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PvP, also known as Player Vs. Player, is among the most popular webcomics currently online. In recent years Image Comics has also began publishing various print comic book collections of the strip. Previously, Dork Storm Press printed 6 issues of original content as well as a trade paperback of online strips.

It is drawn by Texan cartoonist Scott Kurtz and chronicles the adventures of a fictional video game magazine company and its employees. A popular but often controversial figure in the field of online comics, Kurtz is usually willing to share his opinions about comics and gaming culture in his blog, which is hosted on the same website as his comic strips.

The humor tends to be focused around technology jokes, relationship humor, in-jokes about " nerd culture," and mocking of the generation gaps between the different characters.

The first online strip was posted on Monday, May 4 1998 [1]. At a comics conference in 2004, Kurtz announced that he would offer to newspapers the entire PvP series to reprint for free [2]. This was a controversial move for some; Kurtz has said he made this offer because of his dissatisfaction with the terms offered to cartoonists by syndicates.

1 Characters

The main characters are:

• Cole Richards [3] - the boss. A committed family man, he has a rather loose grasp of new technology and is often nostalgic for 1980s pop culture.
• Brent Sienna [4] - a surly columnist and Apple Computer fanatic. His apathetic attitude towards everything frustrates his co-workers. He is occasionally, inexplicably, and suddenly, attacked by a panda.
• Jade Fontaine [5] - Brent's off-and-on girlfriend. Sarcastic and independent, but also a bit of sex kitten.
• Francis Ottoman [6] - the youngest member of the staff. Easily excitable, and always eager to be on the cutting edge of fads and technology.
• Skull [7] - a lovable trollA troll is a member of a fearsome humanoid race from Scandinavian folklore, and its predecessor Norse mythology, as in " The Three Billy Goats Gruff ," the well-known Scandinavian folk tale in which a troll living under a bridge torments some billy goats whose existence among the human cast is never fully explained. Nervous and childlike. Has an occasional girlfriend named Sonya. Originally from another web cartoon about Ultima Online by the same author, called "Samwise".

Other recurring characters are:

• Donna Richards [8] - Cole's Wife. Seldom seen in the more recent strips.
• Miranda Fontaine[9] - Jade's younger sister. She aims to seduce most of the men on the PvP staff just to irritate Jade, not necessarily because she wants the male attention.
• Sonya Powers [10] - Skull's girlfriend. She does not appear to mind that he apparently has no gender.
• Scratch Fury: Destroyer of Worlds [11] - Skull's cat. Scratch is bent on global domination, but his evil plans for attaining it are often foiled by his feline foibles and proclivities [12].
• Robbie and Jase [13] - two fat drop-outs who sit in the break room and play video games. Old friends of Cole's, they are kept employed mostly out of pity, and are only occasionally seen.
• Marcy Weisnewsky [14] - another intern. Francis's long time FPS opponent and "romantic" interest, if she can be called that.
• Max Powers [15] - archenemy and rival publisher of Cole. Here is an interesting analysis of this character.
• Gwen Dawson [16] - acquaintance of Sonya's and a radio Producer. Gwen had a crush on Jade and kissed her once at party. Brent had a crush on Gwen before he knew she was gay.
• Kurtz's Dad [17] - Although not a part of the offical PvP Universe, and therefore not normally seen with the other characters, Kurtz's dad, a German immigrant, makes an occasional appearance in the comic to share his takes on profanity, modern American culture, or whatever else happens to strike his fancy. Kurtz apparently bases this character on his own father, and has even gone so far as to use actual comments by his dad as the script for the strips in which he appears.