Remembrance Day
One of the things I like about the “people” shown in For Better or For Worse is the picture of the Lynn Johnston’s mother and father in their WWII uniforms. They look so cute together and hardly like the monsters of parenthood described by Lynn Johnston in her interviews after their deaths.
You can see that Lynn’s mother is taller than her father. And yet on Jim’s RCAF page, the pictures of Elly’s mom and dad show the father is clearly taller. When I see things like that, I cannot help but think the resizing of Mervyn and Ursula Ridgway has to do with the way Lynn Johnston has described her mother and her relationship with her father, where she dominated him and he did not protect Lynn from her brutal punishments.
The other thing I wonder, as we have today’s strip, where Iris alternatively takes care of and makes interpretations about Jim, it makes me wonder if Lynn is still wrestling with the demons of her parents. World War II started it all for Lynn Johnston, because her parents met and married due to the war. When Remembrance Day comes along, I imagine Lynn remembers the war was also her beginning.
You can see that Lynn’s mother is taller than her father. And yet on Jim’s RCAF page, the pictures of Elly’s mom and dad show the father is clearly taller. When I see things like that, I cannot help but think the resizing of Mervyn and Ursula Ridgway has to do with the way Lynn Johnston has described her mother and her relationship with her father, where she dominated him and he did not protect Lynn from her brutal punishments.
The other thing I wonder, as we have today’s strip, where Iris alternatively takes care of and makes interpretations about Jim, it makes me wonder if Lynn is still wrestling with the demons of her parents. World War II started it all for Lynn Johnston, because her parents met and married due to the war. When Remembrance Day comes along, I imagine Lynn remembers the war was also her beginning.
posted by howard at 11:29 PM
7 Comments:
It wouldn't surprise me in the least that Lynn is still trying to make sense of her childhood. Most of what I've seen in the last few years is motivated in some way or another by her need to do so. She's set herself an impossible task: building in fantasy the perfect life she never had. A less driven person would simply accept there were some things that couldn't be helped and move on. We see them as having achieved inner peace despite a turbulent past. She'd see them as quitters and wusses.
Dreaded, I do think you are being much too harsh. I don't agree that LJ has created a comic strip that depicts a perfect life nor do I see that she has created characters who are quitters and wusses. The characters are only loosely based on LJ’s family. And that’s a good thing.
Anon NYC
The problem, as I see it, is that Lynn seems not to really know how to wrap up Jim's storyline, partly because of her remaining issues with ther parents but mostly because she doesn't really want the story to end. If Jim passes on, that means she has to completely say goodbye to her dad and I don't think she wants to do that just yet.
Jim is an imaginary character that is modeled after her father, but he is not Lynn's father. We know that LJ has decided that in the months that remain no one will die, not because she is trying to hold on to her father but because it would be a sad way to end her story. I do seem to remember that she said something to that effect, and I have no reason to doubt her.
Anon NYC
Which leads us to the real resolution of his and Iris's story arc: being settled in an assisted living facility so the two of them can get the care they BOTH need. I don't think she's too much better off than her husband, truth be told, and taking this job on because she thinks she's supposed to has made whatever health porblems she had going in a lot worse. Not only is she neglecting her own very real needs to do something someone else could and should do, the stress is helping to shorten the few days she has left.
Anon NYC
I believe you are correct that Lynn Johnston has stated in her most recent interviews that no one will die. Now that she has entered this hybrid phase, I often wondered if she was going to have Jim’s speech return so that he could function as a hybrid reprint strip narrator, but the longer he stays in his speechless state, the less likely that seems, particularly when (a) she can go to his thoughts (like she did today) and use them to reprint whatever she wants and (b) she has already shown that there does not have to be a match between the reprint strip participants and the modern day persons narrating it, i.e. Mike and Meredith narrating a story about Elly and Marian.
I will agree that Jim is an imaginary character that is only modeled after her father; however, Lynn has stated in other interviews she does associate her characters with their real-life counterparts. The evidence pointing to this was in one recent interview where she talked about how she went through a period of strips where she didn’t want to draw John Patterson, because he was modeled after her husband Rod Johnston and that whole ugly business between them these days. That tells me that there is at least some emotional attachment to John Patterson vis-à-vis Rod Johnston.
The dreadedcandiru2 has a point about trying to create a perfect life in fantasy though the strip. Mike becomes a writer because Lynn wanted Aaron Johnston to be a writer. However, he is not just a writer, but is headed down the road to becoming a successful one. Elizabeth becomes a school teacher because Lynn wanted Katie Johnston to be a schoolteacher. In Elizabeth’s school teaching appearances, she always seems to have an exceptionally motivated and responsive classroom, which are unlike the ones I remember growing up. However, Lynn is a good enough writer to put in some conflict. She shows Mike struggling to make ends meet and she shows Liz making some basic teaching mistakes, so it is not completely perfect.
Howard,
Lynn has stated in other interviews she does associate her characters with their real-life counterparts.
Even readers (me!) associate FBorFW characters with members of their own families. But the fact is that Aaron is not a writer, Katie is not a teacher, and Lynn is not a grandmother.
Lynn may have thought that teaching would be a great profession for her daughter but that is a little different from saying that she wanted her to be a teacher. Katie has chosen a different career path and Lynn seems to be happy with her daughter’s choice. Aaron has said that he’s more like Weed than Michael.
It's easy to forget that these are cartoon characters and they do have a life of their own!
Anon NYC
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