I’m pretty ambivalent about them, but it’s always strikes me that most of the hate comes from people reacting to them being super popular when they aren’t especially funny.

“That bad” is subjective but I don’t think she/they say anything particularly insightful and seems like a Mary Sue type. Kinda like Adam Ellis and CAD from a few years earlier. Technically accomplished but soulless. It’s like the Big Bang Theory of Reddit front page comics.

Yeah, I enjoy her comics too.

I always feel a certain kind of familiarity and joy when I see them

I agree, they’re “not that bad”

And that they aren’t “that good” either.

They just tend to be low effort pandering to a limited range audience. Which is fine! Targeting an audience is part and parcel of creating anything with a goal of anyone else being interested.

It does not make a given project broadly accessible, which means that until folks here in the fediverse have easy access to filtering methods, folks are gonna complain.

I look at it like porn. I don’t want to see porn on my feed, so I take steps to minimize it. I don’t enjoy most pizzacake comics, so I take steps to minimize it. I have been successful with both of those. I only see porn when a new community gets created, and I only see pizzacake when I’m not using an app that has keyword filtering for posts.

Which is ideal, imo. It means fans can enjoy, and I don’t have to flick my finger an extra time to get past.

What? Randombutthurt@randinstance.gripe didn’t know you can just scroll past, roll your eyes, and move on with your day?

I love Pizzacake! It’s an awesome comic!

She is the nickelback of artists, generic work that the only good thing you can say about it is how it’s not as bad as everyone says

Yep, they’re fine