Second Looks

Websnark is back, in force. Websnark is the grand-daddy of webcomic blogs, but I'm pretty sure everyone already knows that. The esteemable Eric Burns has set a challenge for himself in 2007, and set out to accomplish a certain amount of writing by the end of the year. Towards this writing, he'll be endeavering to post daily on Websnark.

I'm pretty pleased to see this for a number of reasons. One, my own webcomic blog was inspired largely by Websnark. Two, the final motivation for actually starting it was to give myself something to keep me actively writing day in and day out. And three - well, let's face it, he writes some damn powerful stuff.

Already worth checking out is his final tribute to Narbonic, which says it better than I ever could.

I'm confident he doesn't need the plug, but for those who weren't aware of his resurgence, I figure it can't hurt to mention it.

The Webcomicker is launching similarly forward with a hefty goal of a post for every single day in the year - and has brought back his webcomic, Birdsworth, as well.

While I don't have any such lofty ambitions for my own blog, I do have some big ideas in store for the coming year. More will be revealed in time!

Moving on to other topics - I've got to give props to Questionable Content for some strips earlier this week. After suddenly (and skillfully) making Ellen into a villain a little while ago, he equally skillfully has rendered her human again. Despite being let-down by a lot of the other storylines in the strip of late, J.J. has done this little exchange extremely well, and I have to give him credit for that.

And finally, Scott Kurtz seems to be continuing his recent trend of stealing material from Tim Buckley, as he suddenly has his characters launching their own winter gaming holidays (complete with bizarre holiday outfit) in eerie similarity to Ctrl+Alt+Del's Winter-een-mas.

Which, let me clarify, I don't find despicable for its own sake. Stealing ideas you like from other sources is a long honored tradition in pretty much all forms of creative work, and there isn't anything inherently wrong with that.

The problem is that Kurtz has spent so much time lambasting Ctrl+Alt+Del for just that - being a rip-off of PvP and Penny Arcade. Taking their ideas and somehow finding success with it. Kurtz has ripped into Buckley time and time again for this very thing. I simply find it rather... ironic that Kurtz is now doing the exact same thing. The plagiarism is fine - the hypocrisy, a little less so.

I'm sure Kurtz would give the same defense he gave when he launched the Animated PvP Series - namely that even if he was doing the same thing as Ctrl+Alt+Del, he was doing it better, funnier and with more quality than Buckley ever did. While I don't believe that renders the hypocrisy null, I can't deny the truth of it - I've generally flinched when I saw a new Winter-een-mass storyline, whereas this last week of PvP has been one of the funniest I have ever read.

So I can't deny having enjoyed this storyline. I just hope that, after all this, Kurtz will at least ignore Buckley, rather than continue accusing him of ripping off other artists.

Oh, and a final disclaimer - I'm not saying all this in defense of Tim Buckley. Even if he's behaved himself in recent drama this year, and regardless of his comic's quality or lack thereof, his actions in the past have still rendered him, in my eyes, the vilest webcartoonist I know of.

Rather, I'm simply taken aback by Kurtz's actions after his rants in the past. It seems a strange note on which to start the new year, but I suppose if Brent can do it, then so can he.