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| MARCH 13, 2008 |
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Busy Gamer gets PVP'd at the STAPLE Expo!!
Grits catches up with PVP comic artist Scott Kurtz
Grits catches up with PVP comic artist Scott Kurtz
By Grits
To say I’m a fan of Scott Kurtz, artist and writer of PvP
Online, is an understatement. I’ve been reading his strip for
over seven of the ten years the strip has been running. It
was hard for me to remove the fan-itude out of the serious
interview I wanted to do with him when we caught up with
him at Staple! in Austin but Scott’s an old hand at this sort of
thing and it comes through in his answers.
Scott talks about finicky readers, competing against the big
boys, and his father in this interview with Busy Gamer’s own
Grits.
To say I’m a fan of Scott Kurtz, artist and writer of PvP
Online, is an understatement. I’ve been reading his strip for
over seven of the ten years the strip has been running. It
was hard for me to remove the fan-itude out of the serious
interview I wanted to do with him when we caught up with
him at Staple! in Austin but Scott’s an old hand at this sort of
thing and it comes through in his answers.
Scott talks about finicky readers, competing against the big
boys, and his father in this interview with Busy Gamer’s own
Grits.
| PVP Cover #43 - Scott Kurtz |
Busy Gamer: This is Grits with busygamer.com and I am here with Scott Kurtz of PVP Online
and we’re going to be doing an interview with him. First let me say that it’s been a real
pleasure to meet you and I’m glad you had some time for us; thank you for that. Let me just
ask you, how did you initially become interested in comics?
Scott: Well, I’ve always been drawing since I was a little kid, but when I was in the 4th grade
my mom bought me the first Garfield collection and I kind of became enamored with the
format of a comic strip. It was the first comic strip I read that I was really excited about and
really got into the minutiae, and I really wanted to get into that myself. Ever since then, I’ve
been making up my own comic strip characters and story ideas.
BG: Where did you come up with the idea for PVP Online?
Scott: It was kind of out of necessity. I was offered the job before I had the strip. There was a
website in 1998 that was looking for content for their site and they offered to pay me to do a
comic strip, but they didn’t want to own it or anything, so it was ideal because I would never
want to sell any of my ideas away. And so they said “All we want is for it to be about video
games.” So I took a comic strip I had submitted to syndicates, it was called “It’s Elementary”,
about elementary school teachers and I converted it from a school to a magazine about video
games. That was how it got started. It’s much different than that now, but that’s where all the
characters came from.
BG: So it’s just kind of grown from that original idea. Have you ever had to sit down and
revamp what you’re doing to continue to be creative with it?
Scott: You kind of revamp as you go in small increments so they’re not super noticeable by
the audience, but once you get a distance of time and you look at the first five years versus
the second five years, it’s a very different strip. [read more]
and we’re going to be doing an interview with him. First let me say that it’s been a real
pleasure to meet you and I’m glad you had some time for us; thank you for that. Let me just
ask you, how did you initially become interested in comics?
Scott: Well, I’ve always been drawing since I was a little kid, but when I was in the 4th grade
my mom bought me the first Garfield collection and I kind of became enamored with the
format of a comic strip. It was the first comic strip I read that I was really excited about and
really got into the minutiae, and I really wanted to get into that myself. Ever since then, I’ve
been making up my own comic strip characters and story ideas.
BG: Where did you come up with the idea for PVP Online?
Scott: It was kind of out of necessity. I was offered the job before I had the strip. There was a
website in 1998 that was looking for content for their site and they offered to pay me to do a
comic strip, but they didn’t want to own it or anything, so it was ideal because I would never
want to sell any of my ideas away. And so they said “All we want is for it to be about video
games.” So I took a comic strip I had submitted to syndicates, it was called “It’s Elementary”,
about elementary school teachers and I converted it from a school to a magazine about video
games. That was how it got started. It’s much different than that now, but that’s where all the
characters came from.
BG: So it’s just kind of grown from that original idea. Have you ever had to sit down and
revamp what you’re doing to continue to be creative with it?
Scott: You kind of revamp as you go in small increments so they’re not super noticeable by
the audience, but once you get a distance of time and you look at the first five years versus
the second five years, it’s a very different strip. [read more]