Laura Piché Takes Charge
Today’s For Better or For Worse strip appears to be completely the work of Laura Piché, the lady who draws the backgrounds and background characters. It didn’t really come to me, until we got to today’s strip and there was the guy sitting next to Elly and company on the plane, who has the typical physical characteristics of the background characters. The line and figure work on this character so matches that of “old style” Elly, Mike and Elizabeth; Lynn Johnston must have decided to let Laura draw the whole thing. Herein lies the true secret of the hybrid. We have the hybrid art Lynn Johnston does (like Merrie with Super Teddy), hybrid art from reprints, and hybrid art from Laura (like today). If there are going to be lot of introductions to old strips like what we have in today’s strip, then Laura handles it, while Lynn takes off. That’s pretty clever to make updated old style art = modern Laura Piché-style art.
posted by howard at 1:28 AM
9 Comments:
I'd often suspected that she wasn't really the sole artist or author. Not, of course, that she'd admit to doing so. She's far too vain for that. Also, if she did, people would ask her why she didn't simply turn the thing over to her flunkies like the people from Gasoline Alley and Blondie and retire.
Dreadedcandiru2,
It has long been a practice in the comic strip field not to properly credit the creators. Laura Piché and Jackie Levesque, who does the grayscaling and colouring are a large part of what makes the comic strip look like it does, but “Lynn” is the name signed each day. Likewise, Jim Davis, over at Garfield, probably has not touched a strip in years, but “Jim Davis” is on every strip.
The same thing used to happen in the comic book field, where every Batman comic book had Bob Kane’s name on it, even when it was very obvious Bob Kane had nothing whatsoever to do with it. Fortunately, in that field, the industry realized what a disservice they were doing to their creators, who were unable to advertise their skills in their craft. Now each comic book has the full artistic credits listed. Comic strips still lag behind. Lynn Johnson is not doing anything that most of the comic strip field is not doing.
To Lynn Johnston’s credit, she will at least acknowledge Laura Piché and Jackie Levesque on her website, and in interviews she takes credit only for the writing, and the art on the main characters, but admits the other parts of the strip are handled by assistants. I can certainly believe the writing, but the story on the main character art is an obvious lie. From my observations, Lynn Johnston has been using other artists on the main characters as early as February, 2002. I don’t know that it has to do with vanity exactly. Lynn likes to compare herself to Charles Schulz, who continued to draw Peanuts until his death even with a very shaky hand. I think she likes the idea that she emulates him by doing her own art even with her own shaky hand, even if she doesn’t draw everything she says she does.
That's a good point. The creator usually has very little to do with the day to day art and scripts but functions more as a figurehead. Davis (who all this reminded me of after my post) makes an admission of it, of course, but the others prefer not to.
Dreadedcandiru2,
I think Lynn could admit to letting others do the art without any shame. She has dystonia, after all. However, considering how the Coffee Talk kind of people lavish praise on Lynn, she may think better of making that kind of confession, for fear of losing the interest of her true fan base.
Coincidentally, the most recent question at Q & Eh is from someone who mistook the repeat strips as being someone else's work:
Every now and then a different artist draws the cartoon. The lastest one, maybe talented, but the characters all look witchy. The style is too primitive. We've gotten used to the attractive Pattersons not the Adams family.
And here is the response:
Sorry, but Lynn does draw all the art herself! Some of the strips you're seeing now are done in her older style from 28 years ago, which is why the Pattersons look so different today.
Lynn's dystonia is in remission, ever since she stopped her hormone-replacement therapy.
aprilp_katje
Lynn's dystonia is in remission, ever since she stopped her hormone-replacement therapy.
Right. I thought she said she still had some kind of tremor in that podcast.
Yes--she did say that she has a tremor (just like "Sparky"!). This seems to be a separate condition.
When I saw today's strip, it seemed jarring. So far in the last week/2 weeks, there have been three distinctly different styles in the drawings. This is really disconcerting; I hope it soon settles down into one style. Of course, I doubt that I will be reading it much longer, anyway.
Anonymous,
Considering the nature of the hybrid, I think 3 different art styles are going to be the way things are, until Lynn gets to the point where she declares FBorFW to be all reprints.
Of course, I doubt that I will be reading it much longer, anyway.
I hope you stick around for the Liz / Anthony romance leading to their wedding. I have such high expectations of it, I wouldn't miss it.
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