Quote - By any measure of purely artistic skill, those four webcomics  and one printed comic are pretty much bottom of the barrel.  But the technical skill required by the artwork (or lack thereof) isn't the point.  Order of the Stick, to use one example, is an award-winning comic whose popularity allowed the creator to go into comics full-time.  In this case the art is stylistic and plays second fiddle to story and characterization and the writing.

This reminds me of another article in the same issue of 3D World on machinima. Machinima is animation rendered in real time, using something like a game engine to create short films. The look is obviously less realistic than fully rendered animation, but like often happens, creative people used the tools at hand to tell their stories. Those who didn't have access to the expensive apps and render farms required to do traditional animation, used the game engine they alreay had for creative outlet, and have gained notice from the 'pros.' As I said, art takes many forms, and sometimes it can look crude or less polished but still be just as valuable because of some quality it contains, that moves people in some way.