Cartoon Comparisons
Some comparisons between today’s For Better or For Worse and the similar conversation Liz had with Paul when she told him she was moving back to Milborough.
Warren wants to ask Liz, to whom he is not engaged or married to come with him.
Liz asked Paul, to whom she was not engaged or married to come with her.
Warren is leaving, even though he knows that this leaves Liz with Anthony Caine.
Liz is leaving, even though she knows that this leaves Paul with Susan Dokis.
While Warren is talking, Liz is looking deeply into his eyes, as if she were in love.
While Liz is talking, Paul looks like Liz has punched him in the stomach or they don’t look at each other at all.
When Warren asks Liz to leave with him, the implication is that Liz will not work, because he doesn’t mention it.
When Liz asks Paul to leave with her, the implication is that he will have to work, because his transfer is a big part of the conversation.
When Warren tells Liz about his job offer, he pretends her opinion counts until Liz tell him that she knows it doesn’t.
When Liz tells Paul about her job offer, she doesn’t even pretend his opinion counts. She is moving and she would like it if he moved with her.
There is essentially no relationship between Warren and Liz, so if Liz stays or goes with Warren will have no effect on the relationship.
There was a relationship between Paul and Liz, so Paul’s decision to stay or go is effectively the same thing as his making a decision to continue or end the relationship.
Warren intentionally seeks out Liz to talk about the job move.
Liz only tells Paul about the move, after Vivian Crane guilts her into it.
When Warren will not alter his plans, Liz could care less.
When Liz will not alter her plans, Paul feels like she has hit him.
Coffee Cup symbolism
Both Liz and Warren have coffee until Liz drops her cup and decides to sit on the floor to absorb the spilt liquid with her pants. Then it is just Warren drinking coffee.
With Paul and Liz, only Paul drinks coffee. Perhaps Liz has already cleaned up the spill.
Shiimsa symbolism
Shiimsa is nowhere to be seen when Liz and Warren talk.
Shiimsa is in the house when Liz and Paul talk.
What I come away from both sequences is that Liz is completely in control. She gets what she wants without any compromise in both situations, and she does so primarily without considering the other person’s feelings in the matter. Ultimately, with Paul, she doesn’t get what she wants. And if the strip runs long enough, we may see that it is the same case with Warren; but I doubt we will see much past Liz and Anthony’s wedding, since Lynn has seen fit to waste a week to wrap up a storyline with Warren Blackwood that wasn’t going anywhere anyway.
Warren wants to ask Liz, to whom he is not engaged or married to come with him.
Liz asked Paul, to whom she was not engaged or married to come with her.
Warren is leaving, even though he knows that this leaves Liz with Anthony Caine.
Liz is leaving, even though she knows that this leaves Paul with Susan Dokis.
While Warren is talking, Liz is looking deeply into his eyes, as if she were in love.
While Liz is talking, Paul looks like Liz has punched him in the stomach or they don’t look at each other at all.
When Warren asks Liz to leave with him, the implication is that Liz will not work, because he doesn’t mention it.
When Liz asks Paul to leave with her, the implication is that he will have to work, because his transfer is a big part of the conversation.
When Warren tells Liz about his job offer, he pretends her opinion counts until Liz tell him that she knows it doesn’t.
When Liz tells Paul about her job offer, she doesn’t even pretend his opinion counts. She is moving and she would like it if he moved with her.
There is essentially no relationship between Warren and Liz, so if Liz stays or goes with Warren will have no effect on the relationship.
There was a relationship between Paul and Liz, so Paul’s decision to stay or go is effectively the same thing as his making a decision to continue or end the relationship.
Warren intentionally seeks out Liz to talk about the job move.
Liz only tells Paul about the move, after Vivian Crane guilts her into it.
When Warren will not alter his plans, Liz could care less.
When Liz will not alter her plans, Paul feels like she has hit him.
Coffee Cup symbolism
Both Liz and Warren have coffee until Liz drops her cup and decides to sit on the floor to absorb the spilt liquid with her pants. Then it is just Warren drinking coffee.
With Paul and Liz, only Paul drinks coffee. Perhaps Liz has already cleaned up the spill.
Shiimsa symbolism
Shiimsa is nowhere to be seen when Liz and Warren talk.
Shiimsa is in the house when Liz and Paul talk.
What I come away from both sequences is that Liz is completely in control. She gets what she wants without any compromise in both situations, and she does so primarily without considering the other person’s feelings in the matter. Ultimately, with Paul, she doesn’t get what she wants. And if the strip runs long enough, we may see that it is the same case with Warren; but I doubt we will see much past Liz and Anthony’s wedding, since Lynn has seen fit to waste a week to wrap up a storyline with Warren Blackwood that wasn’t going anywhere anyway.
posted by howard at 11:03 PM
24 Comments:
I don't even understand what Liz is on about in this strip. Essentially, what we have is this:
Warren: I'm going away for a new job, and I wanted to ask you to come with me.
Liz: But you would have taken it even if I'd said no!
To which the only sensible answer would be, "Yeah. So?"
I mean, granted, Warren did say he wanted to talk to Liz before he accepted, when he'd be accepting it either way. But Liz is acting like it proves something that he wouldn't consider giving up his career plans for someone she just got through telling him he never had a "relationship" with.
Liz has to have men's complete and total devotion-- no matter how little they know her or how little she wants them --so that it really hurts when she shoots them down.
And, of course, the moral we're supposed to get from this series is that Warren is disturbed.
I should have added after "shoots them down":
In this case, it means Liz is actually telling a semi-stalker that the problem with him is that he wasn't besotten enough with her.
I dunno, diamond joe, I think those of us with brains can tell who is "disturbed" (or at least severely flawed) in these strips, and it doesn't seem to be Warren. ^___^
I, like many other current FOOB snarkers, used to quite love this strip - seduced by the "golden years of FBOFW", I guess. It was, at a certain point in time, the clear best of the lot in my newspaper's comics pages.
Then, FBOFW started falling apart - or rather, weird chunks of garbage started appearing where the avid reader had grown to expect realistic behavior and meaning...
The drawn-out "retarded-Aypo" years (when my own child of April's age had long grown out of April's arrested 6-year-old behavior...) The inexplicable pushing of Anthony Caine as an "awesome guy" - despite his obvious problematic major character flaws... "Out-of-expected-character" depictions everywhere... Cardboard "villain" characters... the slavish "need" to justify the lamest pun... ("Oh yeah, it's a COMIC!! Yuk-yuk!!")
It looks like the author decided to make every "important" character assimilate her OWN 60-some-year-old-woman-comfort-zone mentality.
But, in the literary world, that is considered "failure" on the part of a writer, because it is a depressing let-down for readers to see an author, from whom one has come to expect more depth and better characterization, demonstrating an unexpected lack of depth and lack of even fictional empathy with her characters.
I seems that Lynn no longer can imagine herself "walking in the shoes of another" anymore - oh no; the "important" characters now all have to express HER own narrow "ideals", even if it is not true to their previously-demonstrated natures.
Is that Meredith in panel two?
-Anon in Roch
Why the hell _is_ Liz sitting in that weird, awkward position on the floor? Did somebody steal all her chairs?
Is that Meredith in panel two? I also noticed that.
Continuing from yesterday…
debjyn feels that Warren’s never-ending obsession with Liz shows serious self-esteem issues. I think this obsession helped keep him more grounded - he needed to believe that someone cared for him. I’m sure many people who are away from home (soldiers, prisoners) concoct similar fantasies. Warren and Liz were never more than friends, and they both know it.
I hate the way Paul is being portrayed. The man we got to know is honorable.
"Double-dipping, her copper is." Dray grinned as he popped the cap off another beer. "He's a right downy one, that lad! Got your Liz mooning after him down south, thinking he's the one and only and there's wedding bells going to chime. Meantime he's busy sucking face with another sheila in Mtigwaki."
The tale about the vanishing chopper hits close to home. Three years ago the son of a family friend piloted a small plane over the mountains of Mexico. He was an experienced pilot who had served in the air force. He did not return. His father continues to talk about him in the present tense.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Warren’s biography. The writer had dreadful material to work with ("weird chunks of garbage"), yet she managed to tell an exciting story.
Anon NYC
Diamond Joe
But Liz is acting like it proves something that he wouldn't consider giving up his career plans for someone she just got through telling him he never had a "relationship" with.
That is, essentially, her proof. In the Warren Blackwood bio, the point is made again and again with statements like this:
He found himself thinking more and more about Liz, and wondering if he had made a mistake in letting her go.
Warren is at fault for letting Liz go. And in order not to let Liz go, he has to give up his job. The big moment to hammer this in from the bio, is when Dray Colley dies, Warren has to call his girlfriend and we get this line:
Kathleen could only repeat over and over in agonized grief that if Dray had only come to the States with her as she had asked, he would still be alive.
As if helicopters don't crash in the States. Just silly.
In this case, it means Liz is actually telling a semi-stalker that the problem with him is that he wasn't besotten enough with her.
Exactly. If Paul was truly devoted to her, he would transfer his job 2 times to follow her and they would still be together. If university Anthony Caine was devoted to her, he would have taken trips to visit her at Nippissing University, instead of going off and getting married. At least Anthony Caine realized the error of his ways and destroyed his marriage in order to be with Liz. That’s the kind of devotion she wants.
Anon in Roch
Then, FBOFW started falling apart - or rather, weird chunks of garbage started appearing where the avid reader had grown to expect realistic behavior and meaning...
True. The level to and the speed at which the great strip has fallen attract interest in it these days. A lot of great strips were not so great in their final years, but you still got the sense that the creators were still trying, but just tired.
Is that Meredith in panel two?
It certainly looks like it.
Anon NYC
I hate the way Paul is being portrayed. The man we got to know is honorable.
"Double-dipping, her copper is." Got your Liz mooning after him down south, thinking he's the one and only and there's wedding bells going to chime. Meantime he's busy sucking face with another sheila in Mtigwaki."
I agree. This version makes it seem like Paul was playing both women, and that Liz was seriously considering marriage with Paul. Whereas, in the strip, Liz uses the Howard Bunt trial as an excuse for not taking time to meet Paul and she never talked marriage with him. She spends so much time during the trial in long clinches with Anthony looking deep into his eyes, so that no one would get the idea that Liz was still thinking about Paul Wright.
The part that is difficult is I cannot tell if this is considered to be the new understanding of what occurred in the strips or not. The Who’s Who for Constable Paul Wright says:
Liz believed that Paul was pursuing a transfer to the Toronto area. In reality he had been transferred to Spruce Narrows, near Mtigwaki, and had begun dating Liz's replacement, Susan. His relationship with Liz ended in January of 2007.
This also doesn’t match what was in the strip, but it does match the Dray Colley account in the bio. Maybe Dray’s version is the new truth.
Three years ago the son of a family friend piloted a small plane over the mountains of Mexico.
I had a friend in Dallas Symphony Orchestra who died the exact same way. The difference was that the wreckage of the plane with him and his wife was found. It was pretty sad.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Warren’s biography. The writer had dreadful material to work with ("weird chunks of garbage"), yet she managed to tell an exciting story.
I will have to disagree with you here. The Australian character’s stilted “pull words out of the Australian slang dictionary” dialogue completely threw me off enjoying most of this story. I did, however, enjoy the way Beth Cruikshank cherry-picked the bits and pieces of the strips which agreed with the point of her narrative and ignored those others which went against it. That was fun to analyze.
pull words out of the Australian slang dictionary”
...and I enjoyed that!
Anon NYC
howard:
The Who’s Who for Constable Paul Wright says:
Liz believed that Paul was pursuing a transfer to the Toronto area. In reality he had been transferred to Spruce Narrows, near Mtigwaki, and had begun dating Liz's replacement, Susan. His relationship with Liz ended in January of 2007.
This also doesn’t match what was in the strip, but it does match the Dray Colley account in the bio. Maybe Dray’s version is the new truth.
I don't think there's a maybe about it. Paul is clearly meant to be Eric 2.0, evidence and logic be damned.
I just had a revelation.
Does anyone else think that Liz demonstrates the defense mechanism of splitting with regards to her relationships?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_%28psychology%29
http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/display/article/10168/53911
It is interesting that Liz' partners are either glorified or demonized, but seldom viewed in the middle.
What is really pathetic to me is that we have a "bios" on two characters which essentially are being used to correct a bad a story that was told in the strips which highlighted the main characters flaws. Can you imagine Sparky writing a story to explain what he REALLY meant by his strip to excuse the actions of the characters? Or a web-page revision of Calvin and Hobbes by its creator?
This is a comic strip; it should make sense and stand alone on it's own story, or Lynn should admit that Liz and Anthony's behavior has been manipulative and self-centered from the start.
One tiny quibble, howtheduck: When Liz and Paul had their conversation about her decision to move back to the GTA, Liz did not know yet that "this leaves Paul with Susan Dokis." The big "Chipper and Suds" reveal did not occur until Liz was packing up to move and Susan arrived to get herself situated in anticipation of taking over Liz's teaching job.
Everything else though--spot on. And like others here, I despise the character-assassinating retcon of Paul.
Anon NYC,
pull words out of the Australian slang dictionary”
...and I enjoyed that!
If you can get past that part and even enjoy it, then I can see why you would like the bio. Me, I was constantly having to look things up to know what the guy was saying.
dreadedcandiru2
I don't think there's a maybe about it. Paul is clearly meant to be Eric 2.0, evidence and logic be damned.
That’s OK, really. The longer we go on with Liz and her obsessions, the smarter Eric and Paul seem to be.
Anonymous
Does anyone else think that Liz demonstrates the defense mechanism of splitting with regards to her relationships?
The description in your links fits very well. Liz’s opinion of Paul turned from “Happy to see Paul” to “I hate Paul” in just 3 panels in this strip. There doesn’t seem to be any middle ground.
debjyn,
What is really pathetic to me is that we have a "bios" on two characters which essentially are being used to correct a bad a story that was told in the strips which highlighted the main characters flaws.
I agree. Lynn Johnston has gotten into a bad habit of having a story in her head which is not completely laid out in the strip, so you have to have these extra explanations to make sense of it. It was the same way with the monthly letters too.
aprilp_katje,
The big "Chipper and Suds" reveal did not occur until Liz was packing up to move and Susan arrived to get herself situated in anticipation of taking over Liz's teaching job.
True enough, oh my continuity goddess. Liz would have only known that Susan Dokis was going to take her job, not the relationship that Chipper and Suds had. And really, when you get right down to it, she probably didn’t know that Susan was going to turn into a svelte, model version of Susan Dokis either.
And really, when you get right down to it, she probably didn’t know that Susan was going to turn into a svelte, model version of Susan Dokis either.
::snerk::
True--the last time she'd seen Susan, it was the pre-Extreme Makeover, no-neck Susan. ;)
aprilp_katje,
Considering that Anthony’s wedding date, Julia, was big, so Liz would know she wasn’t a threat to her and Anthony; then likewise, the Extreme Makeover of Susan Dokis was probably intended to be a clue that she was a threat to Liz and Paul. On the other hand, if Lynn Johnston really wanted to make the point that the attraction between Paul and Susan was their similar cultural backgrounds, then she would have left Susan the way she was, and I think it would have been a better story.
On the other hand, if Lynn Johnston really wanted to make the point that the attraction between Paul and Susan was their similar cultural backgrounds, then she would have left Susan the way she was, and I think it would have been a better story.
So true--I wonder if we're supposed to perceive Susan as having changed since her first appearance or whether we're supposed to either forget what she used to look like or pretend she's unchanged. Probably option two or three. No one has ever said anything about the radical change in Eva's appearance, either. Or in Grandma Marian's dress, for that matter. ;)
aprilp_katje,
With characters that appear infrequently, it is not uncommon for Lynn to draw them in ways that don’t match their prior appearance. For example, Shawna-Marie Verano was barely recognizable during her wedding compared to her prior appearance. Dr. Ted McCaulay looked somewhat like the old Ted, but could have just as easily been the father of gap-toothed Hoo boy.
In the case of Susan Dokis and Eva Abuya, there was a good gap of time between their first and second appearances, and I suspect that Lynn doesn’t bother to look the old way she drew the character, but the way she wants the character to appear. Eva Abuya’s first appearance makes her look like she comes from a life of poverty compared to April, because she is so impressed with the hand-me-down clothing April got from Liz. In her next appearance, Eva is supposed to be the lead singer for the band, and supposed to be able to get Duncan to fall for her in an instant. So, Lynn draws her differently for that purpose.
In the case of Susan Dokis, in her first appearance, she is supposed to look schoolteacherly and of course, to be impressed by Elizabeth’s teaching. But in her next appearance, she is supposed to take on the added role of seducing Paul, so her appearance changed.
As for Grandma Marian's dress, we all know that this is pure laziness on Lynn’s part. She just drew the dress the way she wanted, and 1940s wedding fashions be damned.
Shawna-Marie is an interesting case, because there was a strip from the summer after she, Liz, and Dawn finished their first year of university, where the three girls got together for food. In that strip, Shawna-Marie looked very much as she does in the wedding strips. However, the way she looked when she gossiped about Anthony and Thérèse at the notorious NYE party, is also more or less the way she looked during high school. So Shawna-Marie has gone back and forth with two looks.
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