Requested Writing
I got back very late last night from the Boy Scout Camporee, which I think was a fairly successive venture. My boy got to shoot a .22 for the first time, and he did not get injured, so those were both pluses.
I decided to scan the ARB before heading to bed, but aprilp_katje put a nice little note in the posts as Michael Patterson, hinting that she might want an overnight writeup from the Michael perspective of today’s strip. I was pretty tired, but I managed to come up with what I thought was a pretty funny writeup.
The thing that struck me about the strip was the number of ethnicities represented at the Farmers’ Market, and the panels where Robin is essentially holding himself up around Mike’s neck. Lugging kids around on my shoulders is something I used to do on a pretty regular basis, when my kids were smaller and I know that you should never, ever, depend solely on the kid’s strength for staying up. The panels where Robin was sitting on Michael’s shoulders were more realistic, particularly with Robin manhandling Mike’s face. So, I keyed off those two items to write up the strip from the perspective of Robin as a super-strong brute, and Michael turning the healthy food lesson into a lesson about ethnicities as another aspect of ignoring Deanna’s intent. The final part of the strip where Michael buys the cotton candy only works because Deanna disappears, and she disappears shortly after the strip did its whirlpool wind effect near Deanna’s bottom. I went for the lowest common denominator of a Deanna fart, as an explanation of her otherwise unexplained departure.
Less recently that this, world-renowned author eeknight hinted that he might have Howard give Anthony Caine instructions on how to handle women, but then led in the with the idea that (1) Howard started off telling him what I presumed was cunnilingus and (2) Anthony went into Becky’s bathroom and found a lot of used batteries and something that looked like a microphone. I presumed this was a vibrator, but for all I know eeknight could have been talking about a battery-powered curling iron. I am usually pretty poor at imitating someone else’s writing style (like when qnjones let me take a turn last year writing as Becky McGuire), but I went through the last few months of eeknight’s Anthony to try to channel his Anthony voice and explain why Howard would immediately launch into a lesson about cunnilingus. Since eeknight had previously had Anthony fooled by his coworker Donna into getting a full Brazilian, it seemed like a natural choice for her to convince Anthony to request a lesson on cunnilingus specifically without Anthony knowing what it was. As for the scene with Anthony getting his moustache caught in the vibrator, the idea was that he would be trying to use it as a microphone and it got too close to the stache. I don’t think that was very obvious, but I was leaving room for eeknight to fill in those details, if he chose to, which he did not. That’s what happened, in case you were wondering.
susannamoodie had requested Jeremy Jones have a meeting her character of Uncle Arne, and like what I had done with Anthony I went back through her old posts, trying to capture the voice of uncle Arne. It proved to be more difficult than I had suspected, because susannamoodie’s style of writing for her Zandra Larson posts, rarely uses written dialogue but mainly first person narrative. There were precious few moments when Arne spoke and not really any catch phrase I could latch onto. So, I worked with the few nuances that I could find and attempted to fashion the Jeremy / Arne story. I also did a little research on stage hypnosis and hypnosis in general and how they are considered by illusionists like Arne, and tried to make Arne fit in. What it boils down to is that you can’t be made to do something you don’t want to do with hypnosis, so the presumption is that Duncan must want to follow hypnotizing Eva around, or at least not object to it. I decided to go with breast hypnosis, since we have had a running joke that Zandra Larson is big-breasted and there were a number of strips where the boys stared at Eva’s breasts. I get the impression that this idea did not fit in too well with what susannamoodie had planned, but I will try to go with the flow as far as what she has indicated will be a second meeting with Jeremy and Arne.
Tomorrow’s strip: Phil Richards is back for what will probably be his last appearance in For Better or For Worse, not counting the appearance he will make at Liz and Anthony’s wedding next year. We are slowly but surely working our way through the old characters to give them a last hurrah before the end. Just to let you know, Lynn, I would be very happy to see Fiona Brass reappear.
I decided to scan the ARB before heading to bed, but aprilp_katje put a nice little note in the posts as Michael Patterson, hinting that she might want an overnight writeup from the Michael perspective of today’s strip. I was pretty tired, but I managed to come up with what I thought was a pretty funny writeup.
The thing that struck me about the strip was the number of ethnicities represented at the Farmers’ Market, and the panels where Robin is essentially holding himself up around Mike’s neck. Lugging kids around on my shoulders is something I used to do on a pretty regular basis, when my kids were smaller and I know that you should never, ever, depend solely on the kid’s strength for staying up. The panels where Robin was sitting on Michael’s shoulders were more realistic, particularly with Robin manhandling Mike’s face. So, I keyed off those two items to write up the strip from the perspective of Robin as a super-strong brute, and Michael turning the healthy food lesson into a lesson about ethnicities as another aspect of ignoring Deanna’s intent. The final part of the strip where Michael buys the cotton candy only works because Deanna disappears, and she disappears shortly after the strip did its whirlpool wind effect near Deanna’s bottom. I went for the lowest common denominator of a Deanna fart, as an explanation of her otherwise unexplained departure.
Less recently that this, world-renowned author eeknight hinted that he might have Howard give Anthony Caine instructions on how to handle women, but then led in the with the idea that (1) Howard started off telling him what I presumed was cunnilingus and (2) Anthony went into Becky’s bathroom and found a lot of used batteries and something that looked like a microphone. I presumed this was a vibrator, but for all I know eeknight could have been talking about a battery-powered curling iron. I am usually pretty poor at imitating someone else’s writing style (like when qnjones let me take a turn last year writing as Becky McGuire), but I went through the last few months of eeknight’s Anthony to try to channel his Anthony voice and explain why Howard would immediately launch into a lesson about cunnilingus. Since eeknight had previously had Anthony fooled by his coworker Donna into getting a full Brazilian, it seemed like a natural choice for her to convince Anthony to request a lesson on cunnilingus specifically without Anthony knowing what it was. As for the scene with Anthony getting his moustache caught in the vibrator, the idea was that he would be trying to use it as a microphone and it got too close to the stache. I don’t think that was very obvious, but I was leaving room for eeknight to fill in those details, if he chose to, which he did not. That’s what happened, in case you were wondering.
susannamoodie had requested Jeremy Jones have a meeting her character of Uncle Arne, and like what I had done with Anthony I went back through her old posts, trying to capture the voice of uncle Arne. It proved to be more difficult than I had suspected, because susannamoodie’s style of writing for her Zandra Larson posts, rarely uses written dialogue but mainly first person narrative. There were precious few moments when Arne spoke and not really any catch phrase I could latch onto. So, I worked with the few nuances that I could find and attempted to fashion the Jeremy / Arne story. I also did a little research on stage hypnosis and hypnosis in general and how they are considered by illusionists like Arne, and tried to make Arne fit in. What it boils down to is that you can’t be made to do something you don’t want to do with hypnosis, so the presumption is that Duncan must want to follow hypnotizing Eva around, or at least not object to it. I decided to go with breast hypnosis, since we have had a running joke that Zandra Larson is big-breasted and there were a number of strips where the boys stared at Eva’s breasts. I get the impression that this idea did not fit in too well with what susannamoodie had planned, but I will try to go with the flow as far as what she has indicated will be a second meeting with Jeremy and Arne.
Tomorrow’s strip: Phil Richards is back for what will probably be his last appearance in For Better or For Worse, not counting the appearance he will make at Liz and Anthony’s wedding next year. We are slowly but surely working our way through the old characters to give them a last hurrah before the end. Just to let you know, Lynn, I would be very happy to see Fiona Brass reappear.
posted by howard at 12:07 AM
4 Comments:
I'd actually drafted a Michael post, but yours was much, much funnier, so I dumped mine. Originally, I'd planned on dropping in a Michael post to account for his absence, much like Marjee placing Howard at Outward Bound, but then I saw Sunday's strip and realized we'd have to be hearing from him. But really the only reason I did draft the Michael post was that I thought you would be away both Saturday and Sunday. :)
My son accompanied me on a breast-cancer walk yesterday morning, and I was pleased that he walked the entire time, rather than requesting "up." He's too heavy for my back to accommadate "up" for very long. ;)
Howard, I thought you did a great job with Jeremy reporting his meeting with Arne. Zandra's not amused about Arne's findings, though, although Arne may very well be right about what's going on with Eva. Zandra's insisting on a second Jeremy-Arne meeting with herself there to keep Arne on topic (and off her appearance).
aprilp_katje,
It was a sad day when my kids got so big, it was hard for my wife to carry them for long periods of time, because it meant when they wanted to be carried, there was only one parent who could do it--me. If it comes to that with your husband, at least he won't be outnumbered, like I was.
susannamoodie,
Thanks for the words of explanation. I will follow your lead for the where and when of meeting number #2, and Zandra's motivations during the meeting.
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