Chicago Article
Lynn Johnston has a new article out with the Chicago Tribune. I will comment on any part that is new to me.
And in April 2007, her 32-year marriage fell apart, leaving her to face a retirement without her husband.
I notice this time the husband is left nameless, which leaves us to wonder if it was Rod Johnston or imaginary husband John Patterson. If Lynn said her line about John Patterson again to the Chicago Tribune, perhaps they had the good taste to leave it out.
She decided to devote more time and space to the present-day story than she had planned, though still running some old ones.
From this I gather that even though Lynn originally started going every other month with new vs. reprint material, her original plan had been to have much more reprint material.
As of now, readers are seeing present-day strips on some days, and old strips -- some from as far back as 28 years ago -- on other days.
“As of now” is accurate, since the every other month style was what she did before January.
For example, a letter to the editor published Feb. 12 in the Tallahassee (Fla.) Democrat said: "Has anyone else questioned the differences in the drawing of the comic strip 'For Better or For Worse'? Every few days it looks as if someone completely different from Lynn Johnston is doing the drawing, and I don't recognize the characters."
Therein lies the whole problem with the hybrid method, and succinctly put.
Johnston has not been happy either. "I wasn't that comfortable with it," she says. So she made the decision to pursue this new course.
I had gotten the impression from prior interviews, that the syndicate was the one pushing the reprint from the beginning idea, but here Lynn Johnston takes credit for it.
"Now that I look back at the material that is going to run again, I see some significant areas that I want to work on -- the day that Michael discovers that he has a crush on Deanna in elementary school, for example," she says.
Here is a clear example of where Lynn is going to make alterations to the original storyline to make what follows even more dramatic. As I recollect the original Deanna strips, she did not really have that many with Michael before she mysteriously disappeared. Lynn has apparently looked at the material and has come to the same conclusion. My guess is she has decided to make it more substantial, probably to make it seem more like a logical choice for Mike to fall back in love when Mike meets Deanna again in university after her car wreck. When I look over the car wreck storyline on-line, Mike falls for Deanna almost immediately after visiting her in the hospital, and a stronger storyline from his youth would allow this move to make more sense, considering Mike was dating long time girlfriend Rhetta Blum at the time.
If the reaction to the current form is any indication, the figures back her up. The strip, which runs in about 2,000 newspapers, has had about a dozen cancellations since July, but eight new clients signed on in that time, according to Kathie Kerr, a spokeswoman for Universal Press Syndicate, which distributes the strip.
Since Syndicates often buy and sell strips in packages, these statistics do not mean a lot to me.
"The work that I'm doing now is very structured," she says. "The characters are much more realistic. I draw every brick on a building. The way I used to draw was much more fluid and easygoing and big expressions and lots of slapstick. ... I would like to go back to that, and I think I can."
This is kind of a slap in the face to Laura Piché who is the one who actually draws those bricks as the background artist. If Lynn truly went back to her old style, then it would be a style with almost no background art. I would feel sorry for Laura, except that I have already seen the “old-style Lynn” artwork and it is my belief that it is really Laura Piché and not Lynn Johnston doing it. I feel bad that Laura will not get credit for it, but it is still a common practise in the comic strip industry to not give credit.
When it comes right down to it, Johnston cannot bring herself to let go of the strip. "I do want to continue," she said. "It is a joy for me. I love this work."
This is very true. And to be honest, even if Rod Johnston had not cheated leading to the divorce, I think this would have been a real issue for Lynn and her retirement plans. It seemed clear to me in the year or so before her originally-predicted September, 2007 retirement date, she had not planned the sequence of stories well-enough to finish in September.
Does Johnston envision a time when she will be completely retired?"I think if I was ill, yeah," she said. "I think if I was really not healthy and couldn't concentrate and couldn't draw, I think that would be the case."But Johnston does plan to say goodbye to her readers when she ends the present-day story. "There will be some printed material the day following the strip's story line ... ending," she said.
"I don't know exactly word for word, or I'd have it all written out in front of me. But I know what I want to say after all this time. I want to give a special message to everybody from me personally and thank the people that I've worked with and segue into the beginning again."
Obviously she is not thinking about the Sunday strips, but it may be too far away in time for her to do that. Nevertheless, we have the news that the modern day ending will be easy to see.
And in April 2007, her 32-year marriage fell apart, leaving her to face a retirement without her husband.
I notice this time the husband is left nameless, which leaves us to wonder if it was Rod Johnston or imaginary husband John Patterson. If Lynn said her line about John Patterson again to the Chicago Tribune, perhaps they had the good taste to leave it out.
She decided to devote more time and space to the present-day story than she had planned, though still running some old ones.
From this I gather that even though Lynn originally started going every other month with new vs. reprint material, her original plan had been to have much more reprint material.
As of now, readers are seeing present-day strips on some days, and old strips -- some from as far back as 28 years ago -- on other days.
“As of now” is accurate, since the every other month style was what she did before January.
For example, a letter to the editor published Feb. 12 in the Tallahassee (Fla.) Democrat said: "Has anyone else questioned the differences in the drawing of the comic strip 'For Better or For Worse'? Every few days it looks as if someone completely different from Lynn Johnston is doing the drawing, and I don't recognize the characters."
Therein lies the whole problem with the hybrid method, and succinctly put.
Johnston has not been happy either. "I wasn't that comfortable with it," she says. So she made the decision to pursue this new course.
I had gotten the impression from prior interviews, that the syndicate was the one pushing the reprint from the beginning idea, but here Lynn Johnston takes credit for it.
"Now that I look back at the material that is going to run again, I see some significant areas that I want to work on -- the day that Michael discovers that he has a crush on Deanna in elementary school, for example," she says.
Here is a clear example of where Lynn is going to make alterations to the original storyline to make what follows even more dramatic. As I recollect the original Deanna strips, she did not really have that many with Michael before she mysteriously disappeared. Lynn has apparently looked at the material and has come to the same conclusion. My guess is she has decided to make it more substantial, probably to make it seem more like a logical choice for Mike to fall back in love when Mike meets Deanna again in university after her car wreck. When I look over the car wreck storyline on-line, Mike falls for Deanna almost immediately after visiting her in the hospital, and a stronger storyline from his youth would allow this move to make more sense, considering Mike was dating long time girlfriend Rhetta Blum at the time.
If the reaction to the current form is any indication, the figures back her up. The strip, which runs in about 2,000 newspapers, has had about a dozen cancellations since July, but eight new clients signed on in that time, according to Kathie Kerr, a spokeswoman for Universal Press Syndicate, which distributes the strip.
Since Syndicates often buy and sell strips in packages, these statistics do not mean a lot to me.
"The work that I'm doing now is very structured," she says. "The characters are much more realistic. I draw every brick on a building. The way I used to draw was much more fluid and easygoing and big expressions and lots of slapstick. ... I would like to go back to that, and I think I can."
This is kind of a slap in the face to Laura Piché who is the one who actually draws those bricks as the background artist. If Lynn truly went back to her old style, then it would be a style with almost no background art. I would feel sorry for Laura, except that I have already seen the “old-style Lynn” artwork and it is my belief that it is really Laura Piché and not Lynn Johnston doing it. I feel bad that Laura will not get credit for it, but it is still a common practise in the comic strip industry to not give credit.
When it comes right down to it, Johnston cannot bring herself to let go of the strip. "I do want to continue," she said. "It is a joy for me. I love this work."
This is very true. And to be honest, even if Rod Johnston had not cheated leading to the divorce, I think this would have been a real issue for Lynn and her retirement plans. It seemed clear to me in the year or so before her originally-predicted September, 2007 retirement date, she had not planned the sequence of stories well-enough to finish in September.
Does Johnston envision a time when she will be completely retired?"I think if I was ill, yeah," she said. "I think if I was really not healthy and couldn't concentrate and couldn't draw, I think that would be the case."But Johnston does plan to say goodbye to her readers when she ends the present-day story. "There will be some printed material the day following the strip's story line ... ending," she said.
"I don't know exactly word for word, or I'd have it all written out in front of me. But I know what I want to say after all this time. I want to give a special message to everybody from me personally and thank the people that I've worked with and segue into the beginning again."
Obviously she is not thinking about the Sunday strips, but it may be too far away in time for her to do that. Nevertheless, we have the news that the modern day ending will be easy to see.
posted by howard at 11:48 AM
9 Comments:
The problem, as I see it, as that somebody tried to talk her into retiring when she never really planned to do that. She may have said that to be civil but I think the desire to emulate her idol Sparky and die at her drawing board was too strong to be denied. What we see now is her attempting to get out of the corner her words had painted her into.
I think that since Lynn is actually planning to go back to the very beginning of the strip and repeat EVERYTHING in chronological order, she really ought to put a moratorium on repeats until she resolves her current stories. Don't you? :)
DreadedCandiru2 ,
The problem, as I see it, as that somebody tried to talk her into retiring when she never really planned to do that.
I can really this being a big issue between her and Rod, who had retired some time back. If he planned to do any of the kind of substantial traveling, as Lynn had discussed awhile back, then being tied to a drawing table would definitely get in the way of those plans.
She may have said that to be civil but I think the desire to emulate her idol Sparky and die at her drawing board was too strong to be denied.
Well, only if Sparky farmed off his drawing to Laura Piché, took lots of vacations and decided to go back and flesh out the characters of his early work in Peanuts, like the secret backstory of Shermy or Violet and their relationship to Charlie Brown.
aprilp_katje,
I also would love it if she stopped with the repeats until she finishes the current stuff. However, that would mean not getting to take off from work for a week or two every month. I suspect that since Lynn has managed to get a little vacation time, she is has been enjoying it a little too much to give it up for the next 6 months.
This effectively means we are going to get about 3 months of new material. I wouldn’t be surprised if at least ½ of that material is stuff like we have had in this month, i.e. little family life stories to hammer in that “Mike is the new Elly” theme. That will still give her 6 weeks to chuck Grandpa Jim in the home, and get Liz married off.
Well, only if Sparky farmed off his drawing to Laura Piché, took lots of vacations and decided to go back and flesh out the characters of his early work in Peanuts, like the secret backstory of Shermy or Violet and their relationship to Charlie Brown.
Yeah. That's the problem, ain't it? She's sorta full of herself and it shows. She only thinks she's the Second Coming of Schulz. The honor goes to Stephan Pastis of "Pearls Before Swine".
At one time she had considered passing the strip on to a new cartoonist, and even got as far as beginning talks with an artist and looking at his work.
"We got into it and we realized it wasn't going to work, because anybody who has the kind of skill it takes to do 'For Better or For Worse' should do their own," Johnston says. "It's hard to put your heart and soul into somebody else's dream, isn't it?"
WOW!!!
tribune reader,
If I had to guess who that person was, it would probably be Kevin Strang, who came in to substitute for Jackie Levesque, when she was on maternity leave back in 2005. Jackie's artistic talent was supposed to cover colouring only, but during the time Kevin was there, I noticed a number of strips that were very-well drawn with an art style using much cleaner line work than I have seen in For Better or For Worse ever since. Lynn claims she draws all the main character figures, but I have seen enough of the art over the last 5 years to know that statement is about as true as the one she made in the Chicago Tribune article about how she draws all the bricks.
Howard:
What strips were those that you think Kevin drew? I was only a sometime reader of FBoFW until the Mtig Pow-Wow strips. Those were beautifully drawn, almost Prince Valiant quality. If Lynn was the actual artist of those, and is capable of that work, then she should be ashamed for churning out some of the terrible artwork in so many of the other strips.
debjyn,
The Mtigwaki pow-wow strips were probably done by Lynn, since they have pictures on the website of her correcting the art at the advice of Perry McLeod-Shabogesic.
The ones that came off differently in 2005 for me, were a number of the strips. Here is an example. They imitate the Lynn style very well, and then from time-to-time you can see an expression or a physical manner which is not classic Lynn. I noticed the lack of the cross-hatched indication of a shadow, and also little things like the characters always have eyes and the eyes are in the right spots on the head. The hands are drawn correctly. There is a limited use of silhouettes. The people carrying the story are framed in close up, filling the panel, instead of at a long distance. I would see strips like this, and then I would strips like the awful ones which made up the zit sequence that year, and it was plain to me that more than one artist was at work.
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