November No Mention

After the October monthly letters on the For Better or For Worse website, mentioned that Howard should plead guilty, I was sure that the November ones would say that he had pleaded guilty. My policy for maintaining a character on April’s Real Blog is that I want to make the character match what appears in the strip or the monthly letters as much as possible. I like working within those constraints as a personal challenge.

All of my scenarios for dealing with the potential November letter outcome had to do with the Johnston Institute for Better Living concept created by schmoosie posting as Brenda Starr. If Howard went to jail, had a trial, or got off; all of those outcomes were going to be attributed to the Johnston Institute, with varying motives for doing it to him, mainly revolving around them being angry about the destruction of their GPS transmitters. However, the best of all possible worlds occurred, with no mention at all. I am taking this as a sign that Lynn Johnston and her minions are completely and totally done with Howard and he will never again see the light of day in either a strip or a monthly letter. I could be wrong, but this is my take on the matter. In light of that, I posted the Tracey Mayes – Howard conversation, where Howard is freed to go back to the Milborough Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Light Opera (I’ve missed the opera-related snarking) and he can travel again (which opens up snarking on people outside of Milborough again). Thanks Lynn for not putting my Howard in jail.

I have officially decided to pick up Jeremy Jones. It’s been over a month since I occasionally started posting as Jeremy, and nobody else has come forward to claim him, so I feel it is safe that I am not offending anyone by taking more than 1 character. Like Howard, Jeremy was not mentioned in the November monthly letters, which means that his mention in the April version of the October monthly letters was to show the reader that April and Becky really aren’t talking, and not to show that April might be developing an interest in Jeremy, which would have been more fun. Here in April’s Real Blog, we have steadfastly maintained that April and Becky are still friends, but this will be difficult to reconcile when Lynn introduces us to April’s new best girlfriend in the strip. The monthly letters just pounded that point home, so I know it is coming.

I am not certain who the new best friend will be. Lynn spent a lot of time last year developing Shannon Lake, and trying to show that she is just as good as everyone else. However, there was the scene where Shannon got lost in the card store that takes away from that. I don’t know how April would be able to treat Shannon as a confidant and equal, after having April treat Shannon as someone less competent that has to be helped to find her mother. Personally, I am hoping for a new character with a neat personality to appear. The Patterson kids usually have high school friends who are interesting to make a moral point, other friends who are generic ciphers and then a villain to convert to good. Mike’s friends Lawrence (gay interesting), Gordon (abused interesting), Brian Enjo (cipher), Rhetta (cipher) and Brad Luggsworth (villain). Liz’s friends Shawna Marie (cipher), Dawn (cipher), Anthony (bad marriage interesting) and Candace Halloran (villain). With April it is Gerald (cipher), Duncan (cipher), Becky (spoiled and slutty interesting) and Jeremy Jones (villain). Without Becky, April has no interesting friends, so she desperately needs someone. Please don’t be Shannon, unless she smokes.

With Jeremy, I haven’t quite gotten a feel for how to make him funny without doing a lot of the same style of writing that qnjones does so well as Becky. I need to get a blend of caustic and funny, instead of just caustic, which is mainly what he has been coming off as. I tried using a lot of abbreviations, but that just confused people. The October letters said he had a girlfriend, so I can work on putting that into effect.

Next up: Take Your Child to Work Day