Lynn Johnston---Not a Pet Owner
The joke is "hisss and hers". In order to do that with a cat, you have to have the other animal (not Hisss) be a girl. Hence Dixie is the choice, since I doubt the rabbit would be a food threat for Shiimsa the cat. Then you have to back it up to create a reason for the Hiss and to get the male dog out of the way. Once you have it all put together, you create a reason for the girl dog to be eating with the cat by herself, mix Liz into it, and you have comic strip which seemed to be universally derided on every single message board I saw as an unrealistic portrayal of animal behaviour. I don't think Lynn gets it, that in strips which try to make a joke based on slice-of-life situations, the slice of life has to be accurate for the thing to work. Back in the old days, when she was taking instances from her own life and putting them in the strip, they worked because they were real. This whole strip today with the feeding order, is clearly based on setting up the pun, and not based on any real life event, except that some cats will hiss at you if you get near their food.
Yesterday, an article dealing with the end of For Better or For Worse by fall, 2007 showed up, and it was imminently snarkable, moreso than today's strip. Jeremy Jones launched off by snarking the people who mourn young April, which I would count as being only Lynn Johnston, but who knows. Mike Patterson snarked the strip by saying it was one more step for Elizabeth to becoming a wife, with her criticism of John's feeding of animals, then launched into snark of Deanna's November monthly letter. Constable Paul Wright snarked one of the most basic ideas that would keep him apart from Liz, that being the way the children would be raised. I could never see Liz raising her children as Ojibway. Finally, Howard used Fiona Brass to snark more of the end times for the strip article.
Tomorrow's strip: Liz is shown writing an e-mail to Paul, so I guess the whole Skype thing in the monthly letter was baloney. Lynn Johnston has shown the communication with Paul to be all one way, and has not shown Liz receiving anything from Paul in the strip. The implication is that Paul has not been responding, but there is really no proof of that either. Except, when Liz and April used to e-mail back and forth to each other, Lynn showed both sides. The impression left is that Paul has forgotten Liz. I really hope we don't end up with another Warren-style breakup of "seeing is believing" but that is the way it is heading. I really want Liz to catch Paul in the act of being with Susan Dokis. That would be so much more fun than him simply ignoring Liz.
Yesterday, an article dealing with the end of For Better or For Worse by fall, 2007 showed up, and it was imminently snarkable, moreso than today's strip. Jeremy Jones launched off by snarking the people who mourn young April, which I would count as being only Lynn Johnston, but who knows. Mike Patterson snarked the strip by saying it was one more step for Elizabeth to becoming a wife, with her criticism of John's feeding of animals, then launched into snark of Deanna's November monthly letter. Constable Paul Wright snarked one of the most basic ideas that would keep him apart from Liz, that being the way the children would be raised. I could never see Liz raising her children as Ojibway. Finally, Howard used Fiona Brass to snark more of the end times for the strip article.
Tomorrow's strip: Liz is shown writing an e-mail to Paul, so I guess the whole Skype thing in the monthly letter was baloney. Lynn Johnston has shown the communication with Paul to be all one way, and has not shown Liz receiving anything from Paul in the strip. The implication is that Paul has not been responding, but there is really no proof of that either. Except, when Liz and April used to e-mail back and forth to each other, Lynn showed both sides. The impression left is that Paul has forgotten Liz. I really hope we don't end up with another Warren-style breakup of "seeing is believing" but that is the way it is heading. I really want Liz to catch Paul in the act of being with Susan Dokis. That would be so much more fun than him simply ignoring Liz.
posted by howard at 9:34 PM
5 Comments:
I only just got caught up on the comments to yesterday's entry. Glad to have made you laugh with Liz's anger over no sticky-outy-"tung" laughter, Laura. :)
And yay on your getting closer to moving out. It sounds as though that's going to make life much more pleasant.
Laura,
I concur with aprilp_katje. Congratulations on getting to move into your own space. I think I will have to call you the anti-Liz.
Heh, well, it's going to be a couple more months, probably. I like to think I'm not like Liz already--I didn't want to be here in the first place. I must say that I do tend to hide in my room, though! :P
My cats will be sorry. They like my parents' house because it is big and full of fun places to hide. My apartment will be much smaller.
I came in here to say something...what was it?
Oh yeah: I think the problem is that the monthly letter writer tries to make the Pattersons act more like real people. Mike spends some time with his family. Dee is something other than a drudge. Liz actually tries really hard to communicate with Paul.
The disconnect comes most obviously with the Patterson juniors. John's a non-entity in the strip, so his blabbing about trains never contradicts anything. Elly is constantly butting her big fat...nose into all the storylines, so it's not so often that she talks about doing something we don't see her do.
But Lynn doesn't know how to write for people under 35. The thing that most convinces me that she is still involved in the strip is that people behave in bizarrely traditional, baby-boomer generation ways. The women do all the housework and cook traditional dinners like turkey soup, boiled carrots, and cabbage rolls. Liz writes long letters that start with "Dear Paul" instead of calling, and Skype isn't shown because Lynn probably doesn't know what it is.
I think the letter writer must also have some pretty free rein, given that the letters and the strip often don't agree. What a mess.
I must admit I was disappointed about the loss of the Skype as that would have proved to have been an excellent way for Liz to find out about Paul's relationship with Susan. But we'll see what horrors, I mean plotline Lynn has to offer to carry that across.
I'm imagining someone (most likely Stephanie) tried to explain Skype to Lynn, who did not get it at all. But instead of letting on that there'd been a giant "whoosh" over her head, she sort of nodded and acted as if she understood. Then she walked away thinking, "Oh, they keep on touch over the computer. I know about that. E-mail. Why didn't she just say so?" And then she sat down and scribbled out the "Dear Paul" junk. ;)
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