And after that one strip, it dropped back down to 0 pretty quickly.

It seemed to a lot of people that Tim Buckley realized "oh hey I don't want to have a baby in the strip" and decided to get a cheap emotional punchline while he was writing himself out of that self-inflicted hole.

But when your comic has less depth than your average Garfield comic, it doesn't work out so great.

Calling QC “serious characterization” is a huge stretch. JJ appears to basically only know how to write characters that have the same crippling anxiety that he does. It’s maddening to read.

I'm not commenting on whether it's good characterization (although I do non-ironically enjoy reading QC personally), just that it's a marked departure from the esrly days of the strip when there was no attempt at giving the characters any more characterization than requires for the short-term jokes. Regardless of how good he is at it, the author is certainly being consistent about writing a long-term plot that is isn't just a bunch of gags and about giving the characters meaningful backstories and personalities beyond "likes indie rock."