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 (From Love Me Not. Click on image to see it full-sized.)
Love Me Not started out as a simple Keenspace comic. Art just above, stock characters, and a familiar "hopeless love" plot. As to that plot, a noticeable thing about the comic was that it was afraid to say the word "gay," or directly express that concept, instead referring to Alex's "two secrets"; this state of affairs continued almost to the end of the first run. This seems odd for a comic whose main character and author are gay. The plot "thickened," with more stock characters being added.
In short, it was terrible. I'm not being cruel here - the author has as much as said so. This was about where he realized it, where all the major characters (in the current run) had been introduced. So Alex went to sleep and woke up in an alternate universe.
There were a lot of differences in this universe. To start with, the strip didn't tell its own main plot through innuendo - that's always a plus. Also, the art had improved, and continued to do so. It wasn't (and isn't) Questionable Content, but it's a bit easier on the eyes than the old run.
It was a bit melodramatic at first, although it's a melodramatic comic. The strip had gone from telling everything indirectly to the opposite extreme, giving far too much emotion to the plot. It's gotten over this to some degree, but, well, if you're going here, you know what you've signed up for.
The characters' peculiarities and deviations from the creative norm, tacked on in the original, surfaced more clearly this time. Alex, as well as his crush Dorian and Dorian's girlfriend Cassandra, while their personalities hadn't changed, didn't seem as cut from whole cloth as they had. Even Danielle, who had originally been disturbingly obsessed, became even more unnerving, filling Alex's locker with explicit love letters. Her brother Tobias, originally Alex's sweetheart, has become a borderline sociopath with apparent psychic powers.
This is one of the most obvious changes to the comic: the introduction of a supernatural element. Danielle, formerly a ditzy schoolgirl, has apparently gained psychic powers, which Tobias seems to share. This has lead to a look inside Alex's dreams and metaphors, which were previously for his eyes only. Ironically enough, Tobias might be more deeply involved in the story.
One thing I do miss about the old story was its irreverence. The jokes were often childish, but by that very fact they were a welcome distraction from the generally depressed tone...up to a certain point that was regularly surpassed. Perhaps the author felt that they were too distracting, or initially thought that such distraction was necessary but changed his mind. In any case, recently it's been approching a good mean.
Finally, Dorian and Cassandra now realize Alex's affections. This was inevitable in either version, that there would be a time before and after this revelation. This is the time after. I get the feeling that Dorian's known since the beginning, and Cassandra probably should have known.
But enough about the past. This is the kind of comic, if you'd described it to me, I wouldn't have liked it. It's the kind of comic one wouldn't expect to like, but somehow it's just...enticing. It's not really to be analyzed, because one would find very little, objectively, to like, but taken as a whole, there's something very interesting about it.
Leahy
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