Rebel Strip Without a Cause
It’s been a rough time getting over not doing daily posts for April’s Real Blog viewing the strip through the perspective of a particular character from the strip. It was never so evident to me until I read today’s For Better or For Worse. There were so many incongruities; I could have created a whacky story to fill in all the spaces. Just a few things I noticed were:
1. Connie has stayed at Elly’s house late enough in the day for it to get cold. Connie is a single mom, so that means this has to be a weekend, or because she is in the medical profession, it is a day where she doesn’t have to work. It needs to be the latter, because Dr. John Patterson is nowhere in sight the whole time. In the beginning, he wasn’t into model trains yet.
2. Elly and Connie shared tea and not coffee. Connie feels comfortable enough in the Patterson home to wash the tea mugs herself, while Elly watches.
3. Elly Patterson has cookies, which she has placed unceremoniously directly on the table in the Tuesday strip, but now offers them to Connie on a plate. The running gag in April’s Real Blog is that Elly would never give away a cookie or a pastry. We’ve seen young Elly eat before, and she is not a delicate eater.
4. Connie Poirier refuses to take the cookies from Elly, which is a not-so-delicate slam on her abilities as a cookie maker.
5. Young Michael uses the word “dude”, which I am pretty sure was not in common use by youth until sometime around the late 1990s.
6. The extraordinary change in Michael’s facial features for the final panel.
7. The disappearance of Lizzie during this cookie exchange.
Aside from all those little things, at the heart of the matter is a comic strip which does not have any purpose. Although little Michael ends up with the cookies, it doesn’t seem like he is scheming to get them. He appears to be denying his mother’s statement that his family could not eat them all, which they could. It is not so much rude as factual. Nevertheless, Mike oddly rejoices that he managed to keep Connie and Lawrence from eating the cookies he is now enjoying.
On the other hand, you have Elly trying to get rid of the cookies, and the implication is that Connie refuses to take them because she believes young Michael would be deprived without all those cookies. That makes little sense also, and is a very strange way to have Connie and Elly part company.
1. Connie has stayed at Elly’s house late enough in the day for it to get cold. Connie is a single mom, so that means this has to be a weekend, or because she is in the medical profession, it is a day where she doesn’t have to work. It needs to be the latter, because Dr. John Patterson is nowhere in sight the whole time. In the beginning, he wasn’t into model trains yet.
2. Elly and Connie shared tea and not coffee. Connie feels comfortable enough in the Patterson home to wash the tea mugs herself, while Elly watches.
3. Elly Patterson has cookies, which she has placed unceremoniously directly on the table in the Tuesday strip, but now offers them to Connie on a plate. The running gag in April’s Real Blog is that Elly would never give away a cookie or a pastry. We’ve seen young Elly eat before, and she is not a delicate eater.
4. Connie Poirier refuses to take the cookies from Elly, which is a not-so-delicate slam on her abilities as a cookie maker.
5. Young Michael uses the word “dude”, which I am pretty sure was not in common use by youth until sometime around the late 1990s.
6. The extraordinary change in Michael’s facial features for the final panel.
7. The disappearance of Lizzie during this cookie exchange.
Aside from all those little things, at the heart of the matter is a comic strip which does not have any purpose. Although little Michael ends up with the cookies, it doesn’t seem like he is scheming to get them. He appears to be denying his mother’s statement that his family could not eat them all, which they could. It is not so much rude as factual. Nevertheless, Mike oddly rejoices that he managed to keep Connie and Lawrence from eating the cookies he is now enjoying.
On the other hand, you have Elly trying to get rid of the cookies, and the implication is that Connie refuses to take them because she believes young Michael would be deprived without all those cookies. That makes little sense also, and is a very strange way to have Connie and Elly part company.
posted by howard at 12:06 AM
21 Comments:
It would seem that it isn't just research that Lynn has decided to ignore in the new order. She's gotten so sure of herself, she doesn't have to make sense any longer. All she has to do is end with a bad pun or example od stupid wordplay and her fans will eat it up like the Pattersons eat greaseburgers.
From qnjones in yesterday's comments:
That's very interesting. I didn't remember Mike not going to a full four-year university right away. Did Lynn do this just to mirror what Aaron did? Because it certainly doesn't fit with the way she has always portrayed Mike as the family genius. And, certainly, John could have afforded to send him. Seems quite odd to me, given that all the characters go on and on about how brilliant Mike is. Liz has always been a total nitwit, and she went straight to four-year college!
I am guessing that Lynn began by echoing Aaron's trajectory of high-school followed by two-year college. When Mike was in his last year of high school, he was oddly apathetic about his post-secondary education. There was a strip where he told (I think) Brian Enjo that Elly was looking into colleges for him. And then, I believe, he just drifted to the one Elly picked out for him.
Mike wasn't depicted as particularly genius during high school, though occasionally there were glimmers of the "brilliant writer" future when he wrote overwrought love letters or diary entries. I remember that in Aaron's essay for Suddenly Silver, he sees Mike as no longer being based on him sometime in college. This makes me think that when she decided to have Mike transfer to university, she also began to build him up as her idealized fantasy-son.
Heh. Wonder if that's the point where Lynn lost it and decided to start rubbing her kids' "shortcomings" into their faces? Thanks, Katje.
I know that the dentists I go to work half-days on Saturday. That could be it.
DreadedCandiru2,
All she has to do is end with a bad pun or example od stupid wordplay and her fans will eat it up like the Pattersons eat greaseburgers.
There is a certain segment of her fans that are like that. They simply want to open their comics section of their newspaper and read the daily For Better or For Worse, and they are happy with that. There is another segment of her fans who liked reading the comic strip so they could monitor the progression of the character’s lives, and these readers are gone with the new-runs.
aprilp_katje,
When Mike was in his last year of high school, he was oddly apathetic about his post-secondary education. There was a strip where he told (I think) Brian Enjo that Elly was looking into colleges for him. And then, I believe, he just drifted to the one Elly picked out for him.
I wonder if Aaron had this idea that because his mother was rich and his dad was a doctor, he was going to be taken care of and didn’t have to worry about it. In my university days, I ran into a number of young gentlemen who were there for no other reason that their parents told them to go, and they fully expected to be taken into the family business after graduation. It might have been frustrating to Lynn to find her children had little ambition for themselves, because they expected to continue to be dependent on her.
qnjones,
I know that the dentists I go to work half-days on Saturday. That could be it.
It could be. My guess is that Lynn has not thought about it, and is still treating Connie and Elly’s relationship as it is in the modern age when both women are retired and can spend entire days with each other.
howard,
My guess is that Lynn has not thought about it, and is still treating Connie and Elly’s relationship as it is in the modern age when both women are retired and can spend entire days with each other.
It's this sort of failure to think things through that lends credence to aprilp_katje's theory that the charracters are caught in some sort of weird time loop. As I've said, the characters have hybridized so much that their behavior is a weird amalgam of past and present-day behavior. Heck, I even spilled my beans and said that.
dreadedCandiru2
As I've said, the characters have hybridized so much that their behavior is a weird amalgam of past and present-day behavior.
When you consider that Lynn Johnston puts herself into every character, this only makes sense. Especially in the last modern strips with Connie and Elly, they came off as two characters having the same voice. If making distinct characters is beyond her, then certainly making characters behave as though they existed back in 1979 would be a stretch.
Howard,
I run in circles where there are a lot of families where the parents own their own businesses, or made themselves wealthy through other means. I have observed that whether or not the kids of those people grow up to feel entitled is pretty much dependent on the behavior of the parents in raising them. They tend to teach their kids young that there will always be plenty of money around for them. Sometimes this teaching is inadvertent. They might think they are teaching the kid a lesson by making him work in the family business, but what the kid learns is that they won't ever have to worry about finding a job on their own. Or, sometimes, the parents set up a trust fund for the kids, or provide a living allowance (like Lynn) and foolishly don't realize that this will have an effect on the behavior of their children.
howard,
If making distinct characters is beyond her, then certainly making characters behave as though they existed back in 1979 would be a stretch.
The end result is a strange-looking and oddly-stylized mess that reads more like an inadvertant example of absurdist drama than a fond look back at the past. I had the same weird feeling watching the program "Road to Avonlea"; despite its setting in the early 20th century, I expected the characters to start rapping owing to the number of inadvertant anachronisms the writers let slip by.
qnjones,
Or, sometimes, the parents set up a trust fund for the kids, or provide a living allowance (like Lynn) and foolishly don't realize that this will have an effect on the behavior of their children.
What's more, they don't ever make the connection between their misguided generosity and the undesriable behavior of their kids.
Yes, this comic strip really does seem to be becoming meaningless.
Maybe Lynn's life has less meaning in it now that her husband left her, and this is unintentionally reflecting in the strip.
And....eww, why did you have to link that old strip? That's the most disgusting, ugly drawing I ever saw. Thanks a lot!
qnjones,
Or, sometimes, the parents set up a trust fund for the kids, or provide a living allowance (like Lynn) and foolishly don't realize that this will have an effect on the behavior of their children.
I wonder now if the comment that Lynn Johnston made in one of her interviews about how it was easy to be rich if you showed up on time and worked hard, was a comment she has directed at her kids.
DreadedCandiru2,
The end result is a strange-looking and oddly-stylized mess that reads more like an inadvertant example of absurdist drama than a fond look back at the past.
Absurdist drama might make for a nice change from the stream of glurge and bad puns.
Muzition,
Maybe Lynn's life has less meaning in it now that her husband left her, and this is unintentionally reflecting in the strip.
That’s possible. Certainly it is difficult for Lynn’s mood not to be reflected in the strip, i.e. the loveless wedding strips we experienced this last year. Lynn said she wanted her vacation time to travel and paint. In at least one interview, she said she did translation for medical workers in South America, which is something her ex-husband introduced her to. I don’t know about the painting. One of the more telling aspects to her mood is when she got rid of her staff, so the people who work for her, work out of their homes for her part-time while they also work other businesses. She claimed this was a part of the new-run process, but it really didn’t have to be. The net effect is that she is by herself.
And....eww, why did you have to link that old strip? That's the most disgusting, ugly drawing I ever saw. Thanks a lot!
You’re welcome.
A brief comment on Mike/Aaron's entry into college--
Actually, I think that Aaron was just not into academics--which a lot of people don't understand. For lots of kids though, school is torture and they are "hands on" and have little interest in academica. Heaven knows, electricians, plumbers, mechanics, etc. certainly have a better income than my degrees have allowed me to have!
Also, with Aaron's history of being a "difficult" child (according to Lynn) I wonder if he has ADHD and/or learning disabilties. Again, lots of kids (particularly if they are undiagnosed) just DO NOT like school--period.
Aaron's personal problems after high school probably stem more from his upbringing than any lack of ambition. Aaron seems rather happy now, with what limited stuff I can find out about him---
howtheduck, Lynn got rid of her staff? Guess I missed that one.
Howard:
I wonder now if the comment that Lynn Johnston made in one of her interviews about how it was easy to be rich if you showed up on time and worked hard, was a comment she has directed at her kids.
That could easily have messed up her kids. Because if your rich mom tells you that's how people get rich...and you go out in the real world and see that it doesn't work for you or most other people...then you are likely to feel very confused and disillusioned. Meanwhile, Rich Deluded Mom doles out an allowance to maintain you. Sets the kid up to feel like a failure. Sets Deluded Rich Mom up for disappointment and resentment. Don't feel sorry for the Deluded Rich Mom, but I do feel for her kids.
debjyn,
Also, with Aaron's history of being a "difficult" child (according to Lynn) I wonder if he has ADHD and/or learning disabilties. Again, lots of kids (particularly if they are undiagnosed) just DO NOT like school--period.
As my son most recently put it, school keeps him from spending time with his parents.
Aaron's personal problems after high school probably stem more from his upbringing than any lack of ambition. Aaron seems rather happy now, with what limited stuff I can find out about him---
I hope that is true. However, I have the feeling that seeing your mom’s interview in Maclean's Magazine talking about your dad, probably isn’t a walk in the park.
Muzition,
howtheduck, Lynn got rid of her staff? Guess I missed that one.
I will reprint it for your benefit. This is the response to a Coffee Talk question I sent to Lynn:
Hi P - I forwarded your question to Lynn and she's written the
following response:
Hi, ...
I don't know where you heard the rumor I was moving to Dundas...I used to live there and consider it another home, but my roots are firmly here in North Bay. As for the change in staff: For 7 years, everyone has known there would be a big change. We all counted down until there were months left before the story would come full circle. Because the future was uncertain, everyone made alternate plans. Jackie has taken a job with another company and her freelance time is very limited. Laura has taken the summer off and will be making other plans in the fall. Stephanie is working freelance from her home...she has always had her own business. Liuba continues to work with me here at the studio. Kevin Strang, who took over for Jackie when she was on maternity leave is on board with coloring and grey scaling. He has his own commercial art business and also works from home. Because I'm returning to my original style of drawing, I'm able to complete all the artwork on my own. I'll also be interjecting the classics, so there's not enough work for another artist full time.
I've had the good fortune to have worked with some of the most talented people in the province. We were a wonderful team and the friendship continues even though we're not still under the same roof!! Hope this answers your question!! All the best LJ
P wrote:
> Below is the result of your feedback form. It was submitted by
> P on August 18th, 2008 at 10:39PM (EDT).
>
> name: P
> location: Oro Valley
> question: Lynn Johnston,
>
> First, is there any truth to the rumour you are moving to Dundas? Second, have you decided to let Laura Piché and Jackie Levesque go from your staff? There is a rumour that you plan to do all the art yourself starting in September, including the background and colour work currently done by Laura and Jackie.
>
> Submit: Spill Your Beans
qnjones,
That could easily have messed up her kids. Because if your rich mom tells you that's how people get rich...and you go out in the real world and see that it doesn't work for you or most other people...then you are likely to feel very confused and disillusioned.
I would like to think at some point in this process, the kids have to realize that mom got her fortune due to a fluke and most people don’t get rich as easily. Of course I have seen enough stories about seriously messed-up children of celebrities to think maybe they don’t get to that point.
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