NOW LISTEN UP, HERE'S A STORY, ABOUT A LITTLE GUY WHO LIVED IN A BLUE WORLD...
Anyway, here's the review for Blue Life.
Art and Presentation:
I'm lumping these two together because the design elements and art aren't separate in this comic. Design elements are treated as objects by the characters, and the style of the text and borders is very much part of the comic's visual aesthetic rather than something we're supposed to absorb without thinking.
I've been absolutely dreading this review for the simple reason that it's really hard to review something where being done deliberately half-assed is part of the joke. I know this because er... haha okay, so when I was in high school, I actually made something in a similar vein, it was called "The Incredible Adventures of Stick Man", and part of the joke was that despite being one of the best artists in the school, I was drawing these little comics on lined writing paper in pencil about stick people with minimal effort that kept referencing how simple the art was, breaking the fourth wall and having every conflict (usually the terrible schemes of "Evil Stick Man") resolve with an anti-climax. When anyone criticised it, I could just say "but that's part of the joke, it's meant to be silly and inconsequential, and obviously I could draw better if I tried, you've seen me draw, but good art wouldn't be as funny with this style of humour." and... it was true. I later tried making a gag comic with properly detailed art because people complained so damn much and people didn't enjoy it as much, so like... yeah, some genres of comedy are genuinely funnier with simple or even crappy art (kind of like how flat panels without much depth are more comedic, while ones with a lot of perspective and depth to the environment are less comedic and more dramatic- useful tip that doesn't apply to this comic, but I hope it helps somebody reading this review).
I think the comic looks crappy, but I also acknowledge that it's meant to look that way. You've already said in this thread that you know the rules and you're deliberately breaking them, so... yeah really, there's not much I can say here. I can generally follow what's happening, I can read the dialogue and I can tell characters apart, the style matches the tone of the humour, so there's nothing wrong with the function of the art or design, it just looks crappy... but on purpose... I couldn't really critique the art any more than I could Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff
Just...a national prize winning comic artist over here... trying to review a comic... where the art is deliberately bad so there's like... nothing to say.... uhhhh.... Shit, I need a punchline or something.
Brexit. (womp womp woooooooooomp)
Writing:
All right, I have to give this comic credit, it did genuinely make me laugh out loud in places. Please accept this very prestigious virtual "I made a fussy British lady laugh" trophy .
The visual gags and timing are surprisingly well-executed for how simple the style is. There's a strong understanding of setup, payoff and subversion, and the reduction of the panel borders to physical things that can be interacted with is used in creative ways. I thought the one where the stickman needs to kneel to propose but has no knees, and so gets another stick man to hang under the panel border to serve as a lower leg was particularly inventive.
Some of the jokes work better than others, but because of the quickfire nature of the comic and the way that more of the jokes land than don't and you get overall a pretty good reading experience.
I felt like the weakest element of the comic was the large number of strips that were begging for ink or lamenting the comic's lack of popularity. While some of them were pretty creative, they were generally a little grating and obnoxious because it started to feel there were more pages about begging for ink and feeling sad about the purples of the world with their well-drawn art getting more attention than poor old Blue Life than there were pages with actual jokes, which are the content that makes the comic worth reading.
The reason this frustrated me was that it's not the case that this is a comic that's simple because the creator can't make anything that looks better. It is deliberately made in a non-art program using stock shapes and Arial font with the poor presentation and being made in a non-art program used as part of the joke. There are plenty of comics on the internet that are well-presented without fancy drawing or painting and put the focus on the jokes (Dinosaur Comics and Wondermark are two of my personal favourites) or with really simple drawing or vectors and copy-pasting rather than a lot of freehand (xkcd, Real Life Comics) and there are others deliberately made to look bad because it's funny (being a piece of irredeemable Homestuck trash, I of course love Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff as an example of this). I think if you're going to play it like you're too cool to put effort into your presentation, you have to consistently act cool about it like "haha yeah I'm putting in no effort because I know my comic is funny and I don't need validation", because otherwise you're waving about a flag shouting "I'm putting in no effort! Give me attention!" and when I spend 6+ hours per page, that's not exactly going to endear me to your comic, and when trying to read through the archive, it's a bit tiresome and repetitive too. MORE JOKES! GIVE ME JOKES!
I will say though, on a more positive note, that the meta-humour that embraces the fact that Blue Life exists on Tapas, where there are other comics and users who can submit art from outside, works better here than I've seen it work in other comics that employ it because breaking the fourth wall is such an established part of the comic, and having more complex characters interact with these stock art objects and stick people is pretty funny. I'd love to see more collaborations with other artists and the incongruity of characters from a serious comic that doesn't break the fourth wall reacting to stick people messing about with the framework of their universe. The ones that have happened so far were cool. I particularly liked the one that was somebody else's page but with blue commenting on what was happening, and felt like it could have been pushed further in a sort of "Mystery Science Theatre" kind of way to comedic effect.
I also liked the reader participation elements, outside of the ink requirement. I think that's a fun angle you can use when you have a comic that doesn't take too much time per page and doesn't have an ongoing linear narrative. More experimentation with that would be nice.
Overall, Blue Life is what it is, a deliberately meta comic that's a little smarter than it looks, and I think the main takeaway here is to embrace it, not sweat about popularity so much and try to increase the amount of pages that are actual content and really lean into that niche you're building of being "Tapas' meta community comic".