Online Comic Awards?????
Now it will come to no surprise to you when I say “I don’t like Scott Kurtz”. This will come to no surprise because I have made some rather public statements in the past about how he is a horrible human being. It will also come as no surprise because the statement “I don’t like Scott Kurtz” is like the statement “I breath air as part of a metabolic process to produce energy” in that while the statement is not true for every life form on the planet it comes as no surprise when a life form declares it.
Now let me take a movement to say that PVP is a fine comic and there is nothing wrong with Scott’s work. That doesn’t change the fact that Scott Kurtz the individual is a braggart, bully and really has contributed nothing positive to society and I personally believe that he should be throw into the nearest volcano so that the races of man can once again learn to live in peace and harmony. But PVP is a fine comic. Scott is a very good cartoonist he is just a failure as a human being
That being said I truly believe Scott Kurtz deserved to win the Harvey awards for best online work this weekend. Let me explain why.
I am a member of webcomics.com. I would not recommend the site unless you are looking to make a gag-a-day type webcomic and you are not looking to collaborate with an artist as site has a is rather narrow focus. But I am a member because a few people I am friends with said it was good and because I have a deep and abiding respect for Brad Guigar. This again should come as no surprise since the statement “I like Brad Guigar” is about ubiquitous as “I don’t like Scott Kurtz” and “I breath air”.
The site cost 30 buck for per year so it’s a pay site with that there is sort of a social contract that this will be an ad free zone. So I was a little annoyed when Scott spammed the site with a post soliciting votes for the Harvey awards. It was shameless self-serving and really unprofessional. And I resolved to vote against Scott in the awards in that moment since I am a comic “professional” under the Harvey awards definition.
So I download the Harvey awards ballot and looked over the competition to find the best place to put my vote. This is what I saw:
High Moon – A good comic that is part of Zuda. Zuda as you know is the company that pulled all their online works from the web earlier this year. So the first competitor is not an online work if you want to be technical in that online works should be posted online. I am just picky like that.
Ok, so I have to reject that one. But there are 3 more competitors
Power Out – … What the hell is that? Well it’s hosted on Activate a site that has good comic. Sam and Lita kicks a!s after all. So I pop over to Activate and look for this “Power Out” half hour later I can’t find the bloody comic. Yet another online work that is not “online” or at least so well hidden that it might as well not be online.
Moving along then, still have 2 left, I am sure they are going to be awesome.
Sin Titulo – Why the hell have I never heard of these comics? What the heck is a Sin Titulo? I am part of the webcomic community. I listen to the podcast and keep an eye on new comics. Why are all these comics completely unknown to me?
So I look at Sin Titulo. Fortunately it is online so it has a leg up over the last two. Unfortunately is it the dullest thing I have ever read. It may just be me but I don’t get this comic. I get through 6 pages before I have to call it quits. But perhaps I am being unfair. Perhaps Sin Tutulo is a wildly popular and well written comic that and I am just too ignorant to appreciate.
A quick look at the Alexa stats says that as far as being popular this is not true. Sin Titulo doesn’t even rank on Alexa. It’s stats are too low. This is a completely unknown comic.
Alright one more comic left. All my hopes are pined here,
Hark! A Vagrant – … Crap. Ok, I know this comic and a lot of people like it. I just don’t like it. Making fun of Ben Franklin? You know how some jokes are “too soon”. Like joking about how bad traffic is in NYC on September 12 2001. Hark! seems to me, to be jokes that are “too late”. “You ever notice how Mesopotamians walk like this, But tour Samaritans walk like this,” might have been a funny joke at the time but now it leaves me just scratching my head.
It’s well done and popular and probably the closest thing to competition in this list of comics. But still, I don’t really like the comic.
So am I so spiteful that I will vote for a comic I don’t like over a comic that I do think is well done just because the creator is a tremendous a!s? No I am not that spiteful. I am plenty spiteful mind you but I am not going to insult my medium by voting for any of these other comics. Scott deserved to win this year Harvey awards when you compare PVP to the competition.
Now you could claim that the Harvey awards are all an insiders club and you don’t get nominated unless you know the right people, but that is not what this smells like. It seems more like laziness, not influence peddling. It looks like the committee just grabbed a bunch of random comic putting no research into the field. Sure it was people on the inside but that was more because the nominees were hastily written on a cocktail napkin one night in a bar. “Hey Stewartie makes a comic online doesn’t he? Sin something… Let’s put that on the list as well.”
All and all it’s a little insulting. Where is the ReMind, Gunnerkrig, Digger, Phoenix Requiem, Goblins, Sinfest, Oglaf, etc. Where are all the awesome innovative comics that are bursting on to the scene every day? Why didn’t the Harvey Awards do any research? It’s an embarrassment for them and an offence for the webcomic community. This is not a case of the big name overshadowing the independents. This is a case of a completely random selection of comic because the people in charge could not be bothered to actually think about online comics.
No, Scott deserved to win this years Harvey awards. And frankly if he was competing against a real selection of competitors not 2 comics that aren’t online, and unknown comic and Kate he probably still would deserve to win. If anyone should be insulted by this completion it should be Scott Kurtz because the Harvey Awards made his award completely meaningless.
I can’t wait for the crash to come; when the big companies collapse because there is so much quality work online. When the Harvey awards will be taken over by a new breed of professional who stock and trade is online. Granted it still will not be fair. Awards never really are. But at leas the new old boys network will actually care about this collection of tubes we cal the internet.
Funny i thought it was only me wishing the big companies to collapse. i mean they are taking away our medium from us, and giving back nothing. we don’t see great stories and pictures coming out, and we don’t even see people getting hired. they just want to shove money into their
bursting pockets.
Here’s the address for that other comic if you wanted to look it over.
Power Out: http://www.activatecomix.com/67.comic
I tried reading it, but it really isn’t my style of webcomic. I thought it was pretty horrible in fact with poor pacing, lousy dialogue, and a bland art style that doesn’t grab the reader’s attention at all.
Hey there. I run Webcomics Community (dot com). It’s sort of like Webcomics.com (around 235 members but I don’t charge). I don’t know if you are aware of them but I personally find the new Webcomics List Awards (http://forum.webcomicscommunity.com/index.php/topic,285.0.html) to be much fairer and relevant to Webcomics than the awards you mentioned and I completely agree with your argument that they are lazy/insiders who didn’t do their due diligence to find nominees.
Personally I don’t know about their nomination process. It could simply be you have a whole bunch of strip comics people nominating webcomics when they don’t read them and don’t understand the medium (most print comic people REALLY don’t understand webcomics and they are a VERY insular community and if you spent any time at The Daily Cartoonist [dot com] you would probably agree with that}.
Brad Guigar worked on The Webcomics List awards last year and people who know and appreciate them from the community are the ones who make the nominations. PvP didn’t even make the list of nominees last year let alone the winners.
In fact I thought Wendy Wood did a wonderful job with getting the awards done under rough circumstances and in a very short period. This year she’s asked me to help as a judge (I am) and I’ve brought in a professional who has worked for Marvel, Image and DC to join us in judging as well Since judges who have professional experience in comics but don’t have heavy ties to the community help us maintain more objectivity in the process (and the nominees will once again be chosen by the Webcomics List Community… which means both webcomics professionals and their readers).
It’s up to all of us webcomic people to give these awards their due. The more they are taken seriously the more other awards will feel obligated to take webcomics seriously. Who knows they might even do their due diligence and read some good webcomics while they are at it.
I will say that, as someone who has felt the searing flame of Scott’s wrath I can understand your feelings about him… but I don’t think publicly calling him out, even to make a point is going to do you any good.
Good luck with your comic. Studio Boom does some great arting.
Heh, I found the start of this article rather amusing. I too like PvP. And I too can’t stand Scott Kurtz. The guy really is a total a!s.
My feelings about the comic and the person who makes the comic cause me discomfort at times.
Good to know its not just me, the man really is a complete wanker.
This. After one particularly unpleasant exchange with him re the cat beating the junk yard dog to death I stopped reading the comic, he nauseated me too much.
I dont really follow comics too much except web comics because I cant afford them but I have seen some interesting ones out of India based loosley on their mythology with really good quality art work but yeah American comics seem to be doing the same old thing with the same characters as always where as web comics have a wide variety and some with really kick a!s art work and story lines. I havent ever read pvp before though and dont know anything about Scott so I cant and wont comment on that but it does suck that an award had such random comics.