The Falling Leaves, The Failing Art
I remember when I was a younger father, carrying my son on my shoulders around trees in Texas, and he would, from time-to-time try to pull leaves off. Usually he would get a shredded leaf or a part of a leave. Leaves on trees, are fairly resistant to being pulled off. If you snap a leaf off a tree you usually get some branch movement to go along with it.
Of course, with small children, most of the purpose of a nature walk was not the walking, but the looking at nature. If you saw an animal or a bug, I would stop and point and try to teach a little about what I knew about it to my kid and let them look at it for as long as they cared to look.
In today’s For Better or For Worse strip we have the Pattersons going for a walk and the strip typifies all the things which have been wrong with the strip lately, i.e. there is little-to-no interaction between the parents and the kids until something goes wrong. They are just walking, while we have panel after panel of Robin pulling off leaves as no one in his stern-faced, silent family notices. The devil is in the details and this is never more true than in the sequential art form. Even though the joke is that they find Robin has stuffed his pants full of leaves without them noticing; Lynn Johnston could have used little things like showing Merrie talking to Mike and Deanna about the stuff she sees, or their body positions set in such a way as to indicate affection or conversation. Instead, these might as well be 4 robots going down the trail, where the littlest robot collects a few too many leaf samples. The masters of this art form, can tell tremendous stories in details. A sly wink here, a grin or a frown there, and these people turn from robots into real people.
Of course, with small children, most of the purpose of a nature walk was not the walking, but the looking at nature. If you saw an animal or a bug, I would stop and point and try to teach a little about what I knew about it to my kid and let them look at it for as long as they cared to look.
In today’s For Better or For Worse strip we have the Pattersons going for a walk and the strip typifies all the things which have been wrong with the strip lately, i.e. there is little-to-no interaction between the parents and the kids until something goes wrong. They are just walking, while we have panel after panel of Robin pulling off leaves as no one in his stern-faced, silent family notices. The devil is in the details and this is never more true than in the sequential art form. Even though the joke is that they find Robin has stuffed his pants full of leaves without them noticing; Lynn Johnston could have used little things like showing Merrie talking to Mike and Deanna about the stuff she sees, or their body positions set in such a way as to indicate affection or conversation. Instead, these might as well be 4 robots going down the trail, where the littlest robot collects a few too many leaf samples. The masters of this art form, can tell tremendous stories in details. A sly wink here, a grin or a frown there, and these people turn from robots into real people.
posted by howard at 12:18 AM
15 Comments:
ITA about the unrealized potential in relation to body language, howtheduck. As you suggest, this is exactly the sort of thing that the sequential-art medium should do exceedingly well.
An aside going back to our discussion of Lynn's sad news regarding Rod, and the "Nancy Vincent" angle. Back in May, having realized that my FBoFW newsletter had stopped arriving at my Yahoo account, I resubscribed using a different account. The "welcome" e-mail, dated May 19, was ostensibly from "NVincent," with the e-mail address "nvincent@fborfw.com"--though for all I know, this could have been a legacy message. Hm, as an experiment, maybe you should go to the FBoFW website and subscribe to their newsletter, to see whose name is attached to the welcome mail?
Today I read Live Journal, something I generally don’t do. I was disappointed that many regular contributors have been posting negative comments about Lynn. I thought snarkers are only supposed to snark the strip, not the artist.
Anon NYC
I agree, Anon NYC. OTOH, quite a few posters have made sympathetic comments, separating their desire to snark on the strip from feeling genuine sadness about the break-up. A few have even noted that they find they have trouble snarking on the strip, in light of the recent news.
I've snarked as much as the next person, but my heart goes out to Lynn.
April,
You and Howard have me curious, so I just signed up for the newsletter. The welcome e-mail came from "nvincent@fborfw.com", just like yours.
Curious.
I think we may have leaped to the wrong conclusion on Nancy Vincent and Rod.
I found this .pdf document, a list of 2000-2001 donors to Nipissing U, and on the list (see the V's in the first grouping) are "Mr. Rod and Mrs. Nancy Vincent." It looks as though Nancy has her own Rod, and has for a while.
sonneta’s experience is proof that nvincent@fborfw.com is a legacy message for the FBoFW newsletter, since we know that Nancy Vincent departed back in May at the same time Kate Johnston started. The .pdf document of 2000-2001 donors to Nipissing University does seem like a proof that Nancy Vincent has her own Rod, whom I suppose is a Nippissing grad since we already know Nancy graduated from Candalore. I would prefer to think of it that way.
I found this list, which has a Rod Vincent as a sports convener for Northern Ontario school sports, which is someone who is or has been a teacher in the school system. Possibly this is the same Rod Vincent.
On the other hand, there would still be the following things unexplained:
a. Why did Nancy Vincent leave a job where she had worked for years?
b. Why did the FBorFW website make no mention of her departure, when they have previously noted even the departure of workers they brought in to cover someone’s maternity leave?
c. Even if she was not the one, was Nancy Vincent’s departure somehow related to Rod and Lynn Johnston’s separation, or was it simply an unfortunate coincidence in the timing?
Anon NYC,
I believe the actual rule with snarkers on Live Journal is that snarkers are not allowed to make personal remarks about other snarkers. I have written things about For Better or For Worse making fun of Lynn Johnston for being too lazy to draw an eye on a character and things like that, although I usually phrase it as “the artist was too lazy to draw an eye.” Since so many of the For Better or For Worse plotlines are Lynn Johnston trying to exorcise some of her own demons in her relationship with her parents and her children, it is difficult to comment about some things without saying, “Lynn is doing this with Michael, because she wants her own son to do….” Lynn has said the same thing about herself in some of her interviews.
On the other hand, I do dislike the “F-word Lynn” kinds of comments. They are not funny and they show little imagination and it wears me out having to go through them sometimes to get to a really good, funny comment. A lot of times, I will just look for usernames I know like aprilp_katje and debjyn, for example, and see what they have to say. This is particularly true when the topic is Anthony and Elizabeth, because that topic typically enrages people.
I found the same "Rainbow Schools" link with a Rod Vincent reference. :)
Yes, the abrupt departure is still mysterious. I suppose it could have been an instance of things going bad when friends of a couple find themselves choosing a side when the couple splits. I remember my parents losing friends this way and, if Nancy Vincent had already been friends with Rod J. before starting her employment for Lynn, perhaps she found that she couldn't resist belonging to Team Rod?
All conjecture, of course.
That's the problem, isn't it. They don't look like a family walking through the park at all. What today's strip looks like to these eyes is not so much expressionless robots vacantly trudging through the scenery on an early autumn day as it does a series of photos of mannequins posed in such a manner that they look like a family taking a nature hike. The toll her domestic situation has taken on her is kind of sad because she used to do personal interaction so well. Hopefully when things are resolved, the new material will be more like the old.
Paul J. a/k/a DreadedCandiru2
aprilp_katje.
Conjecture, but based on some fact. After all, she does have her background in dental hygiene, so if there was anyone on Lynn’s staff who might belong to Team Rod, she would have been my first guess.
DreadedCandiru2,
The toll her domestic situation has taken on her is kind of sad because she used to do personal interaction so well. Hopefully when things are resolved, the new material will be more like the old.
If I were to try to relate Lynn’s domestic problems with alterations in her strip with respect to the character’s personal interactions, then it would go back awhile. I remember at one point, trying to find strips where Elly hugged other people, in particular April, and found I had to go quite a ways back to find them. In recent years, Elly hugged Moira Kinney more than anyone else in her family.
There was a point in the strip, where feelings were displayed with some passion. Elly and John used to kiss and hug regularly, April got physical affection from her mom and not just her dad, and in Liz’s romances, there was a lot of kissing going on (as opposed to her almost sisterly relationships with Paul and Warren). I traced it down to about early 2002 when the interactions between the characters started to become less friendly. Because that is so far back, I don’t know if they are related to Rod, or just Lynn having to deal with her dystonia, which could have put her in a constantly cranky mood.
On the other hand, she seems to be trying really hard to make it look like Elizabeth and Anthony are a romantic couple, and finding very little success in my eyes, possibly because she is lifting things from her relationship with Rod. As I understand it, one of her first dates with Rod was to go to a wedding together. And the strip where Anthony and Liz make out their lists of desired attributes in a mate is a duplication of something she and Rod did before they were married. She may think of that as a romantic moment for her, whereas I find it extremely unromantic and somewhat clinical. That was a pretty recent strip, so it is pretty obvious Lynn Johnston is still dealing with Rod’s betrayal and probably will for some time to come. Look at how long she has been dealing with her relationship with her dad, as reflected by Grandpa Jim. I expect a Liz / Anthony romance chocked to the gills with personal references and there is no telling what kind of mish mash we are going to see.
It would be very nice if she started to do good quality, new material; but I fear her domestic problems are just going to make things worse, and not better.
The usernames that post on this blog are NOT in the group that I find offensive. Without pointing fingers, the post that disturbed me the most was a reprint of a horrible post that was sent to Coffee Talk; the writer mocked Shannon (i.e. Stephanie) and then boasted that CT asked that she tone down her comments because they were terribly hurtful to Stephanie. Enough said.
A lot of times, I will just look for usernames I know
I have a thing for redheads, so I also look for that dude with the victory signs.
Anon NYC
Yes. I forgot why she put Jim in the strip: to deal with her real father's refusal to step up and do anything about her mother. That being said, characters such as Warren and Paul, who are Rod-as-he-is, are not gonna be too popular with their creator. John and Anthony, being sort of idealized versions of the Rod-who-should-have-been, on the other hand are.
Anon NYC,
I will have to make sure that red-headed dude puts something for you to read.
dreadedcandiru2,
I find it interesting with Rod and Anthony. You see, when Lynn Johnston wrote about doing her list of ideal items in her mate with Rod Johnston, she pointed out the only thing about which they disagreed, was he wanted to be the flying dentist, and she wanted city life. As Therese will tell you, Anthony is not a city life kind of boy.
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