Scott has put up a blog post (Moving Forward) laying out his plans for the immediate future, which include dropping weekend strips (yay), getting caught up and building a buffer of strips (yay!), and learning to use his new Cintiq tablet, which he thinks might give him the ability to start using color/greyscale more often (yay!yay!).
These are all good plans, but I would add one more: Communicate more.
Achewood has been updating less frequently of late, thanks to other projects, but Chris Onstad is good about leaving a note on his site telling us when the strip will be updated. Kurtz' occasional blogs posts are nice, but if he provided just a bit more insight into his schedule, folks who are bummed by late posts might be mollified.
Perhaps SK already does this via his Twitter feed (if he doesn't he ought to), but I don't follow it, and I assume many others don't as well. He could kill two birds with one stone by displaying his latest tweets on PVP's home page.
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Potentially, I think it could be a great thing for the strip. More time to spend on the five strips we'll get each week could certainly help take it off the "auto pilot" it has apparently been on.
While I hate to be the first negative word here, I am not sure that all this extra time will really be going into PVP. Lately, the artist has seemed to concentrate on various other money making ideas, and let the strip go. The extra time may go to those, with PVP sliding along, never improving from where it has sunk to now.
So, I'm waiting before I cheer this new schedule.
Was Ding! originally Mon, Wed, Fri?
I agree 100% about Kurtz comminicating more.
He totally fucked up the release of his How-to Webcomics book. Two months after the release and people are still waiting for their books.
The guy is a pro when it comes to making excuses though.
"1)The book shipped late due to an issue with the printer." - Scott's blog (May 2nd)
"signing hundreds and hundreds of these How to Make Webcomics books." - Scott's twitter (March 13th day after release)
I'd be cool with the comics being on time if that meant no weekends, but i think it's funny that he makes a post about committing to being on time, and he's already 14 hours late with today's comic
have you ever seen his videos when he`s doing the comic.
The extra time its not going to help the strip, after he gave up sunday color strips he wrote after that he`ll use it when something special is going on,
then We got 5 color strips in a row (the time travel arc) then nothing not even the wedding was in color
According to his videos he doesny dont concentrate and focus when he does the strip
he makes a line
then he hugs his dog, start listening to music draw a little more, he continues to play again with his i-tunes
etc then a 2 hour strip takes him all morning to finish it.
to anon at 2:07pm:
i think the detail and attention to the art in the wedding arc more than makes up for the lack of color. color is not automatically better than black and white, kids.
Unsurprisingly, it appears that today's comic is going to be posted late.
We'll see if today's strip is even posted today. Real great start to your commitment to give us a strip at midnight, Kurtz!
About Scott doing a strip in color. He said (on his PVPtv) there was going to be one in color on the 2nd or 5th, sorry I can't remember which.
Not producing comics on the weekend is a good start. Hopefully he will move towards doing the same for the other five days of the week.
haha... the awesome power of anonymity.
I dreaded the news when I heard Kris Straub would be joining Scott in Dallas. There was more dread when Kellett & Guigar joined the HalfPixel collective. Why? Well for the most part the three of them seemed to take there strips seriously and acted like professionals. Working with Kurtz would only take them down to his level. I expected delays and missed projects.
Right now all that seems to be effecting them is bad PR from their association with him.
I at one point hoped that he would take a lesson from them and start taking his JOB seriously. Do things ON TIME and be more professional. He definitely could learn a lesson or two from Kellett and Guigar.
I love PvP and I think Scott is cool, but I'm afraid if he doesn't grow the hell up and start taking this a little more seriously he's not going to make it another 10 years, and if he does no one will be around to care.
I have to respectfully disagree with your take. Cutting PvP to 5 days is going to result in less productivity rather than more. Scott has show that he has the attention span of a ritalin-addicted squirrel. What he needs to do is discipline himself.
Clearly Scott has too much on his plate. He need to stop all the extraneous projects and focus on what pays the bills. Now if that's not PvP, then fine, cut back. But, if PvP is the golden goose, drop Ding! or any of the dozen other projects that are taking up bandwidth.
I find it interesting that Scott helped write a book on being a web cartoonist yet he doesn't get it himself. Professionals do seven strips a week, amateurs do five. Congratulations Scott, you just regained your amateur status.
@anonymous 8:35, while I agree with the overall sentiment of your response, I do have to take issue with a detail. As far as, "Professionals do seven strips a week, amateurs do five." Does this mean the Rock Stars of Webcomics, Penny Arcade, are amateurs? What about Berke Breathed? Opus only appears one day a week is he an amateur?
I think Scott is working hard regaining his amateur status through late updates and not taking his craft seriously. I definitely agree with you that if he can't maintain the project that's paying the bills, he should definitely cute back on all extraneous projects.
There are plenty of guys out there maintaining full-time jobs, a family life, AND posting 5 or more strips per week. What's your excuse Scott? I suspect his problem is the same as mine, LAZINESS pure and simple. The comic has become work and work is a thing to be avoided. It ticks me off to no end seeing people with his talent and level of success acting like some big spoiled baby, meanwhile there are guys out here working their butts off with just as much talent that never become successes.
Scott, you're living the dream, don't you think you owe it not only to your readers, but to yourself to grow the hell up and be a professional?
You make a valid point, but I'll still stand by my statement with the following caveat: all generalizations are false.
No, I wouldn't call Penny Arcade amateurs, but they are the wild card of webcomics. Their success is undeniable, but also unquantifiable. If you look at what they do, it simply shouldn't be that successful. Heck, JK Rowling isn't the best kids writer in the world, but you can't argue with success.
As for Burke Breathed, he's retired after a good, long, very popular run. Now he's taking a well deserved rest on his laurels & doing one comic a week because he can. (Although the last time I read Opus, admittedly some time ago, he was phoning it in.)
My point here is that Scott is one of the rare few who make a living doing this. That's a feat most webcomics will never attain, no matter how hard they work or how talented they are. It isn't fair, it's just a fact. Yet despite this gift and all his talent, both as an excellent artist and a great comedian, Scott just doesn't seem willing to do the work to keep it.
I'm not going to say something dramatic, like I'll never read PvP again or some such. I would just like to see Scott gut up and develop the habits of a pro. If he did that, he'd make more money, garner more audience, and have more time to enjoy it.
I'm just sayin'
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