There was once a time when the webcomic PvP was actually enjoyable - it was witty, funny, creative, and definitely one of my bookmarked "dailies." However, even during the golden years of PvP, I was occasionally annoyed by its creator, Scott Kurtz. He took himself so seriously, and his constant weedleing for people to click sponsor links and buy his swag grated now and then. I responded by ignoring the rants/journal entries, and still managed to enjoy the comic.
Within the last year or so, I've trudged dutifully through several painfully stupid and unfunny story arcs involving things like Jade's younger sister trying to seduce Brent (I kept coming back for the faint hope that there might be a strip involving Scratch and Skull.). The decline of the comic is not what ultimately made me stop visiting PvP, however. The strip didn't disturb me half so much as Scott Kurtz disturbed me.
The fact is that in his PvP universe, Scott Kurtz is a god. A tyrannical little god who's terrified of people saying anything MEAN about him, and who rewrites history as suits him. I recall his rant about an obnoxious band in the booth next to his at a particular con...understandable - they sounded like total asshats. However, Scott went one step further and attempted to mobilize his PvP army against them by CLEARLY posting a link to the band's site and, wink-wink, nudge-nudge, saying how awful it would be if too many people downloaded from their website, because they might exceed their bandwidth and have to pay a lot extra...
What do you think that means? It means, "After them, my PvP minions!" Of course. I thought at the time it was a sort of low thing to do, but it didn't particularly bother me...
Except that a couple days later, god-Scott breezed in and erased his previous post, replacing it with one that claimed, in a self-righteously indignant tone, that some people had accused him of telling readers to flood the band's server and that was not what he intended AT ALL. These guys were just trying to make a living, etc. etc. and now they're good friends, blah blah.
What outrageous and obnoxious backpaddling. Just admit that you were pissed off, and you wrote before you thought of the consequences, Scott.
That episode left a bad taste in my mouth, but it was pretty much behind me, until this past week's debacle. In the midst of congratulating Rodney Caston (of early Megatokyo renown) on his upcoming baby, Kurtz took an unexpected and unwarrented swipe at Fred Gallagher, current Megatokyo writer and artist. Now the swipe itself, though to me a pretty despicable thing, was Kurtz's personal opinion. I believe that he's wrong, but he has every right to say what he wants. Conversly, I have ever right to never go back to his site again because of my personal opinion that he's a dickhead.
Now, if you go to the PvP site, you won't find any evidence of the post. It's been neatly swept under a virtual rug by Mr. Kurtz. He even froze the thread on the message boards pertaining to it to keep people from discussing it. It took only a few hours for him to realize that someone, somewhere might think that it wasn't cool, and as a result, say something MEAN about him. Like that he's a dickhead.
Fred responded on Megatokyo's site. He was a little overwrought and emotional, but one can hardly blame him. In the end, his point was valid: his business relationship with Rodney Caston is none of Kurtz's bloody business.
The jewels that only occasionally crop up in PvP these days are not worth putting up with Scott Kurtz.
Today, after years of reading PvP, I deleted the bookmark entirely.
It was a grand, pointless gesture, but somehow it feels good.
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