Kurtz to Amend and Peers: Join Me And Together We Will Rule The Galaxy!

Interestingly enough, Scott Kurtz's recent post concerning a need to for established newspaper syndicate cartoonists (Bill Amend is specifically mentioned in part because of his alleged savvy to technology and the web) to work with webcomic creators to revive comic strips has been widely picked up by comic news sites.

Kurtz's post itself is long on description of the current situation, but vague on the proposed solution. I myself originally zeroed in on one of Kurtz's comments on the failure of his past efforts to get PvP syndicated (and acknowledging new efforts to get into newspapers). Certainly comics in all of its legacy forms (newspaper strips, monthly "books") is headed for changes or irrelevancy and it's always interesting to try and imagine how to bring a better future about. Something practical may actually come about from such discussions. So let me be clear – this is a good,and necessary discussion for comics and I'm glad that Kurtz used his platform to get people talking about it

Such a discussion has to be broader than Scott Kurtz though simply because as a public figure (based on his public comments) he can be a polarizing figure. Yes, Kurtz is talented and yes, PvP is an enjoyable read that frankly should be an easy sell to newspapers, but Kurtz does have a bit of a history of talking first, and smoothing it out later. This thread over at the Daily Cartoonist – home turf for newspaper creators – is an example of my point. It's a thread that is getting bogged down in discussion of other comments by Kurtz instead of the webcomics-meets-comic strips idea that's purportedly the whole point.

I'm not suggesting Scott Kurtz stop being himself – it's great that he says what he thinks (if for no other reason than to give me something to write about!) but if his heart is in the right place here (which given Kurtz's obvious love for comics I'm betting it is) then he should work to get other prominent webcomic creators involved. If Kurtz is the sole or primary webcomic "face" involved — I fear we won't have a very productive discussion.

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Xaviar Xerexes

Wandering webcomic ronin. Created Comixpedia (2002-2005) and ComixTalk (2006-2012; 2016-?). Made a lot of unfinished comics and novels.