Love Me Nice is a webcomic by Amanda Lafrenais that deals with the dark side of Hollywood fame in a world where cartoons are actual movie stars, somewhat akin to Who Killed Roger Rabbit, or more similarly, Three Fingers (which is great, by the way). We reviewed the webcomic, so find out what we thought after the jump.
First of all, the art is easily the best part of the comic; Lafrenais is able to enhance the already exaggerated facial expressions of her “Toon” characters to allow for clear visual gags during slower parts of the comic. The facial expressions are where her art really shines; she’s able to convey both simple emotions and subtle inner thoughts in a way that few artists, even very skilled ones are able to match.
The writing is a little less strong, but does a fine job leading conversations into the necessary world-building exposition. The problem is the pacing of the comic; there are 138 pages online so far, and most of the characters still aren’t quite defined enough to differentiate themselves from archetypes of Hollywood royalty. Although there are off-hand mentions of a dark backstory, and a more ongoing and engaging plot, the comic’s pacing is taking a while to get to any sort of mission statement. On a micro scale too, the pacing is too slow; the site updates (according to the most recent information available from her home page) about a couple times a week, and pages end because of space, not because of any climax, either comedic or otherwise. This isn’t a terrible problem to have; it just feels like the story Lafrenais is telling would work better and is being written in the style of either one or a series of original graphic novels.
In Summary,
Love Me Nice is a very well drawn webcomic by an artist who seems like she’s only going to improve in both writing and art.
