Stating that some people were overly eager to get rid of web comics is a vast understatement.
The whole thing was full of rampant ignoring of consensus, administrators ignoring rules in order to push a delete through (see the Starslip Cris deletion, a WP:POINT that actually proved its point), speedy deletions of articles that don't deserve it, meat puppets used by admins for deletion but rejected when used against deletion, discussions closed with such short notice that anyone not immediately aware of them has no practical chance to object, mass deletions which are difficult to contest all at once (sound familiar, spoiler people?), deletion of the awards article to justify the deletion of other articles that mention the award, etc.
Sure, there are people who don't understand notability, and some of the articles deleted actually weren't notable. But any indiscriminate deletion is going to hit some deserving targets, simply because there are a lot of targets. And sure, some of the damage was fixed later on (the awards article did return). It's still a massive abuse of Wikipedia process. I suggest reading through the wikinews talk/comment pages, ignoring the fact that a lot of the posters there don't understand notability, and instead focusing instead on the other complaints. There are plenty of them, and a good chunk of them are perfectly valid.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_fundraiser_highlights_webcomic_co... http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Comments:Wikimedia_fundraiser_highlights_webcomi...
Also see
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Comments:Wikimedia_fundraiser_highlights_webcomi...
where one poster who does understand notability points out that what is really needed is for the notability rules simply to be followed, not changed.