PvP Wins Eisner

So, on Saturday, the 18th Annual Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards were held at Comic-Con in San Diego. The Eisner Awards honor the best of what has become an endangered art form: the comic.

I say endangered, but as far as newsprint comics go, I consider it a virtually extinct art form. Notwithstanding the noble efforts of a few earnest strips, the newspaper "funnies" haven't been worthwhile in years.

Comic books, graphic novels, trade paperbacks, et al. still have plenty of wonderful artists and writers to go around. There is still life between glossy covers. But for the lover of the 3-panel sequential, little is left worth appreciating...outside of the internet.

The webcomic is slowly but surely saving sequential comic art.

PvP (Player vs. Player) is one such savior. Built from the ground up by artist/writer Scott Kurtz, PvP has grown from one man's pet project into a brilliant body of work.

His once web-only comic is now printed in traditional comic book form via Image Comics. You can walk down to your local comic shop and pick a copy up off the shelf.

Of course, it's still available online - which is where it well-and-truly shines. Scott has put a lot of effort into polishing his art and writing to a slick, professional lustre. He has succeeded where many have failed, and as best I can tell, that's mostly due to a tremendous amount of good old fashioned hard work.

That hard work has finally earned Scott his industry's highest honor: Best Digital Comic.

I don't read PvP every day. But that doesn't mean it isn't absolutely worth reading every day. I just don't get around to it as often as I should. Usually, I miss a few weeks and then have a marathon catch-up session to find out what I've missed.

If you love comics, and long for the halcyon days of the newspaper sequential, then you owe it to yourself to discover (or rediscover) the many fine webcomic offerings around. I'll post another entry soon with more links to keep you satisfied.

Until then, enjoy PvP. And congrats, Seńor Kurtz.