Up until now, Leslie’s been looking a little too perfect. I had to give her some problems too. Like her brother, Maxwell, Leslie usually assumes the best of people and doesn’t always notice when someone’s being a jerk. More importantly, I didn’t want Leslie and Vincent’s relationship to become one-sided. If Leslie’s going to protect Vincent from the world, then Vincent should get to protect her from something as well.

This was another difficult comic to write. For time first time ever, I had finished writing, drafting, drawing, inking and coloring the comic before I realized that I didn’t like the dialogue. In the original version, the crimes that Leslie’s exes had committed were things like standing her up without calling or picking fights when they were angry over something else. The trouble was that these crimes seemed too open to interpretation. If they happen once in a while, then they’re the kind of ordinary nuisance that happens even in healthy relationships. If someone is doing them habitually, intentionally, and without remorse, then they’re a problem. I couldn’t clarify which kind of situation it was within this little comic, especially since Leslie herself doesn’t seem to think that they were a big problem. So I had to make Leslie’s situation more absurd and unrealistic.

Somewhere in my files, there is a paper comic that has different dialogue from the finished one. It probably won’t be the last time.