Friday, April 3, 2009

Well . . .

Yo guys,
This isn't a strip critique, and I know some of you are happy about that, but it is a general opinion relating to something involving. For those of you that want the background of this subject Scott posted a few comments to a story about a political cartoonist getting released/fired from a newspaper and that's here

Now from the posts it is easy to see that there is history, likely a new school/old school spat that happened months to years ago that Scott (if it is the real Scott) held onto and now that people, through no action of his own, have fallen down and he has taken the time to kick and gloat over.

I'm going to steal something I heard from a podcast with Adam Carolla and Bill Simmons. They talked about a theory where if a person is described by his first name twice in a row it is a hidden code that the guy is an asshole. The most famous being "It's just Manny [Ramirez] being Manny". If you think about it though it is very true because if you have someone in your life and describe an action as "it's just blank being blank" 99% of the time they are being a dick.

In these same podcasts they (mostly Simmons) have talked about the downfall of newspapers with people who have been in that business and a few themes have emerged that make sense for the real reason of newspapers hitting the shitter.

First, the biggest thing of the internet that killed newspapers? Craigslist and other classified sites. A lot of the revenue that newspapers got were from their classifieds and when a FREE, popular, and national alternative came about newspapers couldn't compete.

Also, newspapers did drop the ball in the early days as they kept their content free on the internet and now the "information should be free" mantra they can't really start charging because information is just out there. After all, why pay 50 cents for a paper when you can zip on the internet and read the stories you want for free?

Plus the fact that editors tried to copy the internet by getting the information out as fast as they could (through blogs and other avenues) instead of being the crap out of bloggers with quality played right into that downfall.

I'm not saying that webcomics and other things didn't play a role in newspapers going down but the reasons above have greater weight. It's like a remora eel taking credit for a kill when the Great White is sitting right next to it.

Back to Scott though, as people might say that his comments were petty, not needed, petulant, argumentative, drama producing, etc and you'd be right. I have gotten into spats with a "Scott" and "Kurtz" here too and banned from his former boards for "trolling" and seen that myself. I got my back up from stuff until I realized that what was going on, that no matter how much I argued it's like yelling into the wind.

He, and other people like Buckley, etc., etc., are programmed perfectly for the internet as they act like drama kids in high school when you tell them you didn't appreciate their performance when you critique them. They also act as supreme rulers of their own little worlds including blogs, webcomics, and videos, but they actually don't offer any influence outside of those worlds.

The funny thing is when those same people that slighted them, or they percieved to have slighted, have a downfall of their own, which they had NOTHING themselves to do, they act like Conan the Barbarian when he says that the is best in life is "To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women". Scott even made a SHIRT that acted as his flag for this, whether it's meant to be ironic or not.

In this situation, and with most things that we see, it's just Scott being Scott.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

i should probably point out i;m pretty sure it was actually scott because he was mentioning he did it on his twitter earlier. had he not i don't think i would have said anything because...well...the internet love anonymity.

Brett Schiller (Sage) said...

Yeah, I'm cautious because on here there is a Scott and a Kurtz and either it is him for both or it's not him and why spend anger when it is just a tool pretending to be him?

(I dont know why someone would want that, but like Poor said internet love anonymity)

A Nonny Mouse said...

Is this part of an ongoing feud which inspired the Ombudsmen series?

Anonymous said...

This is what Scott posted on his twitter earlier: (read from bottom to top if you want to go chronologically)

# Syndicated comic strip panelists could learn a lot from their cousins who make comic books.9:12 AM Apr 4th from TweetDeck

# today I will enter a magical world of print cartoonists who get and embrace the web and what we do. the comic BOOK industry.9:11 AM Apr 4th from TweetDeck

# After some time passed I've decided I'm feeling less sorry about my "meltdown" today.11:18 PM Apr 3rd from TwitterBerry

# @the_kiai what? What did you do.8:36 PM Apr 3rd from TwitterBerry

# I know I had a meltdown on the dailycartoonist site. I appreciate the scolding as much as the "attaboys." Both mean a lot to me.7:46 PM Apr 3rd from TwitterBerry

Brett Schiller (Sage) said...

I'd read it, but I've probably read something similar that the gentlemen has done dozens of times throughout the years. I have better sites to surf than dailycartoonist.

Here's where "it's just Scott being Scott" applies greatly.

The Trouble said...

Well to be fair, the T-Shirt would have had to go into production quite awhile before this particular spat hit the interwebs. I think it was even announced before this happened.

Obviously this stuff between a handful of newspaper guys and a handful of web guys has been going on for years now. Kicking someone while there down is petty though no matter what the circumstances. Especially is an situation like getting laid off, which could potentially be the end of this guys career.

Brett Schiller (Sage) said...

@ The trouble
I know it was a few weeks and it was either a) an attempt at humor b) a dig at whatever newspaper guy said something negative about his work or c) something he actually believes.

I would put the odds at 100% for a) 80% for b) and 50% for c). If he did believe that he or any webcomics has a mjor reason for "killing webcomics I believe he is wrong, as I wrote before

Either way it's just another example of Scott being Scott

R.W.McGee said...

I REALLY hope this plot-line is going somewhere better than where it appears to be going.


Like, anonymous internet trolls have many strange and contradictory opinions Kurtz? Like, totally!

I think we all figured this out about the internet years ago. As one of the 'pioneers of the web-comic medium', I hope he's taking this somewhere a little more insightful.

TheOriginalJes said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
TheOriginalJes said...

Only recently, did I notice that fans now have to pay $1.99/month to post comments on pvp's own forum.

I tried to ignore this...but I can't.

My apologies, to many innocent webcomic artists, for the crap I'm about to spill...

The true fans and sycophants should be outraged at this. The comic is free to read. But, your two-cents will cost you $2?!! WTF!! That will only affect 2 types of people.

1- The mindless ass kisser - who is completely willing to drop coin on a subsription to "Big-Buns Monthly" just to pucker up and worship SK for what has lately been mediocre work, AT BEST;

2- The author - who happily collects taxes from the peasants who are just too stupid to emigrate to a community of free-thinkers.


Now, this doesn't mean a thing to my wallet. But, isn't this just like a bank charging you money to make a deposit?

It's obvious that the budget crunch is hitting you web-comic artists pretty hard. More and more of you are hitting the road, doing Cons and such. That's really hard, and I empathize with you all.

But, can't you find another, less demeaning way to fish a dollar from you fan base?

Or, increase the quality of the content and/or press the marketing machine to new avenues?

Does paying to critique the artist come with a no-hissy guarantee?

SK has invited criticism many times, and claims to really appreciate it. Now, it seems, he's trying to set up a virtual carnival "dunking booth" of criticism/ass-kissery.

Wow...just, ...wow.

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