Before PVP came to Image, it was picked up by what seemed like the perfect publisher for it, Dork Storm Press, the guys who also do Dork Tower and Nodwick. This first transition from webcomic to print comic inspired Kurtz to try his hand at more standard sequential storytelling, longer form stories that mimicked and mocked other stories and styles (from manga/anime to The Matrix to a hilarious Christmas tale) without being locked into the strip format. In all honesty, I like the strip format for PVP and think Kurtz has a pretty good command of its vocabulary, but I really like the stories in this trade and their more standard comic-book format as well. I've recently become a fan of PVP again, and picking up Dork Ages reminded me why I was a fan in the first place.
The Dork Ages begins with the short story that was originally the lead story in Dork Storm's PVP #1. It's clear at this point that Kurtz was still learning the ropes of the comic-book format, as the story is a little short to carry an entire issue (only seven pages) and the premise is a little too sparse to really support even those seven pages, reading instead like the kind of thing that Kurtz would today carry off in four or five daily strips. Which isn't to say it's a bad story, indeed it's a fun tale that establishes the characters and relationships for new readers, has some very funny moments from Skull the troll, arguably Kurtz's best character, and it gets by on the charming storytelling style that Kurtz has.
Amazingly, though, the second issue shows a quantum leap of improvement (if not in page count), as Kurtz shows off the PVP cast members engaged in a superhero roleplaying game. The first iteration of the PVP series thrived on this sort of thing, taking his familiar characters and exploring them in different contexts, whether it's as superheroes, as players in a comic-based The Matrix or as part of a story drawing on (and poking fun at) anime and its storytelling conventions. The Christmas special is my personal favorite, but the superhero tale is a close second. Jade playing totally against her personality (and thus actually role-playing) as the action-before-words Brunhilde, the typical bickering of Francis and Brent transplanted into the superhero world and Cole as the commissioner (and gamemaster) all have their moments. The standout aspect of the story, however, is the way in which Skull plays a supervillain as effective and devious as Skull is naive, not the first time that Skull's naivete will give way to impressive skill in the areas by which Brent and Francis measure someone's worth.
Which brings me to the Christmas story, and probably my favorite PVP tale ever. Kurtz parodies the Rankin/Bass claymation Christmas specials, A Miracle on 34th Street, It's A Wonderful Life and other Christmas favorites, but he also makes it a perfect fit for the PVP cast, focusing in on the availability (or lack thereof) of a popular videogame system and using it as a major plot point. Skull's mixed-up vision of Santa and Superman is a laugh riot, and even gives way to an ending that is sweet as well as funny. Kurtz's unusual imagination is truly unleashed in this tale, and though the strip format is probably where PVP is strongest, the Christmas tale is paradoxically my favorite PVP story to date.
Two of the other stories in the book are also riffs on other material. The Matrix parody that follows is also a pretty good yarn, using the meta-fictional elements of the movie and transplanting them into comics so that "bullet time" becomes Chuck Jones/Tex Avery style, the computer metaphor becomes one of sequential art and comic strips and, in Kurtz's most inspired (if obvious in retrospect) bits of parody, Scott McCloud becomes the Oracle. Like The Matrix, the whole thing doesn't entirely come together or make sense by the end, but it's a great vehicle for gags and the meta-textual ideas Kurtz does introduce are a lot of fun. A lot of fun also applies to the anime parody which simply recasts the PVP offices as part of an anime series, poking fun at Pokemon, Power Rangers and the skeevy underage/lesbian overtones found in some manga. It's no doubt as offensive to some anime fans as I the "Graphimaximo" story was offensive to me as a fan of indy comics, which actually leads me to believe I might have been a tad oversensitive (or at least hypocritical) in giving that story such a drubbing.
The final story strays from the parody format a bit and instead centers on Valentine's Day and Skull's desire to get the couple of Jade and Brent back together. The story also provides a reason for them to break up, of course. Brent and Jade's incompatibility as a couple always makes for laughs, and Skull trying to put them together like a child of divorce working on his mommy and daddy is both sweet and hilarious at the same time, a not uncommon combination for Skull. Again, like the first story, this is one that seemed like it would have worked better in Kurtz's traditional strip format, but it works just fine in sequential format as well, carried off by the charm of Kurtz's storytelling and especially the character of Skull. 8/10
