Liz and Anthony end of week 1
This week in For Better or For Worse is really the first week to address the Elizabeth and Anthony relationship since the ice cream shop strip sequence. Lynn has introduced the following things:
1. Françoise has reversed on her opinion of Liz from something to be adopted to something trying to take her father away from her. On the one hand I congratulate Lynn Johnston for responding to the complaints that Françoise was far too easily accepting of Liz. My guess is that Lynn supposed her ideas for how Liz and Anthony reacted to Françoise, were considered to be good parenting on her part. At best, it was flawed parenting.
2. Liz and Anthony spend a lot of time with each other, and they, at least, do domestic things together like the dishes. Unfortunately, all the things they do together are awkward and stiff including doing the dishes; but I don’t blame the story for this, just the story-teller.
3. Liz and Anthony’s affection for each has changed from what is was at Shawna-Marie Verano’s wedding. This one really is the story-teller, who could have simply imitated the romantic poses from the wedding story; but has instead chosen to have Liz and Anthony take on a different set of romantic behaviours, and ones that don’t involve kissing, which I frankly find a little surprising, because I had marked that characteristic as the one which separated Liz’s relationship with Anthony vs. her and Paul or Warren, who she very rarely kissed.
4. Liz and Anthony’s conversation indicates that they have every intention of being around each other for a long time. They still haven’t said they love each other, but we’ll take our advances in the relationship how we get them.
One of things the strip sequence suffered from, was the use of the hybrid reprint strip. Liz and Anthony’s reactions to each other, like the long farewell sequence of today’s strip are a lot cuter when the relationship is pretty new. 4 months into it, the farewell sequence seems a little odd and out-of-place.
1. Françoise has reversed on her opinion of Liz from something to be adopted to something trying to take her father away from her. On the one hand I congratulate Lynn Johnston for responding to the complaints that Françoise was far too easily accepting of Liz. My guess is that Lynn supposed her ideas for how Liz and Anthony reacted to Françoise, were considered to be good parenting on her part. At best, it was flawed parenting.
2. Liz and Anthony spend a lot of time with each other, and they, at least, do domestic things together like the dishes. Unfortunately, all the things they do together are awkward and stiff including doing the dishes; but I don’t blame the story for this, just the story-teller.
3. Liz and Anthony’s affection for each has changed from what is was at Shawna-Marie Verano’s wedding. This one really is the story-teller, who could have simply imitated the romantic poses from the wedding story; but has instead chosen to have Liz and Anthony take on a different set of romantic behaviours, and ones that don’t involve kissing, which I frankly find a little surprising, because I had marked that characteristic as the one which separated Liz’s relationship with Anthony vs. her and Paul or Warren, who she very rarely kissed.
4. Liz and Anthony’s conversation indicates that they have every intention of being around each other for a long time. They still haven’t said they love each other, but we’ll take our advances in the relationship how we get them.
One of things the strip sequence suffered from, was the use of the hybrid reprint strip. Liz and Anthony’s reactions to each other, like the long farewell sequence of today’s strip are a lot cuter when the relationship is pretty new. 4 months into it, the farewell sequence seems a little odd and out-of-place.
posted by howard at 12:01 AM
3 Comments:
On the one hand I congratulate Lynn Johnston for responding to the complaints that Françoise was far too easily accepting of Liz.
I'm kind of torn about this. I'm glad that she's addressing reader concerns. But somehow, it comes off as a desperate "NOW will you guys get behind this relationship already?"
Maybe I'm just reading too much into it. But it's not a clarification sort of thing, like everybody wrote in and said "Does Therese ever see Francie?" and then she made a few strips to show the one-weekend-a-month custody arrangement. In particular because Lynn is notorious for leaving important information out of the strip and only putting it in the monthly letters. But in this case, she's suddenly addressing every little thing the readers might be "confused" (read: irritated) about. It's a persistent series of retconning.
People said "Ugh, they have nothing in common," so we get the checklist at dinner strip.
People said, "Anthony was the ass in the divorce!" so she made strips that showed how he was the victim of Therese's evil attempts to change him and the expectations of her even more evil parents.
People said, "It's really hard to date someone with a kid," so we get this week, in contrast to the earlier "Can we keep her?" week.
Never mind the constant "Willing to make a lifelong commitment?" / "We're just friends." / "I'll be around for a long time." / "We're taking it slow." / "Oh, Anthony, I can't bear to walk out this door!" flux which seems to be trying to say "See, they're really passionate about each other! But they're not rushing into anything, either" to address the complaints that they're bland milksops or that Liz shouldn't settle down too quickly.
The whole thing just smacks of a desperation that we'll all be rising from our chairs to cheer when Ant finally pops the question. Which brings up my rebellious streak and makes me hate the couple even more every time I see them.
-bad_latin
bad_latin:
The whole thing just smacks of a desperation that we'll all be rising from our chairs to cheer when Ant finally pops the question. Which brings up my rebellious streak and makes me hate the couple even more every time I see them.
Her desperation that we'll love her meeting of the mindless has affected how the characters behave. Yesterday's con game was born out of the desperate and misguided fear that Liz wouldn't be willing to play the martyr and spend the rest of her life whining about how her step-daughter hates her. Liz's bizarre stasis this week was itself born of ignorant panic. She actually believed that Anthony would prefer his child over her if push came to shove when we all know he has no other purpose that to stand around staring at her like he was smacked in the back of the head with a two-by-four. We see two pallid idiots who barely care for one another united by the dread of the impossible and we're supposed to treat their loveless sham of a marriage like the Best Romance EVAH!! Right. Sure.
The difference I see in the way the strips used to be put together is that with the advent of the Coffee Talk column, Lynn has essentially created a venue by which she can get direct feedback. When she had the podcast interview, it was pretty clear from her statements that both she and the podcast interviewer had read criticisms which were placed in the Coffee Talk.
There are differing philosophies some artists have about art and its commercial viability:
1. The artist should make their art to their own satisfaction and if other people like it, then that’s great too, but the artist should not change their vision to satisfy anyone other than themselves. I remember Woody Allen addressed the issue quite nicely in his Bullets over Broadway, where the gangster/writer decided that true art was worth dying for and killing over. This was the perspective Lynn Johnston had, when in the podcast, she told her nitpicky critics to “Get a life.”
2. There is another viewpoint that the artist can do what they consider to be their art, but put it in a framework that makes it commercially palatable. The classic case I can remember of this is the old Marx Brothers movies, like A Day at the Races or A Night at the Opera, where the Marx brothers shtick was surrounded by a plot to keep the viewers at the time emotionally involved in the movie. This is the perspective Lynn Johnston has when she thinks of her work as a part of a larger graphic novel, but where the venue of getting that novel across is from the work of the newspapers.
3. Then there is the art that is created solely for the purpose of engaging the audience and getting them involved in it emotionally, at the sacrifice of coherent art. It is into this category, For Better or For Worse falls with these story retcons.
What Lynn Johnston has done with Anthony and Liz is she wanted a story where the two lovers are separated by a number of difficulties, not the least of which is their own actions; but everyone realizes they were meant to be together at the end, and roots for them to get together. However, the tale she crafted was not that at all. Instead, what she had was a tale of obsessive love, where two people manage to destroy the lives of everyone around them, for the sake of putting their relationship together. As a tale of obsessive love, it works out fine. It’s not a great story, but it is logically consistent. In my opinion, Lynn Johnston should have just gone with that story, and accept the fact it veered away from her original intent.
What she seems to be trying to do with the retcons is to not only to address the criticisms, but in doing so, try to change the story she did into the story she wanted to do. The funny part is not only does that make you “hate the couple even more every time I see them”, but it also puts those characters into the same situation which caused their story to change in the first place and reinforces the story of obsessive love. In this week, for example, the two selfish persons in this couple act just like two selfish persons. One emotionally blackmails the kid into being nice to his girlfriend. The girlfriend announces that she is not going to go out of her way to woo the kid, but she is going to force the kid to come to her. Both selfish. Both in keeping with their character.
The more Lynn tries to make these two characters become what she wants them to be, the more they become what they have been presented to be. Frankly, I find the whole situation to be quite amusing to see Lynn try to convince me of their loving romance, and then to fail again and again. She just keeps digging the hole she is in with these two, deeper and deeper, and I enjoy watching her struggle with it.
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