Aside from their names being on it, is there any indication that Jerry or Mike are writing that at all? The stories and voice sound like they are straight out of Scott Kurtz.
I agree, it's got NONE of the flavor or voice or tone or whatever that Jerry usually brings to their stuff. And take a wild guess as to which of those guys is probably more busy than the other.
I think you guys are letting your preference for PA over PVP cloud your view of Trenches. There's clear PA influence in there. Especially in the writing. The comic just reads like Tycho's b-roll. Or what happens when Gabe is allowed to write the comic with no editing. The stuff that was too bad to make it into PA. As for the art, I have no idea who is drawing it. The grotesque inhuman caricatures that inhabit the universe of Trenches have no more in common with the muppets over at PVP than they do with the lantern-jawed freaks in PA's reality. The lines definitely remind me more of Gabe than Scott, as well as some aspects of the faces though the two have been pretty influential on one another for the better part of three years now, so that one is harder to call.
I'm not necessarily saying that Jerry is a GOOD writer. In fact, I don't think he is for anything outside of his highly specific brand of phrase flipping. I'm saying that Trenches doesn't seem to have any of that, or any of the other tone that Jerry's writing typically does. It sounds entirely like Scott to me, stinky rabbit ass and all. Also not sure about the art, though. I can see both of them in it, though I'm tempted to say it's Gabe because it has the noodle arms, square crotches, and gaping nose holes that he's been experimenting with lately. It's funny because they can both be good artists but in different ways. When Kurtz breaks out of the PvP styles his stuff looks pretty good and he displays a good grasp of (cartoon) anatomy. Gabe's stuff is obviously more stylized, but his stuff has so much more character and vibrancy and color when he's not just throwing up a couple of talking heads. Anyway, as someone has already said, Kurtz and Chris from Chainsaw Suit should do a strip where Christ writes and Kurtz draws --and only draws. That could be good.
If you've ever listened to the various podcasts Kurtz has been on, you know he curses like a sailor. But you also know that he, as a personal policy, does not write comics that include cursing. It's sort of a mix between his still, deep inside, wanting to be in a newspaper and something he does because his dad has specifically requested it. So when I see the frequent cursing in Trenches, I know that's a PA addition. I can see plenty of places in the writing that look like Kurtz, but I can definitely see PA in there as well. The comic is terrible at best, but there have been plenty of times where I saw a turn of phrase that definitely struck me as a Tycho-ism.
Bahimiron, you should really stop punishing yourself. How anyone voluntarily reads that garbage beyond what gets posted for mockery here is beyond me. Trenches is pretty bad too.
Interesting. I don't see Tycho's influence at all. In fact I don't think Tycho is always the source of the humour on PA. From listening to the PA podcast when it was running, it always seemed to me that Gabe was the idea man, often busting out with a fully-formed joke, or something that's a good 80% of the way there, and Tycho is the crafter, the polisher, the person who takes it the rest of the way, but not usually coming up with the jokes himself. Tycho, for example, is usually the one who pushes for a wordless final panel, or to leave off a traditional punchline (like in this example), and leaving things unsaid makes it funnier. He's also the go-to guy for crazy alien names like Broodax. The Trenches, on the other hand, has the same kind of Kurtz tendency to create a complete humour vacuum. In the name of furthering the story I guess? Compare these two recent strips: It's just conversational and furthers the story, but there's no particular reason for it to be three panels, and there's no joke to be found. I find the style very similar.
I think Kurtz would benefit from moving away from the 3 panel style and actually do a comic book page instead. Then he could have more panels to get all the talking out of the way so he could get to a joke which tends to be about every 3rd or 4th strip anyway.
Trenches is still barely, occasionally interesting for the stories under the comic. But it started out beneath fucking erfworld and hasn't changed that ranking at all, and that's saying something.
I actually kind of like this one: Not that it's funny or anything, but I think it's a fun artistic experiment. Also, Pac-Man's crotch is not square.
I quite enjoy that Pac-Man one too. I would play any of those. The stories under the comic are what finally pushed me to remove it from my RSS feed. Page after page of, "They kept us in there for 17 hours a day then fired us" followed by, "AND I LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT!" People know there are other jobs in the world, right?
Maybe you are reading Manga. It actually makes more sense and is objectively funnier if you read the panels right-to-left.
I'm fairly certain that Kurtz drew both of the strips that sinnick posted, at least. His stylistic fingerprints are all over that Trenches strip, even though the characters are a lot more stylized (Muppetized?) than the ones in PvP. Look at the women in each strip, for example: He's given the one in the Trenches strip the "no-neck" treatment, and also a balloon head, but she's otherwise drawn very similarly to the one in the PvP strip. Same ear, same shirt, same uni-boob, same arms. I'm not seeing a lot of Gabe in that Trenches strip, really.
Speaking of The Trenches, they have a new artist on it, though they're still not crediting her in the byline or on the site yet for some reason.
That's... that's the artist that Kurtz said he was going to hire to indefinitely do his coloring on PvP then unceremoniously dumped after learning to lazily copy her far better style. I'm sure he realized it was better for his bottom line because better art won't draw in new readers when your writing is still uninspired. He also didn't credit her except in a blog post a couple weeks after the fact. We'll see how long this lasts. I'd hate to see the poor woman fucked over twice. These people are supremely shitty to other artists. Yeah, she's working by commission I'm sure, and as such isn't entitled to accreditation, but when Kurtz wanks on and on and fucking on about respectability and how syndicated artists should treat webcomic artists better this move really makes him look like a hypocrite. I can't speak to what it makes Jerry and Mike look like, because they don't do all of the "webcomics is srs" whining that Kurtz does - PA seems to strictly be a business venture for them, with very few pretensions.
Can anyone explain to me the latest PA comic? Even after reading the confusing post, I still getting a 404 error: Funny not found.
In semi-modern history (like say, the span of the US), questions of identity (whether gender, sexual, or otherwise) have been non-starters. I may think "otherkin" is silly, I may draw very specific analogies to invisible dragons in one's garage in response to certain identity claims, and many people might question the validity of gender and sexual identity that isn't in line with one's chromosomal sex and strict heteronormativity, but in 1944, the questions themselves (or so the comic assumes for the sake of argument, in a sense) would have been complete non-starters. Or something. I think I'm putting too much thought into it.
Is there any evidence of furry/otherkin/whatever existing before 1970s cartoons with anthromorphized animals in them?
Mystical practices, perhaps? Fairy tales and the sort? Also: Zeus and the swan business should probably fit in this mess... somewhere. Oh, and ancient japanese tentacle... cuddles. Seriously, like some centuries old ... uh, graphic material.
Wasn't another greek myth involving a Bull that resulted in the minotaur? Seems like most debauchery originates with the greeks.
There's a lot of cross-species stuff, but I can't think of anything on the specific "I wish/am one" angle.
The scrubby hairs and horn-as-clitoris are pretty brilliant. Spermy saliva is a little heavy handed... or something.
The second issue of their Lookouts comic recently came out. I haven't read it, but I also didn't read the first. I wish someone would help them with their rhymes. They are strained and strained rhymes are not dope rhymes.
Today it's rhythm that bothers me, which is something that happens at least once whenever Penny Arcade does poetry. I'm no poet by any definition of the word, but I am a musician, and 'Tis better to bleed and to be made unborn just trips me up. It seems like 'Tis better to bleed and be made unborn doesn't have the same extra-syllable issue, and goes better with the last two lines besides.
I agree, Fishbreath. The meter seemed off today. I think he intended this: 'Tis better to bleed and to be made unborn.
That would work. I'm definitely a fan of triple meters, but if it has to be explained I think the problem's more with the poet than the notional reader. On top of that, if there isn't a rule of thumb that auxiliary 'be' shouldn't ever end up with emphasis, there ought to be.
Did Tycho have the day off? It makes me think of this blog post about the Joke 3.0 format (a.k.a., "the aftermirth").
