>>126707081Managing to look distinct from Family Guy/Rick and Morty should not be a high bar to cross.
The problem is that most showrunners of adult cartoons are not artists or cartoonists themselves, but rather comedy writers with a background only in live-action. So they either let the executives have at it and make their silly cartoon look like a bargain-bin version of Family Guy, or they reach out to some indie artist to design the look of their show. The issue really comes with the fact that most of these indie artists tend to be average people whose work clearly isn't industry standard, yet these showrunners think it's the hottest shit somehow. That's how you end up with BoJack, Bob's Burgers, Bless the Harts, and of course, Fairfax.
Some of the crews behind these shows somehow manage to make the lead artist's style look much cooler than you'd expect it to (Tuca & Bertie is a good example), but they still have to work under the limitations of that mediocre source material (Lisa Hanawalt's crude drawings in this case). I really don't get why adult cartoon showrunners on average have the lamest artistic preferences. Meanwhile The Ghost and Molly McGee was created by two writers with no professional drawing experience, yet that show looks gorgeous. Fucking crazy how adult cartoons aren't held to that same standard.
Fairfax is fucking ugly at first glance, but to the show's credit, I do feel Somehoodlum's style is thematically fitting for a cartoon all about Cali hypebeast culture. It's not the coolest or prettiest style to look at, and it's a hell of a barrier that viewers need to cross in order to have even the slightest chance at enjoying the show, but it works in this case. Somehoodlum was a good fit. Check out his work to see where I'm getting at.
