Wednesday, August 29, 2007

My Interpretation of News

From http://www.fbofw.com/news/

Kansas City, MO (08/29/2007) Aug. 28, 2007 — Lynn Johnston’s popular comic strip “For Better or For Worse” begins a new phase Monday, Sept. 3, as character Michael Patterson looks through a family photo album with his 5-year-old daughter, Meredith. With this strip, Michael begins retelling the Patterson family story by recounting the courtship of his parents, John and Elly, the central characters in the 28-year-old comic strip read by millions each day.

My first thought is, “What about Robin?” My second is that it is interesting that Lynn has chosen to begin the hybrid this way. The very first strip of For Better or For Worse started with Elly and John already married with children, although I do not have the old collections to confirm this. I can recollect no occasion where Elly and John’s courtship was told as a complete story, so it seems like Lynn Johnston is going through her old work to piece together the John and Elly romance. If this is done really nicely, then Lynn Johnston could interlace the John and Elly romance with the Anthony and Elizabeth romance and even have both couples say “For Better or For Worse” in the closing strip sequence. That would be sweet.

The only strip in the on-line archive, I remember talking about their early days was this one. I honestly cannot remember any strips showing John and Elly getting married, but there must be something talking about it over the years.

In a mixture of new, old and retouched work, readers will begin to see scenes of the past — Elly reading in the library at college and catching the eye of the young dental student who will one day become her husband.

Elly, you minx! I assume by “retouched” this means something like this strip from the Howard Bunt trial testimony, which took parts from this strip and this strip. I know retouched usually means art corrections, but in light of recent strips which needed to be touched up and weren’t, my guess is no.

"This was an opportunity to give my readers new material, as well as my being able to pick and choose through the original art and making it different, making it a new entity, as it were,” says Johnston.

This sounds like a good description of taking the little bits and pieces of John and Elly romance sprinkled throughout the years and piecing them together.

Johnston will keep fans engaged with a mix of special strips from the past and newly drawn panels that will help reintroduce favorite storylines. The strip’s current storyline will be interlaced with Michael’s remembrances until it gradually reaches a natural closing stage sometime early next year. When that happens, time will stop for the extended Patterson family, but not their stories. The stories will be relived by a current generation of fans and introduced for the first time to a new generation.

If I read this correctly, then it sounds like we have the hybrid / clip show of favourite stories which runs to early next year. Then we go to straight reprints. Why drop the hybrid? The simple answer is that at this point and time, Lynn has already prepared hybrid for the next 6 weeks, and now she knows just how hard it is to take old strips and mix them with new strips, without having to treat it like it’s a whole new story. At some point in there, she realized the hybrid wouldn’t be that much of a vacation, and she has chosen to go to straight reprints once she finishes off Liz and Anthony.

Right now, Johnston is still exploring the budding romance between oldest daughter Elizabeth and an old high school flame.
“I’m interested and readers are interested to know what is going to happen with Anthony and Elizabeth,” she said. “That resolution can’t happen too fast. They’ve only just started to see each other again after a long time apart.”


This is a bravo to Lynn Johnston for me. Frankly I didn’t want to see Liz and Anthony thrown into a quickie marriage. Considering Lynn Johnston’s fascination for New Years’ Eve romance, my guess is an Anthony proposal on New Years’ Eve followed by a wedding a few months after. Plus, I want Thérèse to return and see Lynn Johnston once again try to show us she is evil. Lynn is so delightfully awful at portraying villains these days, I know she will not disappoint.

3 Comments:

Blogger April Patterson said...

If I read this correctly, then it sounds like we have the hybrid / clip show of favourite stories which runs to early next year. Then we go to straight reprints. Why drop the hybrid?

I think you misconstrued this, which is understandable because of poor wording. I think what's supposed to happen is that they "hybrid" material will be juxtaposed with the Liz/Anthony story "until it [the Lizthony story] gradually reaches a natural closing stage sometime early next year."

Once that has happened, we'll go to 100% hybrid.

You are correct--as far back as the first FBoFW collection, John and Elly were already married and already had Mike and Liz.

The story about meeting John in the library is something Lynn described in The Lives Behind the Lines, but never showed in the strip. I guess she (or her hired drawing Lynnions) will create new flashback strips.

3:58 PM  
Blogger howard said...

I guess she (or her hired drawing Lynnions) will create new flashback strips.

Yes, but what will she use for the old material? It didn't seem like the Elly and John romance story was going to be all new, or am I misreading this?

4:14 PM  
Blogger April Patterson said...

I think that any John/Elly romance strips will have to be new. There's nothing already drawn that they can splice in. I'm guessing they'll hit a few highlights of John and Elly meeting, falling in love, marrying, getting their Toronto basement apartment, having Michael, etc., etc. (again, described in The Lives Behind the Lines but not shown--though Lynn did do a drawing or two of the early apartment)--then transition to the actual early strips.

I guess we'll find out soon. :)

5:51 PM  

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