Not Going to Muck with Mukwa
The Mtigwaki smackdown continues as Liz fails to get Jesse to talk to her, or to even speak sensibly to him. It has been an astounding week with Liz's poor traits getting the close up view in the strip. qnjones has snarked the Liz like nobody's business, but the strip itself is just laying into her. Gary wants her to leave so he can bring Susan Dokis in, and he makes not qualms about pointing that out to Liz. Vivian jumps all over her for making plans without including Paul. Paul gets mad for Liz cutting him out of the planning. Jesse jumps all over Liz for simply leaving, or maybe because he had to find out from Gary Crane. Liz has been smacked around so much, that must be the reason she is unable to tear up when she writes to April about leaving.
It is so strange for us here at April's Real Blog to snark on Liz's obvious incompetence, but to have the strip lay her incompetence bare for everyone to see astounded me. I can't think of any other time when a Patterson has been treated like this in this strip. Is the author trying to divorce us, as the reader, from liking Mtigwaki anymore, so that we can accept Liz back in the South? If that is the case, then unfortunately for the author, I like Mtigwaki more than ever, but I applaud the effort. It has allowed me to see Liz in a whole new light than before.
It is so strange for us here at April's Real Blog to snark on Liz's obvious incompetence, but to have the strip lay her incompetence bare for everyone to see astounded me. I can't think of any other time when a Patterson has been treated like this in this strip. Is the author trying to divorce us, as the reader, from liking Mtigwaki anymore, so that we can accept Liz back in the South? If that is the case, then unfortunately for the author, I like Mtigwaki more than ever, but I applaud the effort. It has allowed me to see Liz in a whole new light than before.
posted by howard at 10:01 PM
2 Comments:
What frightens me is the possibility that the Lynnions think Liz is still a sympathetic character. It seems hard to believe, but I have this uneasy hunch about it.
I think you are absolutely right. The monthly letters really played up the whole business of Liz really being in love with Paul, more than they had ever done before. John said it was an adult relationship, even though he said it wouldn't last. Elly feared Liz might have to move back. Liz herself announced it was more than she had ever been in love before.
We have never seen anything in the strip that resembled affection any more than what she gave Dennis North, gay dancing partner. If Lynn still scripts this thing, the person drawing the strip doesn't have the slightest clue how to draw Liz so her body language and facial expressions look like love to fill in what is missing in the dialogue. Today was an excellent example of that. Liz should have been bawling her eyes out, and the artist couldn't even draw a single tear, when the dialogue cried out for it.
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