(There are also some who believe that critics are more important, but I think the former is enough to annoy creators like Kurtz)

Vitally, though, it’s not the ’standing over the shoulder’ concept that’s the problem (really, any critic doing that is just a rabid, overly-entitled fan) – it’s the ‘my critique adds value – or even legitimacy to your work’ idea that grates on people.

For example – a number of webcomic discourse sites popped up around the same time, and some went as far as to state that now [these critical sites existed] webcomics had legitimacy. Which is a silly statement on a number of levels – but the most pertinent being that people talking about webcomics can’t really have more impact on the medium than people creating webcomics.

It should be very easy to see why this mentality annoyed artists.

I’m not saying that criticism isn’t valid – I for one enjoy criticism of my work (but I’m arrogant enough to ignore the bits I disagree with, so it’s easier to enjoy…), and I suspect that Kurtz isn’t saying that either.

But I do agree with the mentality that it isn’t as valuable as creation – no critique is more important than the work it’s based on; no work becomes greater simply because it has been critiqued… and so on.

You get my point (I hope).

(oh and of course I’m well aware that I’m talking about a subset of critics here – Kurtz’ problem is that he’s somewhat conflated that subset (and some others) into ‘all critics everywhere’)