I’ve heard it said that the worse critic of any artist is the artist him/herself. I know I’ve seen a number of webcartoonists express dissatisfaction with their work, even when the artist has drawn for years and acquired a bit of skill. Still, one of the surest signs of cartoonist dissatisfaction is when they reboot their comic. While some reboots are used to prepare the comic for a print compilation, the majority of them are often born of the cartoonist finding their earlier work so flawed that they have to redo their comic.
Key is no stranger to reboots, as it is currently undergoing a second reboot. I must admit, I feel some guilt over this reboot as I did point out some flaws in the comic when I reviewed the comic in the past; I suspect that my minor quibbles from over a year ago played far less of a role for cartoonist Flora Li’s second reboot of the comic than her own personal opinions of her past work and how they could be improved upon (especially as that scene is not one of the ones due to be redrawn).
Fortunately, unlike a number of other reboots, Li is not restarting the entire comic from scratch. Existing readers can continue to enjoy the current storyline. However, the reboot not only retells the initial story, it has also expanded upon the existing story by revealing more of Jerlorn’s past. Given that the revisions to the first three chapters will eliminate plot holes and expand on the characters further, I must admit some curiosity as to how the revisions will fit into the comic as a whole. Because if there’s one thing I’ve noticed about reboots, it’s difficult to know just where to stop.
Hmmm interesting. You know you might consider doing a whole post just on reboot series. Inspite of that fact that it is supposed to be an upgrade reboots frequently don’t work out so well. Maybe a few reviews on reboots that worked vs ones that failed could be an interesting read.