This is all pretty hilarious.
Here is the sequence of events, as best I can tell:
1. I have not been posting much.
2. Scott K. went to PAX.
Both of us were quiet at the same time.
3. Scott wrote a tweet, which appeared to have been intended to be a Direct Message, meaning only one person was supposed to have seen it. In this tweet he joked that he was "FSM."
This was enough to get the ball rolling.
4. I followed up with my own tweet, "shit shit shit," pretending to be Kurtz, making a joke of it.
This sent some people over the edge, and they haven't recovered.
Sorry Scott - I think some people are mad at you, when they are actually mad at me.
27 comments:
Actually, every named blogger on this site is Scott Kurtz, including me. Sorry bout that.
This is just sad. Give it up, Kurtz. We know you're the Fake Scott McCloud now.
The PVP forums might be an interesting thing to watch tomorrow if any of these anonymous commenters are PVP fanbois.
some of them must be.
I, too, am Scott Kurtz. I'm sorry to have tricked you all. I've been planning for years to turn a small, but dedicated group of readers against my work. To do so, I created all of these characters and began posting as them. I've had such dedication to this project that I've actually fathered children in illegitimate marriages as several of the named posters. It's all part of an Alternative Reality Game. Thank you for playing. It's something like Andy Kaufman and Tony Clifton.
I hope you'll all forgive me. It's been really hard to control the quality of my work recently. I've had to create an ecosystem of work which needed critiquing and a likable amateur critic who would allow me to play the villain.
Hope it was fun.
I'm not Scott Kurtz.
Scott McCloud is really Fake Scott who is really Scott Kurtz who is really Scott McCloud.
FSM, now you're not even making sense. PVP "fanbois" are the ones pissed off at Scott for this ruse he's been perpetrating? I think you're a dick, SCOTT. I'm not a fanboy nor have I ever gone to your forums. Does that make me a fanboy?
You know what, it's always been pathetic how the word "fanboi" is dragged out whenever someone has a different opinion. Now you're using it in the other direction since you got caught? What a hypocrite. Cross PVP and this site off my bookmarks.
BTW, I don't have a blogger account, but my name is Josh. If I had a webcomic I wouldn't play mindgames with readers.
I would be pretty impressed if SK was able to mask his personal flavor (I just came up with that) enough to come up with the completely different style of writing and opinion that is TFSM. I would also be hilariously confused, because what on Earth could be the point of it? This is like playing a game of Mafia. I think the evidence pretty strongly suggests TFSM is only TFSM (Because, really? SK masterminding an eloquent charade of usually-legitimate criticism of his own work? Telling himself via a third party of a new method of proof-reading? Not trying to sell PVPMMS t-shirts to us?).
Enough is enough. It was horrible while it lasted, but I trust the few people behind it all managed to get their chuckle-rocks off. Awesome show, good job!
Nerrrdddd fiiiggghhht!: So, we're clearly past any attempt at Brent-directed irony. I'm a bit surprised that the old D&D traditionalist addict (Cole) is not the one in Francis' shoes, and that the young reckless upstart gamer (Francis) is not in Cole's. That would seem to have made more sense, but... they ain't my characters. I can go with this new direction, it just doesn't make a lot of sense right now. I do really like Francis' line in the middle panel about Pokémon (Cole needs a comma in the next panel - "still roleplaying you dork" - unless we've moved to poetry, in which case word placement alone can imply pauses).
As for the artwork, Francis' tuft of hair at the back of his head is growing into a genuine ponytail. It's been acceptable, but this time around the bottom tip is placed well away from his head and the whole tuft has shifted toward the back of his noggin. That's ponytail country; we went through this with Jase. For the best (Worst) example, check it out in the first panel of We’re all worried about Andy. The top portion of Francis' hair varies between a single curved line and a ruffled-looking version, and I have to say I vastly prefer the ruffled one - it makes the tuft at the back blend in and look a whole lot better, even when the tuft is huge and the tip is a mile away from the head. There's nothing wrong with tufts of hair, but please don't make 'em so pronounced.
I have to say I don't believe FSM is SK... as it contradicts how stupid SK has acted in every situation he's every been in. Each time anything happens, SK blows it up into a complete storm in a teacup, puts his foot in his mouth and comes away looking like a bigger idiot that the person he's attacking.
I simply can't believe he's smart enough to perpetrate a long-form troll for almost a year without itching to 'reveal' about 2 days into it.
On top of that to encourage the critical dissection of his work, something he clearly had trouble coping with... not SK.
You might claim that those situations were all intentionally mishandled to help carry off this deception but if that were the case, he's been doing it all his life and it paints SK as an even bigger moron than people already suspect - intentionally hobbling his strip and his PR with completely unaware readers just to snipe at a handful of critics?
No, I don't believe SK is either smart enough to carry off such a prolonged joke or stupid enough to think doing so would be a good idea.
Painting - As soon as Scott said he might be selling his next painting, I guessed what the subject was going to be. His OMGFTWBBQ comment pretty much confirmed it but...
http://twitpic.com/a5xz
PA thought the were introducing him to painting. Turns out they simply gave him a new revenue stream he can crank at.
So? What, are we going to start accusing him of "selling out" by trying to make money off of his creations? Hell, I'm behind this new enterprise just because it's getting him to create things in color again (Sure, there's Ding!, but... when's the next Ding! going to come out?). It lets him create art and not have to fudge about with drama or stories or comedy. It's great. I'm glad he's doing it.
I gave up on painting twelve years ago. But, then again, I never tried painting anything stylized, cartoony or "interesting" (My teacher - a neighbor, and this arrangement was forced by my mother because she knew I liked to draw - pretty much only painted realistic scenes of nature and houses, although he was also into impressionism. Which was still totally beyond me. Learning how to draw would have been a better first step). If I went back, I would do it differently (Vast understatement) and probably really enjoy it. Someday, maybe.
Hm. Why doesn't Mike sell paintings, though?
I dunno, I kind of assumed he'd be thinking along the lines of "You know, when I can actually paint for shit, I might be able to sell these!" and less "Hell, people will buy these simply because I did them, no matter how bad they look!".
Maybe he has the utmost confidence that his second run at the artform is going to look 100% better than the first but personally, I'd want to get a bit more practice under my belt before filling out those price tags.
And no, it would be difficult to accuse Scott of 'selling out' as it would imply that he had been in a lofty position to sell out *from*. We all know that if Scott thought people would pay for *everything* he produces, he'd have been bottling bodily waste for years now.
So would I.
...
Because I'm Scott!
Guess I missed all the fun... but seriously all you FSM = SK knee-jerk reactionists must have a rough time on April 1st, huh?
Can we just say PVP is the Kiss of webcomics. Pretty good to good work and shilling to make the most money (not that there is anything wrong with that, Gene Simmons likes to make money and he has kuddos to him)
I am Kurtz!
Ha Matt, talley up all the anonymus posters who overreacted vs. the named posters (jai, me, RW, etc) and you can see ita little bit of a disparity in the overreaction.
I think we have all talked to FSM through here and email and we know its not Kurtz. Just something someone or some group of anonymus posters (fanboi or not) decided to flare up for some reason
Oh any Paul if you're around, did you like the 2nd single (i guess that is what it is) My Apocalypse from Metallica, it was better than the first, which isnt saying much.
Didn't we already do the whole "I am Sparticus" thing?
@ Jai: Clearly I have been watching way too much Detective Conan, because I didn't even NOTICE the head tuft. I think I've been desensitized.
I don't actually think Kurtz is FSM, simply because Kurtz isn't smart enough to pull such a thing off for so long.
I have, however, known people that pulled off similar ruses for longer periods of time, so the notion itself isn't too far out there.
Meh oh well, the site is still up so it doesn;t matter either way.
Straub pulled this kind of thing off for like a year. Doesn't surprise me the PVP fanbois are saying they talked to FSM and know him personally.
Wow if im a fanboi, Kurtz would be pulling his hair out. I don't know the man personally, I've just talked to him outside of here and it has neither the tone nor style of Kurtz's writing.
I am Orson Montgomery Scott Kurtz McCloud Baio Adams Card IV. And I'm sorry you had to find out this way.
I was really mostly talking about the anonymous people who think that Kurtz has been FSM all alone throughout the last few posts. I guess I did use the wrong operator, should have been "...all you FSM == SK knee-jerk reactionists..." =P
"Ha Matt, talley up all the anonymus posters who overreacted vs. the named posters (jai, me, RW, etc) and you can see ita little bit of a disparity in the overreaction."
Yeah, because giving yourself a name puts anonymous posting completely out of your reach if you want to say something that you think might harm your 'rep' or could be construed as insulting, ridiculous, trolling, etc.
So you might want to stop reaching around to pat yourself on the back, Sage, for fear of doing yourself an injury.
I'm actually surprised by the lack of posts along the lines of "Ha! I've always known SK and FSM are the same person, I just couldn't be bothered to say it".
I wonder if this implies a certain amount of maturity in the average reader/commenter/lurker of this blog (not).
And oh, before you ask, of course I've always known they were the same person.
Because I am both! MWAHAHAH!
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