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Scott Kurtz

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Sideways:
Ah, well it's just a difference of opinion then.  He's a competent cartoonist, I wouldn't - personally - say he's 'way beyond competent'.  As for his skills as an artist, I wouldn't even really class him as 'competent'... but I can't say for certain.  His sketches seem lacking, to me, and his comic certainly doesn't show a particularly dynamic flair.  You never know, he may paint abso-fucking-lutely georgeous landscapes and such.  I just don't see it, based on his other stuff.

Sideways:
Good question, I suppose I have to find the best way to answer this.

I do see the two as being distinctly different.  I never considered Jim Schultz, Jim Davis, or Gary Larson to be 'artists', because they only drew doodles, really.  What they, and Kurtz did/do is focus on proportion, form and structure in 2 dimensions only.  You don't see Garfield from behind, or in profile, or from a top-view... it's always the exact same 3/4 view, sometimes a straight-on view just to mix it up.  That's not art, that's perfecting one single way of drawing one single character, from the same perspective/distance, constantly.

A Cartoonist, when asked to draw a landscape, could probably do it... when asked to paint a landscape may not be able to, when asked to work in chalks/charcoals, or to work with clay or metal... probably wouldn't be very adept at it.  This will change from person to person of course, but that's the gist of how I see it.

An artist will be able to sit down and paint, draw in pencil & ink, use chalk & charcoal, create dynamic settings, draw from all manner of perspectives/distances, and create so many different KINDS of work (interpretive, abstract, realist, etc).  They'll employ various techniques showing depth, shading, contouring, etc.  Cartoonists, like kurtz, don't (or can't) do any of that.

On the topic of Kurtz, some people say that his sketches prove him as an artist.  I've yet to see a single sketch he's done where the character he is drawing is not in 3/4 perspective.  Even in his random doodles, he limits himself to that single perspective, which - to me - means he is lacking the ability to do anything else.

The work of a typical cartoonist:



Note: other than Garfield in the 3rd comic panel, every single thing is drawn in 3/4 perspective.

Work of a 'cartoonist' who OBVIOUSLY has artistic background:



Note: See how the artist (Ian McConville) plays with perspective, range, depth and colour in order to give everything an organic feel.  There isn't even a reliance on ink outlining, it is all digitally 'painted'.  This comic shows INCREDIBLE depth, and this guy puts out one of these a week, on average, while in school, and presumably working a part-time job.  To me, that means he'd be able to do this daily if it was the only responsibility he had (like Kurtz).

Do you see why I have a distinction between cartoonists and artists?

Of course, there are some 'cartoonists' who are probably fantastically accomplished artists.  If you look to 'Ctrl-Atl-Del-Online' you'll see every single comic employs the 3/4 perspective.  However, when you visit his sketch pages, you see that he obviously has a much stronger grasp on drawing than is shown in his comic.  Kurtz's sketch pages do not show any greater understanding of depth, or perspective.

Make some sense?

Primate:
Yeah, Ian's art has grown tons since Mac Hall started. Good stuff.

Back to Kurtz. Scott can be blunt, tactless, and rude, even when he doesn't mean to be. (Last dustup he had with Fred of Megatokyo started with a bad joke he made that made Fred feel bad, and the then Fred whined about it on his webpage, and so it became this "whole big issue". Sometimes the webcomic community is so high school.) He was part of that generation of web comic artists that succeded in changing part of the community into a money making venture (which earned him and others the ire of the non-profit purists). Of course, we're still writing the rules for how to make money from it, so naturally Scott ran into arguments with those other businessmen who's methods he disliked (notably Keenspot). He's also managed to irritate the newspaper comic establishment by trying a business model of giving his strip away free to newspapers in order to increase traffic to his site so he could gouge more money from his advertisers. And he is a relentless self-promoter, which would seem to be part of his business plan.

Personally, I think he has enough good points to balance out the bad, but that's not what this discussion was about. :)

ThinkDifferent:
I've never read PvP. All I know about Kurtz is, as Primate mentioned, his little tiff with Fred Gallagher. Now honestly, I can't tell who was in the right there. I don't like Gallagher anyway. I'll explain why later. Fred's account of the whole affair is here. It started with Kurtz saying:

--- Quote ---Luckily, this (Rodney's new baby) is one of Rodney's creations that Fred can't steal out from under him.
--- End quote ---


Anyway, to all those people who are complimenting Ian McConville: Damn right. McConville produces by far the best art in a webcomic I've ever seen. Of course that seems to make Mac Hall the most rarely and sporadically updating webcomic ever, but I can live with that, just because the art is so stunning. Look at the last panel of this or the fourth panel of this. His art at the beginning was nothing special, but like Jeph's it has evolved to be a hundred times better. He also generally seems to be just a cool guy. He's an art student but not pretentious about it (or whiny...Fred). He produces some hell of art too.

Now, Fred Gallagher. Even after reading his account of his and Rodney Caston's breakup, it still seems to me that Fred stole MT from Rodney. This turned out, in the end, to be a good thing. In the beginning, MT was nothing more than a gamer comic, like Penny Arcade. Now it's one of the most original webcomics out there, and certainly unique.

Fred's a good artist. He can't match McConville, and of course McConville's art is colored. Still, I can't stand Fred Gallagher the person. If you read the MT forums, you'll see evidence of what I'm talking about. Firstly, he has zero ability to take criticism, even if it's constructive. Either he takes it way too seriously, failing to realize he's getting all depressed about something some random guy said on the Internet (apparently he hasn't read a recent IndieTits), or he lashes out viciously at the critic, saying what gives him the right to criticize, if you don't like it, don't read it, or maybe I should just go get a real job. This happens after the most minor things, such as someone noticing that for a few strips, the characters in MT had pupils, then they didn't, and that they looked better with pupils. Fred gave that person a verbal beating.

Secondly, he whines a lot. He'll post a comic, saying, "This comic is crap, I hate it, I hate myself, I hate my life, I'm going to go crawl in a hole and die now." (Mac Hall actually makes fun of him for this.) Then someone says, "Yeah, it's not that great." That someone will suffer Fred's Wrath. This just says to me that Fred is an attention whore. I don't like attention whores.

All this just goes to show you can like a webcomic without liking its artist (I love Megatokyo, I await each new strip eagerly). I'd say PvP is the same for a lot of people: good comic, but don't get started on the artist. QC is different, of course; I like the comic and Jeph seems like a cool guy. Same with the Mac Hall guys.

Sideways:
Even though I peruse various popular webcomics, I never really got into Megatokyo... so I never saw what you were talking about... but on brief investigation as a guest in their forums... yeah, the man certainly gets pissy when criticized.

Attention-whore seems about right.  It's either;

Random Forumer: "Hey Great comic today!"
Fred: "Life is a never-ending ball of misery, and this comic sucks more than a $2.00 whore."

or

RF: "Why did you stop drawing <this>... I think it looked cool!  it doesn't look as good now."
F: "Who are you to tell me what looks good, and doesn't in my comic?  I'm not holding a gun to your head, forcing you to read it."

I've attended dozens of art classes in my life (through school, and otherwise) and I've come across MANY people who act this way.  It seems to be a curse, afflicting at least 15% of the 'artist' population.  You'll compliment someone on a painting/sculpture/whatever, and they'll respond by telling you that it's pure shit/drivel/amateurish.  Later, you'll offer constructive criticism, or maybe try to show them a different method of inking that they may not be familiar with (there's a story behind this last example) and they explode in your face, and call you a hack.

Fun stuff.

If someone compliments something of mine, that I think is shitty, I turn around and thank them.  I leave it at that.  I know where I would like to improve, telling them that I think the linework is garbage, or the colouring is all wrong certainly won't help things.

If someone comes to me and says "Hey, I don't think you're really taking advantage of all the space you're working with/you're leaving far too much negative space" I don't whip around, and tear them a new one... I step back, look at the piece, and either agree/fix it, or disagree and explain why I think it'll be fine.


It's a very touchy subject to some people... art, or personal creations.  I've seen a fair share of webcomic artists who take their 'art' WAY too seriously (Sean Howard comes to mind).  They aren't doing it to share this work with people... they're doing it to stroke their own egos... and that's easily the worst reason to publish anything.

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