Not?
Well, I don't feel comfortable as well. But HTML is easy, so how should this be comparable? It's comparable in that way, that current development tools like Java PHP or plain ASP work directly on top of the technical base, without any abstraction layer.
A calendar does consists of at least 100 lines of HTML with programming code mixed in. In ASP.NET a calendar looks like this:
<asp: calendar runat="server"/>Cool! But the Browser can't read this. In fact this calendar consists of 100 lines, too, but they are encapsulated in an ASP.NET control, and for the developer accessible, like HTML tags. Developers can of course create their own controls.
Most WebPages for example have those banners at the top, with logo and sometimes navigation in it. This is a typical case for an ASP.NET control. So what ASP.NET wants to do, and what makes it different from other WebDevelopment eniroments, is, that HTML tags or complex objects, built of serveral HTML tags are accessible as objects.