Yeah, it's kinda like garfield. Personally, I liked this one more than most of the recent strips, because as odd as it seems, scratch is the character that behaves the most realistically of all of them. Also, did you notice the news post? Kurtz mentions garfield was his inspiration to start cartooning. Sadly, it shows.
Every American cartoonist born between the years of 1970 and 1985 would cite Garfield as one of their inspirations to start cartooning, you rube!
You know, many holy men since the beginning of time cite God as their inspiration for living a spiritual life, but OH SHIT God kills tens of millions of people every day, some of them BABIES! Plus I heard he doesn't even do most of the killing Himself anymore.
and this is why only specially trained people should be allowed to use metaphors. In the hands of amateurs, they do more harm than good.
You could just have said; Garfield used to be a very good comic strip (hence it's popularity in the 80s and 90s) and thus it makes total sense for Kurtz to acknowledge it as an inspiration. The leap to God and Holy Men was, I think, a comparison to far.
Oh, and the internet was invented by Al Gore, who is a liberal, and we all know God hates liberals, so I doubt he uses the internet...and thus tends to stick to Family Circus, Dilbert, and the boxed collection of Calvin and Hobbes.
And only when they are in conservative newspapers.
Have to admit, when Scratch went from regular to genius cat and Skull exclaimed "Gasp! Scratch, you can talk!", I took that at face value. All of a sudden he's talking, Skull's noticed he's talking - seemed a pretty straight forward assertion.
Don't read the strips religiously so I must have missed the one where it turns out only Skull can understand him. Finding that's the case in this strip... well, it's a bit of a disappointment really and like people have already mentioned, a bit too Garfield.
Just like anonymous I took it at face value that Scratch can now talk, and I completely missed that Skull is the only one who can hear Scratch.
Unlike anonymous I do read PvP every day, and I can't remember when this was made clear. Can someone post a link? Or tell me roughly when it happened, and I can find it myself. :)
I mean, considering Scratch is obviously very smart I just assumed he also knew how to talk for real, and it wasn't Skull who had some kind of remnant skill from the smartifying.
There was no question it was a joke, it just wasn't funny...like Ugly Hill.
HAHA! Oh, whoops, now I've confused telling a joke with being a jerk as well. (Hint, when you call somebody a rube, your 'joke' could be taken as an attack...AND a joke)
The more I see francis with his two gigantic, connected alien eyes with line-like pupils, the more he looks freaky to me standing next to Marcy. And what's funny is Marcy used to look downright fugly, but now she looks super cute.
Sad to see that her cartoon boobs have been decreasing in size every strip since the wedding.
It's funny that everyone's asking when they missed the strip that reveals Scratch's language barrier. It was THIS one. JUST NOW. That JUST happened.
It was a good punchline, too.
Of course, I don't think the continuity works too well for the "Who can understand Scratch" question. It's oddly similar to the "Who can see Skull" continuity problems. Expect it to be pushed under the rug whenever it "needs" to be so that Mr. Kurtz can continue to not bother keeping track of that stuff. That makes me sad, but a lot of people do that sort of thing and it's not always something they do intentionally. If nothing else, it makes for a good unintentional joke or two further on down the line (I.e., "How is Max Powers playing paintball against Skull?").
I would like to draw every ones attention to achewood. Hes getting around to his wedding story too, and the foreshadowing is giving me insane giggles. I dont think we should compare to pvp till theyre all done though.
If Jai and others are correct and it was just now revealed that only Skull can understand Scratch... well, that's probably one of the most ridiculous and under-thought things I've ever seen in a comic strip. This is my first time criticizing PvP and I constantly roll my eyes at all the nitpicking going on here, but in this case I'm siding with the critics.
It's just so silly to make a 180 like this for no reason what-so-ever. If this is how Kurtz wanted it to be all along, then greater care should've been taken with previous strips. If this is something new that he just thought of, then it should've remained just a thought and never put into reality. As it is, it just smacks of Lucas-esque rewriting of already established "truths."
Hopefully come next week we'll all go "D'oh!" when we realize Kurtz' got something else in mind (like the regressing Orionfury suggested) and not something continuity-breaking like this.
I'm not sure... and this is just a theory... and it may be a bad one at that, but couldn't it be possible that, without Skull in their lives, the PvP staff is loosing some of their innocence/purity/whatever it is that allowed them to see Skull? As Scott has explained it, some peoples world view simply couldn't handle a blue troll as a reality, so they choose not to see him, or, like Max, they see him as something that does fit, like a dog.
Without Skull, the PvP staffers can't accept a talking cat as a part of their world, and so they choose not to hear his words.
Is it my imagination or does Scott seem to be regressing with his artwork when it comes to Cole? I thought it might just be a one strip thing, but he seems to be sticking with it. It may just be comparing him to the new artwork of Marcy and Francis, but something seems very PVP circa 1998 about Cole lately.
Or it could just be a fucking comic strip and people can 'conveniently' understand a talking tree but not understand a talking cat.
Pages upon pages of you blithering idiots fucking going on like asperger's sufferers. The same topic of discussion here as on the halfpixel forums. Seriously. See a therapist about your OCD. It's a fucking comic. Critique the art, critique the storyline, critique retarded jokes, critique what-the-fuck-ever, but not artistic license or convenience for the sake of a joke.
Most of you pedants are the same monkeyfuckers going on about "ZOMG VIDEO GAME REFERENCES!!!" so you think you would be used to deus ex machina, but apparently you only show mercy to JRPGs with shit writing and "DOA: Tits!!!"
Bryce, Then you really should stop reading this site. You are making up shit and I think your head might explode.
I am concerned.
Plus shouldn't a guy named Bryce not really be threatening people, it falls into the category of Bruce and Lance where its not the "strongest" of names if you get my drift.
I always took Scratch's talking evil genius cat thing at face value too, so discovering that Cole et al can't understand him forced me to think "wait a minute, have they ever understood him?" I'm pretty sure the answer is no (Haven't trawled through 10 years of comics to confirm this and don't really intend to) It seems that Scratch Fury exists in some kind of fantasy world independent of other happenings in PVP(not unlike Skull), and the "Aha, Ed Harris is just in Russel Crowe's imagination!" moment was actually pretty funny. This sort of moment is one of the reasons I read PVP.
I'm with orionfury. I assumed that Scratch was literally going from talking to meowing, and everyone in the strip recognized the change as a "freak out".
My theories: 1.)Scratch is realizing that Skull is gone, and the sudden awareness has caused him to withdraw into his animal nature
2.) Without Skull, Scratch's magical genius powers are fading. Perhaps it was Skull's magical influence on those surrounding him that enabled Scratch's powers of speech in the first place.
Achewood
In my opinion, there is no finer web comic than Achewood. You want subtlety of art and a one-of-a-kind worldview? This is it.
Penny Arcade
The classic. Gabe and Tycho are true pioneers in the world of web comics, and few have done more to expand the reach and influence of the medium. Plus they're funny.
Diesel Sweeties
Like PVP, DS has been coasting for some time. But it is worth reading, nonetheless.
PVP
Yes, I do recommend it; its very popularity is what recommends it. It is the ultimate example that web comics can have mainstream appeal, and shouldn't be disregarded by the industry just because they're web comics.
35 comments:
Scott Kurtz, can I get this strip in color please?
Hmm? Did I miss something? Is Skull the only one who can understand Scratch? Does everyone else just hear meowing sounds?
KM
Yeah, it's kinda like garfield.
Personally, I liked this one more than most of the recent strips, because as odd as it seems, scratch is the character that behaves the most realistically of all of them.
Also, did you notice the news post? Kurtz mentions garfield was his inspiration to start cartooning. Sadly, it shows.
Every American cartoonist born between the years of 1970 and 1985 would cite Garfield as one of their inspirations to start cartooning, you rube!
You know, many holy men since the beginning of time cite God as their inspiration for living a spiritual life, but OH SHIT God kills tens of millions of people every day, some of them BABIES! Plus I heard he doesn't even do most of the killing Himself anymore.
Technically, God also reads PvP.
FIGURES! RIGHT GUYS?
and this is why only specially trained people should be allowed to use metaphors. In the hands of amateurs, they do more harm than good.
You could just have said; Garfield used to be a very good comic strip (hence it's popularity in the 80s and 90s) and thus it makes total sense for Kurtz to acknowledge it as an inspiration. The leap to God and Holy Men was, I think, a comparison to far.
Oh, and the internet was invented by Al Gore, who is a liberal, and we all know God hates liberals, so I doubt he uses the internet...and thus tends to stick to Family Circus, Dilbert, and the boxed collection of Calvin and Hobbes.
And only when they are in conservative newspapers.
Ha ha!
Jokes, guys! Jokes!
Oohhhh.
I get jokes.
Have to admit, when Scratch went from regular to genius cat and Skull exclaimed "Gasp! Scratch, you can talk!", I took that at face value. All of a sudden he's talking, Skull's noticed he's talking - seemed a pretty straight forward assertion.
Don't read the strips religiously so I must have missed the one where it turns out only Skull can understand him. Finding that's the case in this strip... well, it's a bit of a disappointment really and like people have already mentioned, a bit too Garfield.
Just like anonymous I took it at face value that Scratch can now talk, and I completely missed that Skull is the only one who can hear Scratch.
Unlike anonymous I do read PvP every day, and I can't remember when this was made clear. Can someone post a link? Or tell me roughly when it happened, and I can find it myself. :)
I mean, considering Scratch is obviously very smart I just assumed he also knew how to talk for real, and it wasn't Skull who had some kind of remnant skill from the smartifying.
I think it's only now becoming clear that Skull was the only one who could understand Scratch.
And that's fine.
paulsouthworth,
I got it was a joke, doesnt mean it was FUNNY joke though
There was no question it was a joke, it just wasn't funny...like Ugly Hill.
HAHA! Oh, whoops, now I've confused telling a joke with being a jerk as well. (Hint, when you call somebody a rube, your 'joke' could be taken as an attack...AND a joke)
There's been strips before when regular people could hear Scratch and Kirby talk.
I always kinda assumed EVERYONE could hear Scratch talk, too. Yano... Since the whole Santa fight, I thought it was clear.
But obviously only trolls and disciples of Santa can hear him.
Right?
An episode of Family Guy:
"So... can the family understand what the baby's saying, or...?"
I like Ugly Hill :)seeyam
The more I see francis with his two gigantic, connected alien eyes with line-like pupils, the more he looks freaky to me standing next to Marcy. And what's funny is Marcy used to look downright fugly, but now she looks super cute.
Sad to see that her cartoon boobs have been decreasing in size every strip since the wedding.
Surely Paul Southworth was making an analogy rather than a metaphor. Right?
RUBES.
YOU'RE ALL RUUUUUUUBES.
rubes
It's funny that everyone's asking when they missed the strip that reveals Scratch's language barrier. It was THIS one. JUST NOW. That JUST happened.
It was a good punchline, too.
Of course, I don't think the continuity works too well for the "Who can understand Scratch" question. It's oddly similar to the "Who can see Skull" continuity problems. Expect it to be pushed under the rug whenever it "needs" to be so that Mr. Kurtz can continue to not bother keeping track of that stuff. That makes me sad, but a lot of people do that sort of thing and it's not always something they do intentionally. If nothing else, it makes for a good unintentional joke or two further on down the line (I.e., "How is Max Powers playing paintball against Skull?").
Did anyone think that it's possible that in the final panel he regressed to meowing? Thats how I read it.
I would like to draw every ones attention to achewood. Hes getting around to his wedding story too, and the foreshadowing is giving me insane giggles. I dont think we should compare to pvp till theyre all done though.
If Jai and others are correct and it was just now revealed that only Skull can understand Scratch... well, that's probably one of the most ridiculous and under-thought things I've ever seen in a comic strip. This is my first time criticizing PvP and I constantly roll my eyes at all the nitpicking going on here, but in this case I'm siding with the critics.
It's just so silly to make a 180 like this for no reason what-so-ever. If this is how Kurtz wanted it to be all along, then greater care should've been taken with previous strips. If this is something new that he just thought of, then it should've remained just a thought and never put into reality. As it is, it just smacks of Lucas-esque rewriting of already established "truths."
Hopefully come next week we'll all go "D'oh!" when we realize Kurtz' got something else in mind (like the regressing Orionfury suggested) and not something continuity-breaking like this.
Paul Southworth, any chance I could ask you a question about color theory?
Of course!
But only if you promise to mercilessly pick apart my answer like ravenous dogs! :)
I'm not sure... and this is just a theory... and it may be a bad one at that, but couldn't it be possible that, without Skull in their lives, the PvP staff is loosing some of their innocence/purity/whatever it is that allowed them to see Skull? As Scott has explained it, some peoples world view simply couldn't handle a blue troll as a reality, so they choose not to see him, or, like Max, they see him as something that does fit, like a dog.
Without Skull, the PvP staffers can't accept a talking cat as a part of their world, and so they choose not to hear his words.
paulsouthworth,
We picked apart your "god" metaphor because it was just plan convoluted and stupid
Is it my imagination or does Scott seem to be regressing with his artwork when it comes to Cole? I thought it might just be a one strip thing, but he seems to be sticking with it. It may just be comparing him to the new artwork of Marcy and Francis, but something seems very PVP circa 1998 about Cole lately.
Or it could just be a fucking comic strip and people can 'conveniently' understand a talking tree but not understand a talking cat.
Pages upon pages of you blithering idiots fucking going on like asperger's sufferers. The same topic of discussion here as on the halfpixel forums. Seriously. See a therapist about your OCD. It's a fucking comic. Critique the art, critique the storyline, critique retarded jokes, critique what-the-fuck-ever, but not artistic license or convenience for the sake of a joke.
Most of you pedants are the same monkeyfuckers going on about "ZOMG VIDEO GAME REFERENCES!!!" so you think you would be used to deus ex machina, but apparently you only show mercy to JRPGs with shit writing and "DOA: Tits!!!"
You people make me sad.
Bryce,
Then you really should stop reading this site. You are making up shit and I think your head might explode.
I am concerned.
Plus shouldn't a guy named Bryce not really be threatening people, it falls into the category of Bruce and Lance where its not the "strongest" of names if you get my drift.
Aww... nerds!
I always took Scratch's talking evil genius cat thing at face value too, so discovering that Cole et al can't understand him forced me to think "wait a minute, have they ever understood him?" I'm pretty sure the answer is no (Haven't trawled through 10 years of comics to confirm this and don't really intend to) It seems that Scratch Fury exists in some kind of fantasy world independent of other happenings in PVP(not unlike Skull), and the "Aha, Ed Harris is just in Russel Crowe's imagination!" moment was actually pretty funny. This sort of moment is one of the reasons I read PVP.
I'm with orionfury. I assumed that Scratch was literally going from talking to meowing, and everyone in the strip recognized the change as a "freak out".
My theories:
1.)Scratch is realizing that Skull is gone, and the sudden awareness has caused him to withdraw into his animal nature
2.) Without Skull, Scratch's magical genius powers are fading. Perhaps it was Skull's magical influence on those surrounding him that enabled Scratch's powers of speech in the first place.
Good one Bryce,
Go put on a dickie and have a good friday night
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