One thing that always frustrated me about Charlie Brown is that he never won. I understand why Schulz made Charlie Brown the eternal loser and why that was important, but he should have won at least once. Even Peter Parker crosses the finish line once in a while.

In the book we talk about how important it is to write sympathetic characters. People identify with characters that are flawed. If your characters always win, ultimately they’re less real.

But I had to let Cole, my “Charlie Brown”, kick the football at least once.

Of course, most of Cole’s rivalry with Max is in his head. After all, what has Max ever done to Cole except succeed? Ultimately it’s unfair for Cole to resent Max for his success, isn’t it? So even if Cole “won” this one he’s still hopelessly flawed.

Do I think too much about this stuff?


New Stuff
— November 20th, 2009

First I want to thank everyone for their very kind and humbling words regarding the last week of strips. It’s so exciting to discover that after 11 years, I can still create something that surprises my readers. And I can’t tell you how exciting it is to still have new things to discover about my work, and these characters, after over a decade of working with them.

Many of you have asked if I would be willing to offer “The Incident” as a print, containing the entire story. I talked to my partners at Amplifier earlier in the week and they’ve already set things up for me. A beautiful, high-quality print of “The Incident” is available in thePvPstuff.com store. The print measures 11×17, is printed in full, vibrant color, is suitable for framing and mailed flat.

It also behooves me to bring to your attention that we’ve added some new laptop skins to the store. In fact we have a brand new SKINS section featuring laptop skins that you can apply, remove and reapply with ease for both the Mac and the PC. Two of these feature the amazing artwork of the official PvP intern (only known by the mysterious name CubeWatermelon). Take a look.



We’ve also added a new laptop skins for all you Brent-Sienna-like-mac-snobs who want the entire coffee shop to know you’ve got more important things to worry about than them. Available in both white and black to suit your macbook needs.





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