Scott Kurtz Interview
RANDY LANDER: Scott, good to have you here.
SCOTT KURTZ: Thank you, it's good to be here.
LANDER: Give me a quick rundown of what PvP is, who the characters are, what the basic premise is.
KURTZ: PvP is a comic strip about being a geek in your 30s, never really having outgrown the follies of your youth, and hanging around with people of the same ilk. So it's really kind of a — if you know a nerd, or are a nerd, or live with a nerd, you’ll appreciate the strip.
LANDER: When did you first start doing PvP?
KURTZ: Started in 1998. May 4th was the first appearance of the strip.
LANDER: What spurred you into creating comics in the first place?
KURTZ: I’ve been drawing since I was a very little kid. But when I was in the 4th grade my mom bought me the first Garfield book. And I was hooked. I decided from then on that I would be a professional cartoonist like Jim Davis was.
My uncle worked at Cabrillo College in California, he was a career counselor, and he sent me an article that he had from school about different careers. He had a Jim Davis article. And it talked all about how he got started, and what his process was. And I was just addicted. I was hooked.
I’ve been creating my own comic strips since then.
LANDER: What kind of methods, what kind of motivations do you use, to keep yourself on a deadline?
KURTZ: I never miss a day. I never want to have a day go by where I don’t have a new strip up. So the promise to the reader is: one new strip for every day. And some days I get it posted at midnight that day, and some days it’s almost midnight the following day.
But you know — if I have a bunch of ideas, I can knock 5 or 6 of them out in a day if I have them written. But the biggest holdup for me is getting the idea and writing it. I don’t like to put a half-baked idea, or almost the perfect gag up on the site. So I tend to panic and panic and panic and then at the last minute it just kind of comes to me, and then it’s a rush to get it up.
LANDER: The question I’m dying to ask you, you pretty famously spoofed the small press industry in the Grapha-Maximo story. But you’re here and you’re helping anchor a new small press show. Can you give us maybe your thoughts on the small press and the do-it-yourself kind of ethos?
KURTZ: Well the whole Grapha-Maximo storyline — which is what you’re talking about — was kind of my commentary on, not the small press necessarily, but a mentality that kind of circulates around some alternative crowds, where it’s kind of an air of pretentiousness that their art is somehow more valid than everyone else’s art. And that’s really what I was spoofing there. I kind of lost my way a little bit as I was going through the spoof and started taking shots, but…
I love the small press. I love the idea of someone loving to draw comics and they draw it and go down to a Kinkos and print it out. And these small press expos like Staple are some of the only cons you can go to where the whole theme of the convention is comics. And I miss that.
LANDER: What advice do you have for guys who might want to follow in your footsteps? What are some of the key things you think for making this work?
KURTZ: Well, first and foremost, make sure that you have the best comic book / comic strip that you can make. You know, put your all into it. And write for yourself. Make yourself the audience. Draw and write comics that you would want to read. The audience will find you, don’t worry about pandering to anyone. Once you have something that’s really good, you can go places with it, people will want to read it.
About Scott Kurtz
Scott's work first appeared on the internet in 1998. His earlier strips Wedlock and Samwise earned him his first online audiences and gained him notice in the computer gaming industry. PvP debuted on May 4th 1998 and has run ever since. PvP is now read by over 100,000 people daily online and collected in comic books every month by Image Comics.
Read more at pvponline.com
This interview was conducted by Randy Lander, who reviews comics at The 4th Rail. You can watch this interview and more on the STAPLE 2005 DVD, which is available to order online through Rethunk Media. We also have audio excerpts available.