Dave Kelly, known for webcomics such as Purple Pussy, Living In Greytown, and his animations on Something Awful, also made a webcomic called Lizard. Unlike everything he's ever made ever, it didn't involve extreme profanity, massive violence, people getting killed off, or nudity. In fact, it was downright cute.Living In Greytown itself was made lighter and softer midway through the comic's life. The wacky vulgarity and silly deaths started being played for drama, and the comic was literally made lighter and softer by being drawn with pencils in bright soft colours, and culminating with a heartwarming ending.
Zeus And Sons is lighter and softer than the Greek mythology that it parodies, turning even the most horrible acts of the Greek gods into comical mishaps.
After several very dramatic arcs in a row, "New and Old Flames" is...well, something else entirely.
Grace's Birthday Party was full of genderbending hijinks after the mega-grimdark Painted Black arc. The writer doesn't like Darker and Edgier and doesn't find it fun to write, but drama begins to creep up, so its pretty cyclical.
The alien trolls are violent, amoral, and unstable. In their previous incarnation they were peaceful, kind, and so weak they couldn't play the game that would create a new universe so they had to reboot it and be manipulated into something more aggressive.
Homestuck was mostly kids and fun until we hit Act 5, when people started to drop like flies. But suddenly, with Act 6, we were introduced to the Alpha kids, and the story suddenly became much lighter again, before going straight back into grimdark territory again when it was revealed that the Condesce took over the world in the future and Dirk and Roxy are from 2422, where she rules over a flooded earth populated by Exiles and they are the last two humans in existence.
Homestuck itself is significantly more lighthearted and gentle than Andrew Hussie's earlier works like Whistles, Humanimals and Team Special Olympics (all of which date from his Troll days). The difference is so extreme that Homestuck fans looking at his earlier work often report being Squicked beyond belief at his utterly bleak Crapsaccharine World settings (in Whistles) and extreme amounts of Vulgar Humor directed at formerly acceptable targets (basically everything else).
Night Terror 3 is a lot lighter than either of the two installments in the Night Terror series that came before. Fitting, for its (canonically) first entry.
Batman: Wayne Family Adventures is lighter and funnier than many Batman media, which normally skew towards the grim (as they star a dysfunctional group of vigilantes who operate out of a Wretched Hive). This one is a Dom Com featuring Bruce as a loving parental figure to a group of colorful youths.
This phase lasted until 2011note , when Cerebus Syndrome and Author Tract took over, leaving the Lighter and Softer era as a weird relic in the comic's run.