As someone who draws , I can see Mikes art style in an evolutionary manner - you get bored drawing the same characters the same way after so many years and want to change things up. Given that he illustrates 3 strips a week just about every week a year , the bulk of his art time is taken up drawing these strips. So why not experiment ?
I'll admit , the design choices with regards to Gabe go a little bit too far but having followed his style and the comic for quite some time , Mike goes back and forth with how much detail he feels the comic needs.
I'll admit it - the 2007-2009 era when he first started going hard with the cintiq work had a very clean and very refined look to it that , were this a corporate newspaper strip (like garfield or dilbert) - Mike would have been better off just keeping it looking like that.
But , when you're an artist that actually enjoys drawing - you want to keep improving your style and sometimes this means making decisions that people outside of your personal window (and sometimes that window is just a mirror) won't appreciate.
Mike's style used to feel like it was trapped in a generic webcomic pit - it's very clear that since then he has employed the techniques used by many of the more prominent artists working on cartoons at Nicktoons these days as well as classic styles like Stephen Silver and John Krikafalusi.
Given how long the "vegetable nose" look has been going on now , I wouldn't be at all surprised if, in another year ,it changes again to something different. PA strips are Mikes experimental art time and the theme strips such as Lookouts or Ex Machina are like the real projects where techniques he's practiced are put to a real test.
If it wasn't apparent from that large rant - I personally feel like Mike is always getting better but for the average PA reader I can also see how the strange look the strip has these days can be off putting. It also stands to reason that after 15 years of writing strips, Jerry is unintentionally recycling old material just like simpsons does.
I don't LOVE the comic like I used to , I'm more fond of other things PA is involved with like PAX and even Strip Search Winner Katie's strip "Camp Weedonwantcha".
But then, I'm 32 years old now , so obviously when the type of humor doesn't change it eventually stops resonating at the same frequency , I've grown deaf to the dick jokes I guess.
