My Humps

(Source) This week in PVP, Brent spontaneously sprouts a new head from his back. You see it too, don't you? Look at that fine mop of hair, fit to make Brent's first head jealous! In other news, we also got to see Cole's crotch. I don't think we've ever seen it before, but I'm not going to show it here because of my delicate sensibilities. Just imagine that he now has Penny Arcade legs, and you've got it! Seriously, it was a good move to ditch the traditional, sweeping tent-pant garments that PVP's always used in the past.

The Plot That Wasn't There

(Source) When Miranda's time came to be introduced to the Seattle storyline, I was shocked. Look at this strip! Just look at it! I finally thought to myself, "Hey asshole, look at that! PvP just amazed you with its writing. The New Year's promise of better writing was real." Here I sat, thinking that Miranda would only make her random appearances so that boob jokes could be made and her general stupidity could be reinforced, and I'm slammed with a deeply effective portrayal of a sister feeling betrayed, forgotten, alone and sad -- without any words! This is an A+ comic strip: The first panel showcases an excellent update on the hotel room we saw last year (Or this year, when I blogged about it while recapping last year), slumbering Cole looks great, there's a joke RIGHT off the bat that uses subtlety to drive the humor home (There isn't an onomatopoeic jumble of letters ruining Cole's snoring by trying to make it more evident while failing to encapsulate what snoring actually sounds like). The dialog smoothly moves from the joke to the dramatic final panel, and the artwork's points of view are classic and shifted to great effect. Wow! How could you not look forward to what was coming next, after that? (Source) But what came next were boob jokes and reinforcements of Miranda's general stupidity. I must have imagined all of the dramatic tension earlier, because not once over the next three strips that continue this story thread does Miranda mention anything but petty jealousy as a motive for being upset. Wow. How could I have expected something else? Miranda's status over at PVP Magazine was a little unclear, though. I believe she had worked both for them and then for Max's company (Powerplay) at different points in the past, culminating in being fired. Then Powerplay and PVP "merged" (Without absorbing PVP Magazine, meaning Max just bought them out or something), then separated. Miranda kept hanging around the offices (That's unclear, actually. It's nigh impossible to tell the difference between when PvP characters are at home and when they're at work) infrequently, for boob jokes and enjoying being kind of dumb. So this little character arc did one thing: It told us how Miranda became employed again (By Robbie, who probably owns PVP Magazine now. Does that mean she works for PVP Magazine? I can't say. It doesn't seem like it, but expect to see her around their office anyway), and justified moving her out to Seattle with the rest of the usual suspects. It was interesting that Cole pointed out that Miranda is useless as an employee, because that was goddamn stone-cold of him (And it was also true. Her worth as an employee is exactly the same as her worth as a character). Exposition! What would we do without it? I think that maybe the setting of PvP is changing to Seattle, guys. What do you think? We won't know for sure unless they keep unnecessarily mentioning Seattle by name and using location-specific in-jokes, though. The Fremont bit was especially confusing -- I'm familiar with Fremont, California, but I guess it's a place in Washington as well. Is it a place IN Seattle? And we were supposed to understand the "Mayor of Fremont is a hobo" thing? Anyway, the worst of all of that exposition seems to be over. If I had to compare it to something, it would be the way the Star Wars prequels shoehorn hours of ridiculous and dry political exposition into movies that everyone thought would be fun adventures for all ages. Oh, and somewhere in that there was a theoretically-racy joke from Brent about "not nouning her verbly enough". Is this the most awkward punchline I've ever seen? It could be. Even swapping "noun" and "verb" doesn't help. How does a noun fit into that anywhere? Nouning is a self-contained oxymoron. Brent, you're supposed to be the clever one!

The Great Divorce

(Source) This was PVP's first noteworthy event of 2011. Was it a surprise? Well, no. Cole and Donna's "relationship" -- as portrayed at all times by Cole and his inability to express what's supposed to be wrong with it -- was always a depressing thing to see crop up. Notably because we never saw anything come of it. Granted, that is exactly what the underlying joke here is. And on that level, sure, this kind of thing is probably the best way to end it all. We will never again wonder when or if the "Cole's marriage" story will be revisited -- it won't be. That could easily have been the punchline in the last panel, as opposed to Francis' tacky nonsense. If there was never any apparent marriage in the first place, though, why was ending it so much more difficult and so much more noticeable? Not to mention drawn out. It was all wasted effort, when you can sum it up with a "We got divorced two years ago!" strip. I highly recommend reading these two blog posts on the subject... from three years ago. Having said all of that, perhaps you feel that I loved that strip. Not particularly. It starts off well: Francis is essentially in our shoes, and it's comically believable that his typical teenager ways caused him to miss a momentous occasion or two. That all works. Great first two panels. But the next one tells us that Cole was "stumbling drunk" for four months, which is a bit much to ask people (Both Francis, in one sense, and the actual PVP audience in another) to swallow when there was never any evidence of it. It sounds like a funny idea when spitballing, I'm sure: "Hey, we'll have this guy reveal that he went through a CRAAAZY time and we all missed it!" But god damn, no. Smack yourself down if you get that idea and never laid any groundwork for it. It doesn't work for Cole, because he's the single most visible character in PVP. It's unbelievable. That type of joke is built to serve characters who are gone from center stage for long, random periods of time but always end up coming back. The PVP world certainly isn't lacking for that type of character. Finally, the punchline of Francis' smug satisfaction (How does it even make sense that his final comment is related to Cole's?) is a shame. Honestly? Thank god that's over with. This came pretty close to the mark, and I believe it was a tasteful and dignified approach to the subject matter (Without turning it dry, and still leaving room for humor). Not a perfect execution, but a big relief.

The Hair and Now

The second noteworthy event of 2011 -- no, I haven't mentioned the first, yet -- is that Francis also got an updated look. Remember the last time that happened, where he didn't actually change much (Aside from losing the Charlie Brown / Cole Richards "unibrow". The event was clearly geared towards changing Marcy's look, which perhaps... didn't really paid off in the long run? I'm just saying that we saw Francis a hundred times more often than Marcy, and now her character is in a position where we could, conceivably, never see her again)? This isn't like that time. Most importantly, his replica of Cole's glasses are gone. That isn't just a "good riddance", that is the best riddance. We've flip-flopped between seeing those things portrayed as glasses and as eyeballs, and now we don't have to wonder what they were -- unless Francis mentions three years from now that he used to wear glasses. What to make of the new Francis? Well, he has real eyes, now. The curvature of which makes his nose look like a real nose (Perhaps a coincidence! But it looks nice). The bad news? They seem to be bug eyes, received from Jade since she wasn't using them anymore. His chin doesn't look like shit anymore. Ooh, he changed his shirt...? No, sorry, the alien skull came back in the next panel. He grew shoulders! He still doesn't know how to style the back of his hair, but that's not too embarrassing if you really consider Cole's long-lasting failure in the same department. Essentially, he looks like the previous Francis' old and busted shit melded with Scott Pilgrim's new hotness. Wait, Scott Pilgrim predates Francis' previous look? Well, I didn't know about it back then, so it doesn't count. Scott Pilgrim's popularity is still pretty new to me. Alright, alright, I get it! There are some similarities going on. I'm not claiming some sort of shenanigan is happening, though; far from it. I'm just saying that this kind of thing has been done before, which is the saying that falls one rung above done to death. If everyone's aware of Scott Pilgrim now, then maybe repeating something both you and Bryan Lee O'Malley have done isn't the best way to ring in the new year's promised "better writing"? Ring in the new, wring out the old.