Arch-enemy and rival publisher of Cole, Max Powers ran Powerplay magazine. While seemingly jovial and outgoing, for some reason Max was generally despised by the PvP crew. While perhaps not as truly evil as Brent and Cole claim, he could doubtlessly be quite annoying. Eric Burns of the webcomic review site Websnark wrote an analysis of Max suggesting that he is actually "the good guy" of PVP. Burns points out that nothing Max does can be nailed down as overtly malicious.[47] (For example, he threatens to post a naked picture of Jade on the Internet unless she goes out with him, but it turns out to be a baby picture. He tells Cole about upcoming software audits, but doesn't actually report Cole to the authorities.) In the December 2, 2008 comic, four years after Burns's article, Cole admits to Max that part of the reason he finds him so irritating is that Max is a better person than he is. Powerplay merged with PvP to prevent PvP's certain financial ruin. Because of his narcissistic attitude, Max was unable to see Skull, and was unaware of the troll's existence. However, Shecky punched Max as an 'incentive to see the world beyond [his] nose', changing Max's perceptions. Unfortunately, Max thought Cole was letting the staff keep a pair of 'dogs' on the premises and said the 'yappy one' (Shecky) snapped at his face. (See March 13, 2006 blog entry.) As of December second in the strip, PvP and Powerplay have gone their separate ways, as Cole has come into a large sum of money which he will receive annually from the World Wildlife Fund, thanks to the near-constant attacks on Brent by a giant panda, and the fact that it appears the panda is now more or less living somewhere in the PvP offices. During a 2008 Thanksgiving Plot, it has been revealed that Cole believes that Max stole a "girlfriend" from him (they were not actually dating, but Cole believed Max made his move on her before he could). Max however adamantly denied it saying he only grew close with the girl so as to get closer to Cole and Brent. This led Cole and Brent to the assumption that Max is gay, and was attracted to one of them. The former has been confirmed in a 2011 strip in which Max admits to Jade that he is in fact gay; he begs her not to tell anyone else, and she has so far complied with his request. During a conversation with his sister Sonya, it was revealed that Max had a partner named Chris.[48]
After a year's absence from the strip, during which he drove cross-country on a motorcycle doing good deeds, Max returned to the PvP offices to ask Cole for a job. He is now also able to see Skull, most likely because he is now "pure of heart" after a year of soul-searching. The new Max, after realizing the company was doomed in a few months, broke into Cole's office and went over the financial statements to confirm his fears. After a confrontation with Cole, after which Cole confessed the state of the company to Brent, Cole set Max off to find a new business plan and opportunities. After several weeks Max returned from Seattle, advising PVP to cease publication immediately, switch to a strictly online format (which was the only portion of the business generating a profit), and move the company from Dallas to Seattle. This reflects Scott Kurtz's real-life move of a year earlier in 2010. Scratch Fury, Destroyer of Worlds
Skull's cat. Francis attempted to give it to Brent to make the latter feel some Christmas spirit, but the ploy failed and Skull decided to take the cat in. Skull accidentally zapped him with his "genius machine",[49] granting him superhuman intelligence. Scratch is bent on global domination, but his evil plans for attaining it have so far been foiled by his feline foibles and proclivities.[50] He is Pinky and the Brain in the same body, and they're fighting for dominance. It is worth noting that while Scratch is still a genius – after Skull's departure, he was seen in the basement, working on a machine of some sort with a welding torch – he appears to be unable to communicate to the other members of the magazine. It has been suggested that the ambient magic surrounding Skull was what made Scratch's ability to communicate with humans possible in the first place. However, Kurtz has admitted that the lack of understanding Scratch was just a mistake, and changed the strip to have Scratch deliberately talking in cat-speak. Also, he becomes "Kringus" a Christmas tree-themed villain in numerous stories set in yule times. Publication Online strip
The first online strip was posted on Monday, May 4, 1998.[2] Kurtz normally updates the strip every day but has occasionally missed updates since the comic's inception, less so after the PVP 2.0 revamp. In April 2005, Kurtz changed to a Monday through Friday schedule, with Friday's strip in color and sketches on Saturday and Sunday, in response to the mounting work he had taken on as a monthly comic at Image and associated side projects. On June 4, 2005, Scott Kurtz posted on his blog that he was returning to the daily schedule. On May 6, 2008, Kurtz reaffirmed the strip to a Monday through Friday schedule.[1] Although the strip was initially formatted 2×2 to fit on 800×600 resolution screens, it switched to "widescreen" (1×4) on February 3, 2003.[51] The strip celebrated its 10th anniversary on Sunday, May 4, 2008 with the wedding of two of PvP's main characters, Brent Sienna and Jade Fontaine.[22]
Occasionally single strips or short series have been presented drawn by guest cartoonists, such as KC Green.[52] Print versions
Previously, Dork Storm Press printed 6 issues of original content as well as a trade paperback of online strips. The Dork Storm issues were collected into a trade paperback entitled "The Dork Ages."
In March 2003, Image Comics began publishing a monthly print comic book collection of the strip that combined old strips with new material. Publication of single issues and the Image partnership ended in March 2010 after over 7 years and 45 issues. In addition to publishing single issues Image released a 16-page primer (numbered as #0), and seven trade paperbacks (each collecting 6 issues) – "PvP: At Large" (#1–6), "PvP: Reloaded" (#7–12), "PvP Rides Again" (#13–18), "PVP Goes Bananas" (#19–25), "PvP Treks On" (#25–30), "PvP Silent But Deadly" and "PVP Levels Up". A 10 year anniversary collection, Awesomology Deluxe, was also published by Image in 2009. After the ending of the Image partnership Kurtz switched to self publishing the print editions but only in collected form.
At the 2004 San Diego Comicon, Kurtz announced that he would offer to newspapers the entire PvP series to reprint for free,[53] but only if the strips were reprinted without any changes made. Kurtz said he made this offer because of his dissatisfaction with the terms offered to cartoonists by syndicates. As of 2011 no major American newspaper has agreed to regularly pick up his strip, even though it is free. One newspaper, The Kansas City Star, briefly ran one PvP comic per week in the fall of 2004. PvP: The Series
Kurtz announced on November 27, 2006 that from February 2007, a traditionally animated cartoon series would be available over the internet via a subscription service, produced in conjunction with Blind Ferret Entertainment. Episodes will be 4–6 minutes in length and released on a monthly schedule, co-written and co-produced by webcartoonist Kristofer Straub.[54] A total of 12 episodes were produced, and have since been released on DVD as "PvP: The Series Season One DVD".
The announcement of the series was marked with some interest on video game forums due to Kurtz's previous criticism of Tim Buckley when he announced CAD Premium, an animated series based on his own web comic, particularly when both Buckley and Kurtz used the same animation studio for their respective venture