Monday, November 28, 2005

Jeremy Jones is one Ugly Boy

I decided to riff off the suddenly changed appearance of Jeremy Jones from the last time he appeared in July. Such a drastic physical change is not all that uncommon for boys his age. My nephew is in Grade 9. When I saw him over Thanksgiving for the first time since last Thanksgiving, he had grown 4 inches, his voice changed, he gained 20 pounds, and his attitude had definitely altered from friendly to surly. The best part was that he had also gotten his first gray hair at 14, 2 years before his father had gotten his first gray hair at age 16.

Today’s strip had April actually being friendly toward the newly christened “Rebeccah”. Of course that friendly face was a mask for the bitter resentment April displays in tomorrow’s strip. We still don’t have any clue as to whether or not this strip is going to lead to the Sunday colour strip prediction of Rebeccah calling April fat. My guess is not, which is unfortunate, because we only have April’s word Becky actually did that and we cannot tell if it is a gross overreaction by April to something Becky said. I hope Eva shows up somewhere in this sequence. Otherwise, I am going to wonder why she was even introduced.

The good constable is back in Mtigwaki again. I am working on getting some good snark out of Paul Wright, but I have interpreted him as such a straight arrow, this may be difficult (I mean it’s a challenge.). That interpretation came from the way he handled Elly, during her visit to his workplace, in which he was very polite to her. I am taking the position that the Anishinabek people might resent him taking up with Elizabeth. A quick google around has shown me that the Anishinabek have a big concern about intermarriage diluting their ways and customs. I have a hard time imagining a guy as attractively drawn as Paul Wright not being able to settle with an Anishinabek woman, if he so chose. I am afraid to go too far into this, because Lynn Johnston is certain to address it. The posts so far are just going to explain that the problem exists.

Mr. Howard Kelpfroth himself is still a dog. The marvelous qnjones is weaving together a tale based on our notes to each other. I am delighted to see what she does with it.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Howard,
I honestly think Eva was created for the sole purpose making Duncan mention his zits so April could fret about the three on her forehead, which caused more breakouts on her cheeks. April didn't have zits on the bus with Eva. She only got zits after meeting Eva.

This does not, however, explain why April listed Eva in her list of friends with clear faces. We're not shown April interacting with Eva on any "friend" level. As far as we can tell they don't even eat lunch together. Sunday's strip made absolutely no sense ... April listed her friends when she was crying to her mom about life not being fair ... now she's crying about not having friends. My head hurts. (Speaking of which, I loved your post of Paul trying to wrap his mind about what Gary was telling him.)

With the letters being so close I'm curious if Eva will be mentioned in them. If not, I honestly think she was only a bad plot device and was never suppose to be April's "friend" in the sense of appearing in the strip beyond her name and being "interested in math".

As for Alex and Jeremy ... Jeremy was nasty look'in in yesterday's strip ::Cringe:: But Alex just loves the way he treats her so much, she's over looking that. If she shouldn't, you have to start having Jeremy treat her differently ...

Adrianne

6:11 AM  
Blogger April Patterson said...

I'm in such deep denial that I didn't even read bitter resentment from April in today's strip--just wasted space to drag out the storyline and make my eyes bleed.

7:19 AM  
Blogger howard said...

adrianne,
In the strips, things are going well for Jeremy, despite his increase in age. The guys I knew in high school who looked like men and not like boys were usually more popular with the women. If only Jeremy didn't look 40 and more 20ish, that would be better. April's October monthly letter had Jeremy with a girlfriend, so I am not motivated for Jeremy to be anything but nice to Alexandra, even if he goofs up.

10:05 AM  

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