Socker Mike
As I saw today’s Sunday strip of For Better or For Worse, I had a sudden sense of déjà vu. The theme of the strip is virtually identical to the one from last Sunday, where Robin mangles his gloves by whirling them around in circles. This created an odd symmetry which had to be intentionally done by Lynn Johnston to show this “circle of life” theme she has going where, the younger Pattersons fall into the same habits as their father did before them. In other words, if I take the two Sundays back-to-back, I get a “Look at this. Now look at the original.” feeling.
It’s interesting to contrast the 2 strips.
a. Mike’s socks stretching are much more believable than Robin’s winter mittens. I have never seen winter mittens stretch like that, but socks yes, most definitely yes. So, Lynn has taken a story from 1979, and actually writes a new story, which is less believable than the first story.
b. The Peanuts influence. Mike’s dance around with the sock is unmistakably the “Supper Time” dance done by Snoopy, the dog. Robin, on the other hand, stands and swings his mitten and his physical movement is much, more “3-year-old boy”-like. In this case Lynn Johnston has taken a story from 1979 and writes a story which is more believable than the second story.
It’s interesting to contrast the 2 strips.
a. Mike’s socks stretching are much more believable than Robin’s winter mittens. I have never seen winter mittens stretch like that, but socks yes, most definitely yes. So, Lynn has taken a story from 1979, and actually writes a new story, which is less believable than the first story.
b. The Peanuts influence. Mike’s dance around with the sock is unmistakably the “Supper Time” dance done by Snoopy, the dog. Robin, on the other hand, stands and swings his mitten and his physical movement is much, more “3-year-old boy”-like. In this case Lynn Johnston has taken a story from 1979 and writes a story which is more believable than the second story.
posted by howard at 10:55 PM
17 Comments:
I have never seen winter mittens stretch like that, but socks yes, most definitely yes.
I don’t recall seeing socks or gloves stretch like that, but I do remember two handmade wool sweaters that shrank in the wash.
Anon NYC
What I find amusing is the reaction the mothers have to the end result. Deanna's look of complete confusion tells us just as much about her as Elly's hangdog look of utter defeat. It tells me that even though the children behave similarly, the end result may be different. Mike, Liz and April wound up the way they are because Elly was a fountain of negativity. Meredith and Robin will probably have a different destiny because Deanna will just want to know how stuff happened and ask that it not happen again.
I guess I'm so relieved that Elly doesn't unhinge her jaw and shriek that I can't be too bothered by her facial expression. Especially since Mike is off doing who-knows-what by then, so her facial expression doesn't affect him.
It's too bad we can't rely on Sunday to be a respite from the flashbacks anymore.
aprilp_katje,
It's too bad we can't rely on Sunday to be a respite from the flashbacks anymore.
Lynn has been going 2-3 Sundays reprints and 2-3 Sundays new. We had a few new Sundays in a row, so we were due for a reprint today and probably next week too. On the happy side, we just finished a week of dailies reprinted, so if Lynn follows her current trend of every other week, then we can expect new daily strips next week. Also, I fully expect them to be Liz and Anthony, the only characters not touched on with new strips since last Christmas.
Take heart aprilp_katje.
Thanks for the reassurance, howtheduck. Part of me worries that this coming week will be another tease--maybe giving us a series of Liz/Anthony strips wherein almost nothing happens at all. This seems to be Lynn's preference lately.
aprilp_katje,
Part of me worries that this coming week will be another tease--maybe giving us a series of Liz/Anthony strips wherein almost nothing happens at all. This seems to be Lynn's preference lately.
Well, I certainly wouldn't put it past Lynn to give us the worst of both worlds. We're probably in for four months or so of gridlock followed by a brief, confusing denouement.
aprilp_katje,
Part of me worries that this coming week will be another tease--maybe giving us a series of Liz/Anthony strips wherein almost nothing happens at all.
OR she gives us a Liz and Anthony sequence doing nothing which leads to the following week of Liz remembering something from 1979, related to some phrase or pun Liz uses from the modern story.
dreadedcandiru2,
We're probably in for four months or so of gridlock followed by a brief, confusing denouement.
The other possibility is that Lynn does this one week on / one week off stuff all the way to the September wedding. I can't think of anything in1979 that is wedding-related, so I don't know how she will relate the reprints to wedding preparation. Based on the quality of the story-telling we have had since she started the hybrid back in September, I have serious doubts as to whether Lynn can tell a wedding preparation story even the near the quality of story-telling she had prior to the hybrid.
Anon NYC
I don’t recall seeing socks or gloves stretch like that, but I do remember two handmade wool sweaters that shrank in the wash.
I have had some socks stretch like that, but they were probably 2X as old as Michael is supposed to be in this story.
Howard
I have had some socks stretch like that, but they were probably 2X as old as Michael is supposed to be in this story.
Washing machines don’t eat socks in Arizona? No sock would survive that long in NYC!
Anon NYC
howtheduck, a flashback week following this coming week's strips is likely whether Lynn develops the story or not.
No, there are no wedding stories to draw on from the first collection (which is mostly 1980 since the strip debuted in September of 1979).
Anon NYC
Washing machines don’t eat socks in Arizona? No sock would survive that long in NYC!
I am the proud (shameful to my wife) owner of several very, old socks. Years ago, Hints from Heloise pointed out that if you safety-pin your socks together, then you don’t have to worry about matching them together after the wash. Once I developed this habit, it had the side effect of letting my socks survive the perils of the washing machine well past the lifetime of ordinary socks.
No one else in my family does this. In fact, my wife considers the practise to be a disruption of the natural order of things, where the washing machine eats the socks and causes you to need to buy new socks.
aprilp_katje,
No, there are no wedding stories to draw on from the first collection (which is mostly 1980 since the strip debuted in September of 1979).
Well, then Lynn will have to be very clever how she works in the old material with the wedding preparation material. Perhaps someone pins a boutonnière on Michael, piercing the skin, causing him to remember a time when he was young and cried. Perhaps Elly spills some punch on John, and remembers a laundering story. I am almost looking forward to seeing how ridiculous Lynn will be in tying them together.
Howard
Don't safety pins damage socks? My husband has been using sock clips for years.
Anon NYC
"maybe giving us a series of Liz/Anthony strips wherein almost nothing happens at all."
But nothing ever happens between them anyway. Oh, wait, you just mean trudging toward the wedding. I thought you meant something, like, oh, I don't know, maybe some chemistry between the characters. Of course, that hasn't happened in ten years, so why start now?
Anon NYC
Don't safety pins damage socks? My husband has been using sock clips for years.
Sock clips. I love those things. They are so pretty and feminine. From time to time, I get them as gifts from my mothers-in-law. I don’t think they work as well as the safety pins because they are (a) a lot bulkier and (b) don’t hold the socks together as well. As for sock damage, occasionally the sock material will work its way into the curvy metallic part of the safety pin, and then it’s kind of a pain to get it back out. If you force it, it will put a nice hole in your sock. Other than that, I haven’t noticed any damage anymore than the fact that you have put a little hole in the material to get the safety pin through.
Anonymous,
I thought you meant something, like, oh, I don't know, maybe some chemistry between the characters.
For Liz and Anthony, Lynn Johnston used her own romantic moments in the courtship between her and Rod Johnston for her stories. Having a first date at a wedding, and the 2 lists at the restaurant are supposedly things that she and Rod did. Neither of them came off as particularly romantic, even though I am sure that Lynn Johnston thought of them as romantic.
This goes to show that either Lynn Johnston never had any real romance in her courtship with Rod (which, all things considered, is a possibility) or that Lynn Johnston does not have the tools in hand to write a romance comic strip (which is my guess). In my opinion, in romance comic strips you have to be able to draw a picture of two people kissing which does not look like two plastic action figures with their lips put together, and you have to write believable romance dialogue. Lynn is terrible at both these things. Slice-of-life family humour is her forte, not romance.
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