fourth panel quite well. The artwork in panels one and four seems well-executed as well. We had some discussion about word-bubbles earlier in the week, and Scott seems to have rebounded nicely, especially with the triple bubble in the first panel. It looks good, especially the 'Hmph!' and it's out of the way, not distracting from the action of Cole's dad packing his pipe. The fourth panel is also well executed. It's a subtle pull away of the pipe from the mouth, but Kurtz' new mouth art, as well as the dialogue, serve to create an aura of surprised realization without any overly dramatic action, such as the character leaping from his chair or gesticulating wildly. Unfortunately, we must now come to panels two and three. I'm going to say panel two is filler. OK, maybe Scott wants to show the guy sucking on the pipe a bit; a moment of reflection before the big realization...fair enough. It's still dull. Nobody reading that strip let their eyes linger on panel two for more than a second. This isn't a mortal sin, but it seems a little lazy. Panel three is the real offender. I would be super-interested to hear what Scott was going for with the artwork in this panel. The face lighting up? Ok, I mean you are writing a comic strip, so absolutely...take a little license with reality. We expect that. The three little exclamation points over the fathers' head are also fine. Common, even, and probably would have been enough. When your internal thought process manages to also light up your chair, sweater, and pipe, a line in the sand must be drawn. I don't want to go nuts here, so let's just list some obvious problems: The light thrown by the lamp remains consistent on the wall, however...the lamp itself is lit up by the force of the father's (this guy really needs a name) epiphany. Even if I was willing to grant that the exterior of the lamp's shade could be further lit, there is NO WAY that the stem of the lamp could brighten further. If anything, I suppose, the top part of it would be SHADED by the lamp shade. (This assuming that Cole's father is the source of the new light...which is indicated by the luminescence of his skin but contradicted by the way his arms are shaded.) The smoke is under-lit, along with one of the sleeves, but the chair the other sleeve and the father's face are all illuminated from above. The desk top appears to be lit, (Again, this should fall under the purview of the lamp) but the white coffee cup is unaffected. The shading in this third panel is, to be generous, a mess. It doesn't ruin the strip, because truly the first and fourth panels are the setup and punch, but it's certainly an unfortunate distraction. I don't want to be too cruel about taking Scott to task when he is experimenting or taking risks with his art, but I am very curious to know what he was trying. If I had to guess, I would say he was trying to make 'illumination' a literal concept. And that's fine, clever if done well. In this case, unfortunately, I think the lamp and poor attention to detail doomed the effort. (As an interesting aside, the smoke is somewhat detailed in the second panel, then extremely detailed in panel three...before it loses all detail in the final panel. Strange.) Book (or blog) keeping note: I'm assuming a Friday strip will show up at some point, but my next post will be Saturday when I do the 'weekly recap' of PvP and talk about a few other webcomics...which I promise I will only do on the weekends. Until then, enjoy your Friday evenings!

Hummel Suggestions

(Source) Cole's father has an amazing bit of "huge old man crotch" on display, here. I love it! However, his rooster hair got really out of control and part of it doubled in size. It's the sort of detail that... sticks out. His hair does a bit of a repeat in this panel, due to being drawn in a size that doesn't seem to scale with the rest of his head. So, while it still looks wrong (Compared to the other instances we've seen of it), it's only subtly so. Also of note, Cole's speech balloon doesn't need to wrap behind Brent's head. When you place speech balloons behind physical objects in your strip, you'd better have a gag-related reason for it -- because it makes your speech bubbles also look like physical objects. God, the drawing of Brent blissfully going to town on an ice cream sandwich is just delicious. It may have been funnier if we'd also been given his "emotional sunglasses" look, but it's already great. Oh, do take note of how there is a distinct separation between the collar of Cole's dad's shirt and his cardigan. You see, drawing a single line to imply the edges of both articles of clothing works... but it looks sloppier and lazier. I also attempted to put some definition behind how the collar is bent, because the "bent, yet pointed at the viewer" angle is leaving most of the work to the viewer's imagination. It should, of course, be noted that Cole's father's collars (I seriously need a name for this guy. "Father's brother's half-cousin's former roommate's" syndrome. Mr. Richards, then, unless he doesn't share Cole's last name. I'm starting to suspect that he doesn't share Cole's first name...) are still a much-improved version of Cole's own collars. The other alterations are another "Bring the speech balloons to the foreground" issue, and then a little chin job to show that Mr. Richards' head is not entirely confined by his collar. Nothing big, nothing fancy. Just trying to show some practical and possibly-useful edits. To wrap things up, though, the punchline here is a little odd. Mr. Richards responds to the allegation that he may have forgotten details from his own youth with the rejoinder that he still remembers what COLE did as a child. Sorry, Mr. Richards, but what relevance does that have to your OWN childhood? Just how young were you when Cole was five?

Father Knows Less

Pausing a moment to groan at the title of the strip. (A play on 'Father Knows Best' for those who were mercifully unaware.) Ok, surprisingly little to talk about here; this is a very 'bubble' heavy strip. Lots of two heads talking, a little arm movement (count the many ways the picture is held! One, two, three!) And Cole once again being run down by a family member. This makes wife and father now. If Brent is the only healthy relationship Cole has, the poor man could use some serious therapy. Story-wise I feel like we're still in a holding pattern waiting to see what develops. Where exactly is Cole's dad going to fit into the larger strip? If he must indeed admit to being more like Cole than he pretends, will that draw the two together? This could presage some character movement for Cole that I think would be nice, especially after the non-resolution of his conflict with his wife. (Side-note: Where is Brent? He knocked on the door with Cole in the last strip...did he just stay outside on the front step? Cole's dad seems totally unaware of his presence, certainly.) This strips artwork is very interesting, and in tribute to Mr. Kurtz, really shows how far he has progressed. In fact, he may have to do a Marcy/Francis type art update with Cole, because Cole's aesthetic no longer seems to belong to the strip as a whole. Cole's mouth is especially egregious when compared to newer character models. A final note would be to reiterate what Jai posted down below about the graying out of the photograph. It would be very easy to photo-shop an actual picture into that space...and the lack of a picture is somewhat glaring. That's it for me, what do y'all think?

Monday. MONDAY. Monnndaaaayy.

Scott's tweets assure us that there is a Monday comic percolating out there, somewhere. If it ever finds it's way onto the interwebs I will edit this into a discussion thread about it. I guess he must have had a busy weekend. On a related note, there is a common theory going around, which TheOriginalJes put very eloquently back on the original PVPMMS, and I shall repost here: "On another note, Scott's business concerns/model have obviously shifted from the point craftsmanship of original art to teaching and personal celebrity."- I have no personal problems with your business model (i.e. your comic, webcasts, books, appearances, etc.) If I could do it, I would. I have no problems admitting that. But, you're putting A LOT of time into your webcasts and uStreams, forums, and twitters vs. your actual craft. You told Merlin Mann that it only takes you about an hour to draw a strip. That's not alot of time for the centerpiece of your business. (http://leasticoulddo.com/) There's a post under today's comic at LICD where Sohmer talks about how many people it takes to do what you're trying to do. You've been stretching yourself thinner and thinner over the past three years. And, after PVP hit the ten-year mark, you started to really push the personal appearances over the actual books. So isn't it possible that your fans might notice this in your work? As we wait, not necessarily patiently, for the most recent comic I think it's fair to wonder if Scott's many endeavors are keeping him from working ahead so that he can produce the best work he is capable of in a timely manner. I'm sure it's frustrating to feel that you can't put your best artwork forward because of time constraints; as Scott implied via Twitter: pvponlineI thought I could knock this out real fast today and that's why I should have worked ahead. God damn it. What's wrong with me.37 minutes ago from TweetDeck pvponlineI know today's strip is late. But I have a new character and there's a potential for him to look awesome despite my lack of practice on him38 minutes ago from TweetDeck So I suppose that's something that could be discussed, until a comic is available for comment.

Daddy Issues

Rarely am I excited for the addition of another new character to the PvP cast list. Cynical? Maybe. But I sometimes feel that Kurtz drastically under-utilizes his current cast, resulting in stilted characters. If there was more real development, I think that his story arcs would carry a good deal more gravitas. To be fair, it's not a Buckleyesque level offense, where one moment the characters are talking about 'VIDEO GAMES!' (tm. Tim Buckley) and the next moment somebody is tragically losing a baby. Still, I miss the days when Francis and Jade were more regularly part of the strip. Be that as it may; we have a new addition today: On the plus side, it is another chance for Kurtz to stretch his art...and we know it's not traced ;) I like some of the smaller details; the collar, the reddish nose, the fact that his mouth fits neatly within his face. I'm not sure I'm feeling the hair, but maybe that will grow on me. What do you guys think?

Pes aw sayew dnd?

It was not without some irony that I noticed "PVP" upside-down looked like "DND"... which PVPonline has really been on a tear with, lately. Hey, it's a free idea -- in case S. Kurtz ever gets tired of re-using "Ding!" for all of his role-playing-game-related strips. Honestly, of course, "PVP" upside-down looks much closer to "dAd". But then I wouldn't have been able to make the DND reference, which can really make or break a blog. Why "pes aw sayew dnd", you ask? Because this is the PVP Makes Me Sad blog... only it isn't. An upside-down title almost reflects that position. More importantly, I've always been fond of "Upside-down cryptology". Wherein, as long as your enemy is holding the encrypted message with the right end up, the only encryption is that the letters of your message look like a nonsense string of letters. Hold it the other way up, and you'll be likely to notice that both orientations produce legible lettering. I'm not sure why it never caught on with the Army! So -- this blog, huh? What do you think?

It Tastes Like Burning

(Source) What needs to be said? Today's strip has heavily-traced artwork. All I have are questions: Why does the artist feel that he can't, or didn't need to, draw this character in his own style? Do you, the reader, feel that knowing it was traced somehow cheapens the effect of the strip? Does it lower your opinion of the artwork? Are there any other popular or, in your opinion, good webcomics that do this sort of thing? Should the artist know the difference between photo reference and photo tracing? Is the combination of styles jarring, or does it work? It's not an isolated incident -- it's just a recent one. The joke goes off without a hitch, however. It's a great reference to the prevalence of cigarettes hanging between the monotone lips of yesteryear's iconic characters. Always darkly amusing to see. The cigarettes portrayed here, of course, seem to be strongly targeted at children -- the pack is much too large for Super Space Cadet Man (I don't feel I'm exaggerating when I say it is the size of his head), and seem more to scale with Kid Super Space Cadet Man. Oh, those Chesterstrike cads! (Seriously, though. "Kid Super Space Cadet Man"? I get the weak joke therein, but the title is such a clunker. It would never have gotten past an editor without the "Man" being trimmed. And "The Chesterstrike Super Space Cadet Man Adventure Hour"? It'd give the old-timey announcer conniptions) The only thing left to do is wonder what turned the photograph in Cole's hands completely gray. Did its children run out into traffic? It's easy enough to take the photograph we saw in the previous strip... and then copy it, crop it, rotate it and erase the bits that Cole is covering up. The smudge tool easily fudges out the bit of photograph that was obscured by a speech balloon (And the sharpen tool spruces it back up if you get it too blurry to match the quality of the strip). It's not perfect, but it's quick and painless. That doesn't help the print-quality version of the strip, but the artist could still have done anything other than an all-gray piece of paper... any added detail would perform better than the notable lack of detail on such a large photograph.