The art being flat as a way of saying it’s low effort is an argument I genuinely don’t understand. Comics are all low effort art wise… That’s part of the whole thing.
Comics historically have been the lowest quality you can get away with since they have to be put out every day for the newspaper. I know XKCD does more than 1 thing but the art style is literally stick figures and they’re one of the most popular web comics.
You may not like the art but I would call it a mediocre art style more than a low effort one.
Everything else I fully agree with. She gets the (unfortunately) normal amount of hate a woman gets online for being a woman. Which is why I made sure to do italics for it when I said lot. She tends to get significantly more support than hate in pretty much everything she does either way.
Comics are all low effort art wise…
I strongly disagree. Plenty of comics have some very high quality and detailed art. Other comics really evolve over time, from the more basic sketches to these fully realized complex images, as the artists themselves improve. Still others are sloppy-but-ambitious, with these poorly conceived but legitimately daring efforts at capturing visuals.
I know XKCD does more than 1 thing but the art style is literally stick figures and they’re one of the most popular web comics.
XKCD is a great example of raw ambition in art. They routinely do shit with flash or with clever perspective tricks or panel gags that leverage a relatively simple style into something more. Case in point:
Perspective, emotion, action, comedy, a very well-established cast of characters from simplistic visuals. All from stick-figures. There was some real thought put into this.
Oh I’m definitely not saying anything negative about XKCD. I LOVE those comics. My point is simply that even stick figures can make good comics.
It’s fine if you don’t like the art as art tends to be subjective. I just don’t think her art is any lower than any other average web/newspaper comic.