Today’s For Better or For Worse shows that Lynn Johnston really has lost the art of synchronizing her Sunday and daily strips. Admittedly she didn’t do it very often, but during Mike’s wedding in 2001 it worked out. It was a Sunday with April and Elizabeth trying on flower girl / bridesmaid dresses, followed by dailies leading up to the rehearsal, a Sunday of the rehearsal, followed by dailies leading up to the wedding, and a Sunday of the wedding. Everything lined up nicely. This year, the dailies are practically headed for the wedding, except for the fact the mother-of-the-bride is meandering about the reception area.
Today, we are back to wedding gown preparation and the recycling of an old joke. The joke this time was last repeated on August 14, 2005. The most interesting thing about today’s strip is the comparison between the two Sunday strips. Back in 2005, the culprit for causing the child to undress in public was Mira Sobinski. This time the culprit is Deanna Patterson. Back in 2005, the child was trying not to mess up her clothes and innocently removed them. In 2008, the children give each other sly looks before they removed their clothes specifically to get at their mother. Having had a few small children in my house before, “innocent” is correct. My children never removed their clothing and ran around naked as a part of any slyness or revenge. As I have stated before, Lynn Johnston has gotten into plot habits and one of them is that Robin and Merrie are awful kids. She simply can’t have them appear without them being rotten.
The more interesting comparison for me is the indication that, over the 3 years, Deanna has grown to be like her mother. In 2005, the main criticism of Mira Sobinski was that she spent money for her granddaughter on an expensive beach outfit she couldn’t get dirty. Naturally, Merrie removed the outfit to play, showing how foolish Mira was for buying the outfit.
In 2008, Deanna actually manages to outdo her mother by:
a. Not giving her children the opportunity to learn anything about sewing, when they are obviously curious.
b. Preventing them from finding 3 other reasonable ways to occupy their time (TV, food, and playing outdoors in good clothes).
c. Not suggesting to her children an activity that she would find acceptable.
Now, if the kids were curious about how Elizabeth looked naked, the final panel is the perfect answer to being shooed away from that. Of course the other solution would be to let them see Elizabeth naked, and send them to bed in stark horror.
Today, we are back to wedding gown preparation and the recycling of an old joke. The joke this time was last repeated on August 14, 2005. The most interesting thing about today’s strip is the comparison between the two Sunday strips. Back in 2005, the culprit for causing the child to undress in public was Mira Sobinski. This time the culprit is Deanna Patterson. Back in 2005, the child was trying not to mess up her clothes and innocently removed them. In 2008, the children give each other sly looks before they removed their clothes specifically to get at their mother. Having had a few small children in my house before, “innocent” is correct. My children never removed their clothing and ran around naked as a part of any slyness or revenge. As I have stated before, Lynn Johnston has gotten into plot habits and one of them is that Robin and Merrie are awful kids. She simply can’t have them appear without them being rotten.
The more interesting comparison for me is the indication that, over the 3 years, Deanna has grown to be like her mother. In 2005, the main criticism of Mira Sobinski was that she spent money for her granddaughter on an expensive beach outfit she couldn’t get dirty. Naturally, Merrie removed the outfit to play, showing how foolish Mira was for buying the outfit.
In 2008, Deanna actually manages to outdo her mother by:
a. Not giving her children the opportunity to learn anything about sewing, when they are obviously curious.
b. Preventing them from finding 3 other reasonable ways to occupy their time (TV, food, and playing outdoors in good clothes).
c. Not suggesting to her children an activity that she would find acceptable.
Now, if the kids were curious about how Elizabeth looked naked, the final panel is the perfect answer to being shooed away from that. Of course the other solution would be to let them see Elizabeth naked, and send them to bed in stark horror.
posted by howard at 11:17 PM
10 Comments:
What horrified me most was the realization that, in the last panel, that is actually Deanna, and not Elly. Check out the hideously lumpen, wide hips, and the saggy, pendulous breasts. Not to mention the sloping shoulders. That is Elly's figure, but with Dee's head on top! Dee has a trim figure in the early panels. Clearly the message is that rotten children are what causes a woman to lose her figure.
I too thought that it was pathetic that Lynn couldn't, for once, just synch up the Sunday strip with the dailies. What's so awful about it is that I think it's that she deliberately chooses not to. She makes the theme of this strip "wedding planning." If the strip truly is ending, she must have known what would be happening on this Sunday--namely, prep for walking down the aisle. I think Lynn is just thumbing her nose at the readers, sending the message that she doesn't care to put in the effort.
qnjones,
That is Elly's figure, but with Dee's head on top! Dee has a trim figure in the early panels. Clearly the message is that rotten children are what causes a woman to lose her figure.
This is of a piece with Elly's whining that her children aren't going to be grateful for all her sacrifices on their behalf until they were forty-five by which time she expected to be dead or senile. Not only is she a self-centred jerk, she's also loaded with self-pity. Simply put, her kids grew up messed up because she was too squishy inside to cope with their real needs. Her made-up needs took precedence.
qnjones,
That is Elly's figure, but with Dee's head on top!
Knowing Lynn, it could very well be that she put Elly there, but realized there were no other panels to explain why Elly was there, and then redrew a Dee head on the figure, instead of redrawing the whole thing. Lynn's art has been very lazy, and it has just been getting worse as time goes on.
I think Lynn is just thumbing her nose at the readers, sending the message that she doesn't care to put in the effort.
It is pretty clear that Lynn Johnston has lost all desire to put any effort into her strip. Today's strip is Deanna putting a dress on Liz, which she did last month, and the kids getting naked, which she did 3 years ago.
Honestly, I can't figure out her thinking. If I were ending a work I had been doing since 1979, I would try to make sure it went out with a bang. The only bang Lynn is giving to this work is a measure of her laziness.
Today's strip is a waste of space. I wish, instead, we had a strip taking place on the wedding day. The setting would be the lobby of the Empire Hotel, where the out-of-town guests (Aunt Bev, Uncle Danny, Grandma Carrie, Grandpa Will, Uncle Phil, Aunt Georgia, whoever else) await their Gordo-provided limo. None of the main characters appear. Someone says something funny without punning. (I know, I know--but a girl can dream!)
The setting would be the lobby of the Empire Hotel, where the out-of-town guests (Aunt Bev, Uncle Danny, Grandma Carrie, Grandpa Will, Uncle Phil, Aunt Georgia, whoever else) await their Gordo-provided limo.
It would be nice to get a reintroduction to them and that would make for a great Sunday strip related to the wedding, instead of this recycled joke. When I look back at the old Mike / Deanna wedding strips, they were not reintroduced there either. You had to look carefully at the Sunday wedding strip and glance through the crowd. Then after Liz came back to school, she told Eric who was there. Lynn also did the same thing at the Elizabeth and Mike's graduations. Considering Lynn is putting less effort into this wedding than she did Mike’s in 2001, my guess is that we will lucky to even see those guys in the crowd.
howard,
Considering Lynn is putting less effort into this wedding than she did Mike’s in 2001, my guess is that we will lucky to even see those guys in the crowd.
We should instead expect to see mutants and silhouettes. Aside from the regualr characters, that's all Lynn can draw these days.
dreadedcandiru2,
We should instead expect to see mutants and silhouettes.
Even back in Mike's wedding there were quite a few of those in attendance.
I was just reviewing the strips dealing with Mike's wedding. I seem to remember your saying recently that Maxine Hébert was not a bridesmaid, contrary to what the Mike/Dee part of the foob site reports. Did I miss a strip identifying the dark-haired bridesmaid as someone other than Maxine? Or was it a question of rank-and-file bridesmaid vs. maid of honor? I figured that the dark-haired bridesmaid was Maxine and that Dee's referring to her when she lists her "best friend" amongst those she has with her, when trying to shoo off Mira.
In the January 27, 2001 strip, Deanna lists off her bridesmaids to Mike as "your sisters, my friend Judy, and my sister". I never saw Maxine's name listed in the strip as a bridesmaid. I only saw it in the website writeup.
I don't remember any strips with Maxine in them. Perhaps you remember when she appeared. If there were some, then the website writer may have decided she would be a better choice than the unknown friend, Judy, of whom I also have no recollection.
I think the reason Lynn keeps returning to this theme is because this is how SHE parented her kids, and it still does not occur to her how to find and use effective short-term methods of stay-in-one-place distraction for small children, like so many of us parents do (ie: DVDs...) How very sad.
And why the heck are the kids wearing "good clothes" when their mom doesn't seem ready to go out to some place where "good clothes" are a requirement? With small kids, at home with nothing better to do = dressing them in something that doesn't matter much if it gets dirty and is easily changed. Any smart parent knows that!
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