Your point by point comparison between his work and manga isn't exactly news. Most of the online work out there is at least partially influenced by it. You waste a huge percentage of your 12 slides on it.
A great deal of your anime information is wrong. For one thing, those weird eyes and other things are really called "face faults". They are a manga/anime stock in trade for expressing emotions effectively in a very limited media. "Super Deformed" or "chibi" is when you make everyone look like they're four. Think Muppet Babies.
It might just be your source is old. Most imported manga reads back to front these days - Tokyo Pop and several of the big importers made that switch several years ago. Unless you're importing it direct and reading it in Japanese, that is.
Why did you pick Genshiken to compare Pilgrim's Progress to? Was it just because you found that page layout that was sort of similar? Because there's very little else about the style that is even close. Genshiken is a lot more realistic in his artwork and his character's physical universe. If I had to pick a good comparison for the art off the top of my head, I'd probably go with The Makeshift Miracle by Jim Zubkavitch. Or if you must go with a hardcore Japanese manga for story/feel, I'd go with FLCL.
Pilgrim isn't really shoujo, either. For one thing, it has way too many real male characters. And the fights are definately right out because they're not really driven by the girl (which you say yourself is typically shonen). There's a word for this sort of fence-sitting type stuff. It would be classed as "bishoujo", which is the name for manga that crosses the line between shoujo and shonen. Again old/wrong information bites you in the arse and makes you waste two slides on an error.
All that talk about face faults totally muddies any discussion about what he actually does well - his story. And here's where I differ strongly with you in the actual content of your discussion (which you don't actually get to until slide 12). Volume 3 showed a possible glimpse of where he wants to go and I say lead on, McDuff. You seem to feel that he needs to just stay where he was and keep ladling you shiny pap. He's trying to grow. He's trying to move. And you're going to either have to grow too, or move on to the next shiny thing down the hole.
For a couple good options for that, try:
Applegeeks - the artwork is considerably better, and the story is just as outrageous.
Ctrl+Alt+Del - Geeks, games, talking Xbox robots, romantic entanglements. You name it. Including what may be the single most geekily romantic moment in an online comic here.
Press Start to Play - Again, similar art style, story content, and geeking.
Girl Genius - The inimmitable Phil Foglio is still at it. Romance, combat, and in this case a girl who cheerfully gets her mad scientist on (but spends a lot of time in her underwear). Worth it just for the concept of the Jaegermonsters, IMHO
Megatokyo - the top of the heap in online manga-themed comics, Fred keeps a classic bishoujo line in a story as twisted as a Final Fantasy convention. Great stuff, and in his sixth book.
If you like any of those, drop me a line. Those are just representatives of several styles. I've got a lot more where those came from.
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