Sunday, September 14, 2008

The Source of Pain

Oddly enough, in today’s For Better or For Worse, we have the opportunity to do another comparison and contrast between a very similar strip reprinted last year on December 7, 2007.

In the reprint, John has a pretty stressful day of work, during which he keeps a smiling face. Then when he goes home he growls at Michael. At the time this was reprinted, I was reminded of Dr. John Patterson’s poor behaviour with his son (a regular theme in the first year of the strip). However, I had no qualms about the idea that he was stressed at work. Each and every panel had a new situation or problem to deal with.

In comparison, today’s For Better or For Worse’s Dr. John Patterson is a lightweight. He only has to deal with one patient who doesn’t do a lot of complaining and actually compliments John after he is done. And for some reason this gives John a headache.

It actually reminded me a lot more of the famous “Elly bites through a phone book” strip from 2006, where the phone book gets the treatment due to Elly being upset over 2 customers who don’t buy anything from Lilliput’s and just walk out. I regarded that strip as being a gross overreaction. Today’s strip also is an overreaction, but it is typical of the more recent writing for the strip.

When Lynn Johnston did her recent interview with Caring Today, she told stories about persons she admired because they suffered without complaining. Even though the patient, Mr. Fuddmulch is not much of a complainer, nevertheless, the setup is that any patient who complains can give Dr. John Patterson a head ache. This is right along with Lynn Johnston's beliefs about people who complain. However, for those of us who complain when we are uncomfortable, the reaction seems to make little sense.

10 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I have a strong hunch that Lynn is a huge complainer, who begins each of her complaints with, "I'm not one to complain, but..."

When I read this strip, all I could think was, "If you can't stand to hear even one person express a serious, yet fairly brief and reserved, concern about feeling pain, then you shouldn't be a dentist."

1:37 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yet another example of how John, like all in the immediate Patterson family, are easily stunned by the expected. I think John is the type of person who likes being a dentist because it sounds neat and he has that fancy degree to lord over Elly. However, when it comes to the day to day work of a dentist he views that as a neccessary inconvinience. He likes the attention and clout of being a dentist but can't stand actual dentistry. Poor Mr. Fuddmulch was just expressing concerns that I think a lot of people have when going to the dentist.
I totally agree with qnjones's comment about Lynn being a super complainer. Lynn is probably well versed in something I like to call the "One upmanship complaint" where someone is talking about a difficult part in the life and then she will say something something along the lines of "Well I'm sorry to hear that dear but it's nothing compared to me..." then proceed to unleash her own tail of pain but not consider it complaining. She did this alot to April via Eva and others.

2:26 AM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

ruth,

Lynn is probably well versed in something I like to call the "One upmanship complaint" where someone is talking about a difficult part in the life and then she will say something something along the lines of "Well I'm sorry to hear that dear but it's nothing compared to me..." then proceed to unleash her own tale of pain but not consider it complaining. She did this alot to April via Eva and others.

That's because she's also fairly self-absorbed and can't really bear having to worry about other people's problems. She, like Lizardbreath, does not want to feel bad about other people because she's all that matters to her.

3:03 AM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

howard,

Even though the patient, Mr. Fuddmulch is not much of a complainer, nevertheless, the setup is that any patient who complains can give Dr. John Patterson a head ache. This is right along with Lynn Johnston's beliefs about people who complain.

Lynn seems to be a fairly thin-skinned person, doesn't she? Instead of having us mock her characters for sweating the samll stuff, she wants us to take pity on them. Only someone who can't take criticism would think that the Pattersons are the victims of their complaining oppresors. This is probably why she fired her staff; they might start telling her that the new-run format was a stupid idea and she's too squishy inside to cope.

3:12 AM  
Blogger howard said...

qnjones,

When I read this strip, all I could think was, "If you can't stand to hear even one person express a serious, yet fairly brief and reserved, concern about feeling pain, then you shouldn't be a dentist."

That may have been Lynn Johnston’s point. When it comes to John Patterson, particularly in the time since the divorce, it is difficult to tell in what light she is painting him.

8:09 AM  
Blogger howard said...

ruth,

Yet another example of how John, like all in the immediate Patterson family, are easily stunned by the expected.

That is how modern day John is. But back 29 years ago, that John was a different story, in more ways than one.

Lynn is probably well versed in something I like to call the "One upmanship complaint" where someone is talking about a difficult part in the life and then she will say something something along the lines of "Well I'm sorry to hear that dear but it's nothing compared to me..." then proceed to unleash her own tail of pain but not consider it complaining. She did this alot to April via Eva and others.

This did happen a lot to April via Eva and Luis; but I cannot honestly say I remember hearing Lynn do this in any of her interviews. Of course, the nature of that forum is the interviewer is unlikely to launch into a story about their own personal woe. What I remember was more like stories of triumph. For example, when she did the “Lawrence Poirier comes out” story, she mentions she lost newspapers, but then mentions that she later got more newspapers to sign up with the story than she lost.

8:10 AM  
Blogger howard said...

DreadedCandiru2,

Lynn seems to be a fairly thin-skinned person, doesn't she? Instead of having us mock her characters for sweating the samll stuff, she wants us to take pity on them.

That seems to be point of today’s strip if you assume she wants us to like John. However, if she doesn’t, then she may have the point that John stinks as a dentist. Really, she has done quite a few “John stinks as a dentist” strips to make that one a real possibility.

This is probably why she fired her staff; they might start telling her that the new-run format was a stupid idea and she's too squishy inside to cope.

According to the letter she sent me, she said that her staff had been aware for 7 years there would be a change. Probably the staff expected to find new jobs if Lynn officially retired, and that would be a reasonable expectation. However, since the new-runs are essentially the same workload as the hybrid, they may have had a different expectation. Only 2 of them were fired. Aside from Liuba, the rest work for her part-time.

8:11 AM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

howard,

That seems to be point of today’s strip if you assume she wants us to like John. However, if she doesn’t, then she may have the point that John stinks as a dentist.

As you said, she certainly doesn't think too hightly of his dental skills. It does make sense that a touchy failure would react as negatively as John did to a mildly phobic man as Feggmulch. A competent dentist would wonder what the fuss RetJohn made was about.

10:20 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes, I think this strip may well be a shot at Rod Johnston. After all, in this strip, John is the biggest complainer of all.

3:41 PM  
Blogger howard said...

It is a sad state of affairs when it is difficult to tell if the author is bad or intentionally bad to get at someone.

6:45 PM  

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