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You don't need a dentist, you need a Swat team!
 (From PvP. Click on image to see full-sized image.)
Scott Kurtz has to be one of the more interesting people on the internet. He has some truly admirable traits. He's had the perseverance to keep going even when things got tough, he's wise enough to listen to his wife (truly a trait more men should have *wry grin*), he's outspoken and quite willing to say what he thinks (though he will often wait 24 hours, thanks to orders from his wife - did I mention the bit about listening to her? *laughs*), and he definitely has an... interesting sense of humor.
He also annoys the hell out of me at times, especially with his adversarial relationship with Keenspot, but hey, that doesn't lessen his accomplishments any. In fact, people seem to either like him or loath him. (I suppose that's sort of like me. Except for the whole "like" thing, haven't figured out that friendship bit yet...) Anyway, you can put Frank Cho in the camp of those who like Scott.
When Scott came up with his idea of "selling" PvP to newspapers for free for a year, there was a bit of an outcry about it. Some other syndicated cartoonists felt he was trying to cheat the system, or maybe even put the syndicates out of business or something. I'm not entirely sure what the hubbub was. I don't particularly care, to be honest. I've not thought highly of most syndicated cartoonists for a while; the vast majority of syndicated strips are (in my opinion) boring, unimaginative, poorly drawn, and uninteresting. Liberty Meadows is one of the few that aren't. I might not read it everyday, but I still enjoy reading the comic. And Frank Cho didn't join the circus sneering at Scott for trying something new.
I suppose it should be a small surprise then to see the... I'm not sure what you'd call this. It's not a traditional crossover between PvP and Liberty Meadows, because LM isn't showing "his side" of the comic. But it's not a cameo appearance, because the characters are interacting with each other. Well, okay, Maritza did that way back when in CRfH, but that was a one-shot. Scott is doing an ongoing storyline with his cast working with the Liberty Meadows cast.
And it's fun! Whether it's Brent babbling because of breasts or Frank seeing the evil plaque gnomes chipping away at Skull's teeth, there's a sense of... I don't know, it just all fits together somehow. And what's more, Scott is doing a superb job of drawing the Liberty Meadows gang. Brandy was maybe a touch more buxom than normal, but then again she changes in the comic from time to time - probably has a pushup bra for when she's trying to compete with Jenny.
Anyway, it says something about the friendship between these two that Frank Cho doesn't have any problems with Scott borrowing his characters for this fun whimsical story. Good job, you two!
Robert A. Howard
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