Doug Wright Awards ceremony
This is the link to the blog which talks about it. I will address the areas in which I am interested.
The logo for the award (and the awards themselves) were beautifully designed by Seth, who is also the book designer for the COMPLETE PEANUTS books published by Fantagraphics Books and a famous cartoonist in his own right.
If you have never seen them, those are very nice, high quality books. The likelihood of For Better or For Worse being collected that way is remote, primarily because I doubt Lynn Johnston would ever let someone like Seth do her book design.
"Story comes from within you. I had a personal connection to most storylines...they were based on people I knew...The hardest story I ever wrote--the best story I ever wrote--was when Lawrence (Michael Patterson's high school friend--n.b) 'came out'.
Lynn almost always brings up this story and the Farley death story as her 2 big ones. I remember both of them when they occurred, and I would have to admit they did attract my attention enough to remember them. In my days before I started snarking on this strip, the storylines I remembered the most were those 2 and the Michael / Deanna “will she finally agree to get married” storyline. Deanna made so many excuses for not getting married; I was convinced the storyline was leading towards a breakup. I was quite surprised when they ended up having their impromptu wedding in December, 2000.
In recent years though, the single most memorable storyline to me was the Howard Bunt attack and aftermath of August, 2005. Considering this is the Howard Bunt Blog, that seems appropriate; since it was that sequence that started this blog. I remember just reading For Better or For Worse in the newspaper like usual, and not thinking too much of it. I remember being shocked that the story appeared to be headed toward a rape, which would have been a landmark story for a strip like For Better or For Worse. Then the way it ended shocked me even more. I had never seen a character so thoroughly dismantled in a comic strip as Anthony Caine was in that one. He went from hero to a base villain in the matter of a week. It's been 3 years since those strips, and it still amazes me that Lynn Johnston did them.
Lynn Johnston may remember Lawrence coming out fondly as her hardest story, but she didn’t seem to suffer from it overly-much. The Howard Bunt story caused her real suffering. She has been trying to convince her readers ever since that Anthony Caine is a nice guy and the best choice for Elizabeth Patterson to marry, and there is certain segment of her readership who cannot get past that strip sequence, me included.
(The 1997 landmark series where a teenager tells his best friend that he is gay resulted in many American papers dropping FBOFW, but "for every one that dropped it, two more signed on!" There was laughter and applause as Lynn stated this. Here's some of the criticism she received.)
And that was the part where Lynn shows that she did not suffer even a little for the Lawrence story. She got more papers.
"...April (the younger daughter) has been accepted at Guelph University!" (laughter from audience and applause) "You'll have to read about this on the last day."
(The story wraps up on August 31--n.b.)
I don’t know how this one is going to work and it is a little worrisome. Lynn has written almost all her stories about April this year as if April were going to university in September, 2008, even though she should be entering Grade 12 in September. This past year April broke up her band and broke up with her boyfriend, and spent a lot of time talking to her friends about their future career plans. August 31 is too early to get a notification of where you are going to university in September, 2009 and it is too late for September, 2008. I will give Lynn Johnston at the credit for finding out that the University of Guelph is the only university in Ontario that has a degree program in Veterinary Science, April's chosen field. I had feared she would do something like put April in Milborough University or declare the University of Toronto had a Vet program.
"...The drawings were becoming stiff. I couldn't move. And I couldn't make jokes about little kids any more. Michael has children...but I have no grandchildren...and I couldn't really see it any more. It's better to end it when it's time. It all comes full circle."
My problem with Lynn’s art has very little to with “stiff”. It has more to do with, “won’t use an eraser when she makes a mistake.” I have seen a number of strips this year where it was clear Lynn Johnston was putting forth an effort to make them look good and they looked good. And then there have been others where it was simple to see where she started to draw something, then changed her mind and drew something else, and left both images in the strip. For example a drawing of character looking sideways with 2 eyes on one side of the head was not uncommon. However, I will certainly not disagree with her comment about the scripting for the kids. It was awful. If Lynn did have grandchildren, she could get stories from that, just like she did from her own kids back at the beginning.
Lynn:(Talking about the restart in September) "New material drawn in the old style will be added when the strips repeat. I want to go back and fix things! I draw so differently now...but you do the best that you can possibly do."
This is confirmation of what she has said before, however it is still not clear what “fix things” means. Does it mean a whole new story? Or does it mean, she fixes a few drawings here and there as she has done to a few of the hybrid reprints this year.
"...The comic strip page is called 'real estate'. Other syndicates are going after my papers! (There is only a certain amount of space on the comics page, and every new strip displaces an older one. --n.b.) "The clouds are gathering! If it is going to run again, it's going to be the best I can make it."
This appears to be Lynn’s stated motivation for fixing things when her strip restarts with reprints in September. She doesn’t want to lose her papers, and somehow she thinks if she makes corrections, this won’t happen. That makes me even more curious about what kinds of fixes she plans to make.
"...Farley is appearing in a new children's book, FARLEY FOLLOWS HIS NOSE. There will be a stuffed Farley toy. And a group of Ontario veterniarians licensed him for the FARLEY FOUNDATION, which pays the bills for sick pets when the owners cannot afford to."
Plugging the new book. I notice that she is not mentioning Beth Cruikshank’s part in writing that new book. I am glad to see the Farley Foundation is going to get something out of it.
"...The Twin Towers came down at the same time as Michael and Deanna's wedding. Deanna's dress designer said, 'You can't have them get married!' But the strips are already in the works, they can't be changed. The response was: "We're glad you didn't stop the wedding...we needed to see something funny."
This is an odd statement, because Lynn did opt to have Mike and Deanna take their honeymoon in 2002 and not 2001, specifically in response to 9/11.
Lynn worked with a staff of two other artists; she penciled and inked the main characters herself, one staff artist inked the backgrounds and the other did the color work. This will not be the case when the strip is reissued.
I guess this is proof positive that Laura Piché, her background artist, had nothing to do with Lynn’s nouveau style of drawing old-style For Better or For Worse. My old theory is laid to rest. Of course, now I am afraid my old buddy, Laura Piché, who has written to this blog before, may be out of a job.
Lynn: "I can do it all myself now. The early style is much simpler....I tried to make it a legacy strip, I contacted an animator and spoke with him about his taking it over. You need to be an animator, have an animator's sense of perspective and body movement...we decided it would not work. 'It's your dream, he said..."
She’s mentioned this before, but this is the first time I recollect she has mentioned it being an animator she wanted to take over.
"...A lot of young people will shine for two or three years and then they just can't take it. It's a different era. I'm thrilled they can't make it!" (laughter from audience) I'm extremely competitive."
It never fails to amaze me that Lynn Johnston takes such credit for her own success, given the story about how she was selected to do a comic strip after having never done one before, just book illustrations, and how she was given an extraordinary and unprecedented long term contract, with no proof that she had the stamina to do it.
"...I'd like to take what I've done and do something good with it. The stupid thing about being famous is it's just crap. It's the sugarcoating on the M&M--and the good stuff is inside. It's really not good for you, not good for your family..."
There are no references to her divorce (which is unusual for Lynn over the last year), so I wonder if this is a reference to that, or simply a reference to the difficulties she has had with her own kids when she got famous. Either way, it's good to see she recognizes her fame has had an effect on her family.
The logo for the award (and the awards themselves) were beautifully designed by Seth, who is also the book designer for the COMPLETE PEANUTS books published by Fantagraphics Books and a famous cartoonist in his own right.
If you have never seen them, those are very nice, high quality books. The likelihood of For Better or For Worse being collected that way is remote, primarily because I doubt Lynn Johnston would ever let someone like Seth do her book design.
"Story comes from within you. I had a personal connection to most storylines...they were based on people I knew...The hardest story I ever wrote--the best story I ever wrote--was when Lawrence (Michael Patterson's high school friend--n.b) 'came out'.
Lynn almost always brings up this story and the Farley death story as her 2 big ones. I remember both of them when they occurred, and I would have to admit they did attract my attention enough to remember them. In my days before I started snarking on this strip, the storylines I remembered the most were those 2 and the Michael / Deanna “will she finally agree to get married” storyline. Deanna made so many excuses for not getting married; I was convinced the storyline was leading towards a breakup. I was quite surprised when they ended up having their impromptu wedding in December, 2000.
In recent years though, the single most memorable storyline to me was the Howard Bunt attack and aftermath of August, 2005. Considering this is the Howard Bunt Blog, that seems appropriate; since it was that sequence that started this blog. I remember just reading For Better or For Worse in the newspaper like usual, and not thinking too much of it. I remember being shocked that the story appeared to be headed toward a rape, which would have been a landmark story for a strip like For Better or For Worse. Then the way it ended shocked me even more. I had never seen a character so thoroughly dismantled in a comic strip as Anthony Caine was in that one. He went from hero to a base villain in the matter of a week. It's been 3 years since those strips, and it still amazes me that Lynn Johnston did them.
Lynn Johnston may remember Lawrence coming out fondly as her hardest story, but she didn’t seem to suffer from it overly-much. The Howard Bunt story caused her real suffering. She has been trying to convince her readers ever since that Anthony Caine is a nice guy and the best choice for Elizabeth Patterson to marry, and there is certain segment of her readership who cannot get past that strip sequence, me included.
(The 1997 landmark series where a teenager tells his best friend that he is gay resulted in many American papers dropping FBOFW, but "for every one that dropped it, two more signed on!" There was laughter and applause as Lynn stated this. Here's some of the criticism she received.)
And that was the part where Lynn shows that she did not suffer even a little for the Lawrence story. She got more papers.
"...April (the younger daughter) has been accepted at Guelph University!" (laughter from audience and applause) "You'll have to read about this on the last day."
(The story wraps up on August 31--n.b.)
I don’t know how this one is going to work and it is a little worrisome. Lynn has written almost all her stories about April this year as if April were going to university in September, 2008, even though she should be entering Grade 12 in September. This past year April broke up her band and broke up with her boyfriend, and spent a lot of time talking to her friends about their future career plans. August 31 is too early to get a notification of where you are going to university in September, 2009 and it is too late for September, 2008. I will give Lynn Johnston at the credit for finding out that the University of Guelph is the only university in Ontario that has a degree program in Veterinary Science, April's chosen field. I had feared she would do something like put April in Milborough University or declare the University of Toronto had a Vet program.
"...The drawings were becoming stiff. I couldn't move. And I couldn't make jokes about little kids any more. Michael has children...but I have no grandchildren...and I couldn't really see it any more. It's better to end it when it's time. It all comes full circle."
My problem with Lynn’s art has very little to with “stiff”. It has more to do with, “won’t use an eraser when she makes a mistake.” I have seen a number of strips this year where it was clear Lynn Johnston was putting forth an effort to make them look good and they looked good. And then there have been others where it was simple to see where she started to draw something, then changed her mind and drew something else, and left both images in the strip. For example a drawing of character looking sideways with 2 eyes on one side of the head was not uncommon. However, I will certainly not disagree with her comment about the scripting for the kids. It was awful. If Lynn did have grandchildren, she could get stories from that, just like she did from her own kids back at the beginning.
Lynn:(Talking about the restart in September) "New material drawn in the old style will be added when the strips repeat. I want to go back and fix things! I draw so differently now...but you do the best that you can possibly do."
This is confirmation of what she has said before, however it is still not clear what “fix things” means. Does it mean a whole new story? Or does it mean, she fixes a few drawings here and there as she has done to a few of the hybrid reprints this year.
"...The comic strip page is called 'real estate'. Other syndicates are going after my papers! (There is only a certain amount of space on the comics page, and every new strip displaces an older one. --n.b.) "The clouds are gathering! If it is going to run again, it's going to be the best I can make it."
This appears to be Lynn’s stated motivation for fixing things when her strip restarts with reprints in September. She doesn’t want to lose her papers, and somehow she thinks if she makes corrections, this won’t happen. That makes me even more curious about what kinds of fixes she plans to make.
"...Farley is appearing in a new children's book, FARLEY FOLLOWS HIS NOSE. There will be a stuffed Farley toy. And a group of Ontario veterniarians licensed him for the FARLEY FOUNDATION, which pays the bills for sick pets when the owners cannot afford to."
Plugging the new book. I notice that she is not mentioning Beth Cruikshank’s part in writing that new book. I am glad to see the Farley Foundation is going to get something out of it.
"...The Twin Towers came down at the same time as Michael and Deanna's wedding. Deanna's dress designer said, 'You can't have them get married!' But the strips are already in the works, they can't be changed. The response was: "We're glad you didn't stop the wedding...we needed to see something funny."
This is an odd statement, because Lynn did opt to have Mike and Deanna take their honeymoon in 2002 and not 2001, specifically in response to 9/11.
Lynn worked with a staff of two other artists; she penciled and inked the main characters herself, one staff artist inked the backgrounds and the other did the color work. This will not be the case when the strip is reissued.
I guess this is proof positive that Laura Piché, her background artist, had nothing to do with Lynn’s nouveau style of drawing old-style For Better or For Worse. My old theory is laid to rest. Of course, now I am afraid my old buddy, Laura Piché, who has written to this blog before, may be out of a job.
Lynn: "I can do it all myself now. The early style is much simpler....I tried to make it a legacy strip, I contacted an animator and spoke with him about his taking it over. You need to be an animator, have an animator's sense of perspective and body movement...we decided it would not work. 'It's your dream, he said..."
She’s mentioned this before, but this is the first time I recollect she has mentioned it being an animator she wanted to take over.
"...A lot of young people will shine for two or three years and then they just can't take it. It's a different era. I'm thrilled they can't make it!" (laughter from audience) I'm extremely competitive."
It never fails to amaze me that Lynn Johnston takes such credit for her own success, given the story about how she was selected to do a comic strip after having never done one before, just book illustrations, and how she was given an extraordinary and unprecedented long term contract, with no proof that she had the stamina to do it.
"...I'd like to take what I've done and do something good with it. The stupid thing about being famous is it's just crap. It's the sugarcoating on the M&M--and the good stuff is inside. It's really not good for you, not good for your family..."
There are no references to her divorce (which is unusual for Lynn over the last year), so I wonder if this is a reference to that, or simply a reference to the difficulties she has had with her own kids when she got famous. Either way, it's good to see she recognizes her fame has had an effect on her family.
posted by howard at 7:20 PM
7 Comments:
howard,
Lynn Johnston may remember Lawrence coming out fondly as her hardest story, but she didn’t seem to suffer from it overly-much. The Howard Bunt story caused her real suffering. She has been trying to convince her readers ever since that Anthony Caine is a nice guy and the best choice for Elizabeth Patterson to marry, and there is certain segment of her readership who cannot get past that strip sequence, me included.
I agree. Most people would be willing to overlook Deanna's screw-up with the prescription as simple incompetence or the Mtigwaki debacle as the flailing-about of a callow young woman who didn't really know what she wanted out of life and write those arcs off as people being stupid. The "I have no hoooooooooome" mess, on the other hand, blew a huge hole in a lead character's credibilty and nothing Lynn can do will fill it.
Wow. I continue to be amazed at how mean-spirited Lynn can be--and be absolutely unashamed of it. She's glad when young artists fail? What a bitch!
Also, it is typically narcissistic of her not to take the blame for the demise of her marriage or her poor relationships with her children. Instead, she blames fame. Well, there are famous people out there who manage to have healthy marriages and to raise well-adjusted children. Sure, it's not many. But it is possible. So the truth is, Lynn was just too weak in her character to be able to handle fame in a healthy way. But she does not cop to this. She just blames fame, like she had no choice about how she handled it.
Lynn Johnston is not what I would call a classy person. There are some other things I'd like to say about her, but they're not classy. ;)
Not that calling her the B word is all that classy of me. Too bad there really isn't a more genteel term for her sort of attitude.
dreadedcandiru2,
The "I have no hoooooooooome" mess, on the other hand, blew a huge hole in a lead character's credibilty and nothing Lynn can do will fill it.
Nothing Lynn is willing to do will fill it. Many have suggested that Anthony admit he made a mistake and he was equally culpable in the end of his marriage. The problem with that is that Lynn Johnston would have to admit she made a mistake in creating that miserable story in the first place, which she clearly is not.
qnjones,
Wow. I continue to be amazed at how mean-spirited Lynn can be--and be absolutely unashamed of it. She's glad when young artists fail? What a bitch!
It is surprising that a woman who claims Charles Schulz as a mentor would be unwilling to encourage other cartoonists as Mr. Schulz did for her.
Personally I started reading Foob regularly right after Farley died, I didn't read about Lawrence until I found Lynn's site a few years ago. So the major stories to me were Dee's crash, Mike and Dee's wedding and Liz's college life and job in Mtig were relly interesting to me because I identified with her need to leave home. It was the Howard Bunt story and Anthony's now infamous "no hooooooome" speech that really turned me off.I think whenever Lynn brings up Lawrence or Farley it's her way of saying "Shut up! I don't care if I produce contrived crap now look at what I did! I won't be denied my place next to Sparky!" She's been living in the past and on borrowed time for a wile now and it's pathetic how smug she still is.
I'm willing to suspend my judgement on the April/Guelph situation, perhaps she's previewing the Foob book that's coming out after the reload.
ruth,
I'm willing to suspend my judgement on the April/Guelph situation, perhaps she's previewing the Foob book that's coming out after the reload.
Perhaps. It depends on what she means by "last day". Some folks are speculating that the last day strip will contain a brief preview into the future life of the Pattersons.
Post a Comment
<< Home