All Piché All the Time
When the hybrid for For Better or For Worse started in September, 2007 and Lynn Johnston said she was going to mix new material with old material; she also said she was not going to imitate her art style from back in 1979 and 1980. I couldn’t agree with her more on that decision. She has grown too much as an artist to have to be forced to regress to imitate her style when she was just starting and didn’t know jack diddly. There has been some new art which was supposedly drawn somewhat like the old style in order to frame the reprint strip stories and the initial premise was that Lynn was doing that too; but the more I looked at it, the more I realized the art matched that of the background artist Laura Piché.
As a point of history, I remember seeing the hybrid strip on September 14, 2007 and this was the one that caused me to realize that Laura Piché had done all the art and not just the background character. I looked in panel 2 at the passenger beside Elly, and this character looked just like a Laura Piché background character. Having that character side-by-side with the pseudo-old style drawing of Elly drew attention to the fact that the line work and the style of drawing was the same. I concluded that Laura Piché drew both the background character and Elly.
The only reason I bring this up, is that with today’s For Better or For Worse, it appears that there another artist at work other than Lynn Johnston, and this is not pseudo-old style Lynn. Right off in the first panel, little Merrie is too big-eyed, and the socked feet are not the standard Lynn Johnston “duck bill feet” she likes to do when her characters wear socks. The eyes on the characters are circles. The mouth shapes are different, etc. In the final panel with Mike and kids right beside the background Christmas display, the similarity of the line work could not be more obvious to me. Background artist Laura Piché did this strip’s art all by herself. The question then is why?
The answer comes from the notes Lynn Johnston made about the Hybrid strip on her website:
The strip's current storylines will be interlaced with Patterson family remembrances until sometime in 2008. At that point, time will stand still for the Patterson family, but not for their stories! Earlier story arcs will be expanded upon and relived by a current generation of fans and introduced for the first time to a new generation.
So, if the Patterson family remembrances are still going to occur to frame the reprints after time is frozen and it is all reprints all the time, Laura has to prove that she can draw the modern version of the characters in a style similar to Lynn Johnston. Having proved that she can draw in pseudo old-style, she has now proved with today’s strip she can draw in modern Lynn style. She is all set to do the art for the framing sequences all by herself, assuming she passed the test today.
This means Lynn Johnston is free to retire completely, and move her body as far away from her studio in Corbeil, Ontario and her cheating ex-husband as she wants. You go, Lynn! And congratulations, Laura!
As a point of history, I remember seeing the hybrid strip on September 14, 2007 and this was the one that caused me to realize that Laura Piché had done all the art and not just the background character. I looked in panel 2 at the passenger beside Elly, and this character looked just like a Laura Piché background character. Having that character side-by-side with the pseudo-old style drawing of Elly drew attention to the fact that the line work and the style of drawing was the same. I concluded that Laura Piché drew both the background character and Elly.
The only reason I bring this up, is that with today’s For Better or For Worse, it appears that there another artist at work other than Lynn Johnston, and this is not pseudo-old style Lynn. Right off in the first panel, little Merrie is too big-eyed, and the socked feet are not the standard Lynn Johnston “duck bill feet” she likes to do when her characters wear socks. The eyes on the characters are circles. The mouth shapes are different, etc. In the final panel with Mike and kids right beside the background Christmas display, the similarity of the line work could not be more obvious to me. Background artist Laura Piché did this strip’s art all by herself. The question then is why?
The answer comes from the notes Lynn Johnston made about the Hybrid strip on her website:
The strip's current storylines will be interlaced with Patterson family remembrances until sometime in 2008. At that point, time will stand still for the Patterson family, but not for their stories! Earlier story arcs will be expanded upon and relived by a current generation of fans and introduced for the first time to a new generation.
So, if the Patterson family remembrances are still going to occur to frame the reprints after time is frozen and it is all reprints all the time, Laura has to prove that she can draw the modern version of the characters in a style similar to Lynn Johnston. Having proved that she can draw in pseudo old-style, she has now proved with today’s strip she can draw in modern Lynn style. She is all set to do the art for the framing sequences all by herself, assuming she passed the test today.
This means Lynn Johnston is free to retire completely, and move her body as far away from her studio in Corbeil, Ontario and her cheating ex-husband as she wants. You go, Lynn! And congratulations, Laura!
posted by howard at 11:22 PM
7 Comments:
She's not going to be satisfied with just writing framing strips so her boss can wait out the clock in Florida forever. Sooner or later, she's going to want to write her own original plotlines. This would work out best for evryone if she could convince Lynn that people do want to se more of the Patterson saga. Without Lynn's baggage, the characters might even become respectable people.
dreadedcandiru2,
Considering how simplistic the framing strips have been so far, I wouldn't be surprised if writing them too is already on the list of Laura responsibilities. Original plotlines written by :Laura instead of framing sequences are a whole different thing though. Lynn has been against that since the beginning when she talked about retiring.
That makes sense. That's the reason the unnamed artist she offered to hand it over to begged off. He or she did not want Lynn breathing down his or her neck because of what s/he was doing to 'her' characters.
I think another clue supporting your hypothesis, howtheduck, can be found in that CBC clip from their program The Hour. I don't remember the exact wording, but the interviewer asked her about having "help" with drawing the strip. And instead of sticking with her tried-and-true line about doing all the sketching and inking the main characters, she said something about having a "friend" who "draws just like me." I immediately thought that the "friend" must be Laura Piché and that she was pretty much admitting that your theory is true.
This means Lynn Johnston is free to retire completely, and move her body as far away from her studio in Corbeil, Ontario and her cheating ex-husband as she wants.
Howard, is there really a Santa Claus???
Adrianne
aprilp_katje,
Good catch on the CBC clip from The Hour. I missed that one. As I recollect, Lynn was pretty loose on that show with the future of the strip, even admitting it is going to end with the wedding. Of course, if Lynn can see the light at the end of the tunnel, it may no longer be important to her to maintain that illusion for her fan base. After all, if the material is going to be mainly reprints of her old stuff, then what does it matter who draws the framing sequences?
Yes, Virginia, I mean Adrianne, there really is a Santa Claus. One of the rumours that floated about over the Crown Princess discussion some weeks back was that Lynn was considering moving from Corbeil. If she does, I honestly do not blame her. It looks like a very small town, where she would have to face the effects of Rod Johnston’s shenanigans on regular basis. I would probably want to move too.
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