Days of Expressive Hands
I remember in my university years seeing the work of a particularly fine local actress in a production of The Glass Menagerie by Tennesse Williams. One of my friends, who knew about acting said when I saw the show I should watch the actress’ feet. Even though this sounded like a foot fetish, what he meant was that the actress would intentionally position her feet in ways which would tell us about her character, who was extremely shy and introverted, and that you could tell this about her character without her having to say a word. He was right and it was a marvelous performance, feet included.
Lynn Johnston has traditionally had a hard time drawing hands, and for whatever reason, usually ends up drawing deformed claws where hands should be. However, in today’s For Better or For Worse reprint, we can see that this was not always the case. The hands are not perfectly drawn, by any stretch of the imagination, but they are expressive.
In panel 1, we see Elly holding a small-looking Farley with just 2 fingers and a thumb, while Thelma Baird is pointing at the dog to make sure Elly is looking to see he is a runt.
In panel 2, Elly’s hands are snuggling Farley to her face with his little paws so cute on top of her right hand. Thelma has her hands clasped as if she is begging Elly to take the dog.
In panel 3, Thelma’s hand very clearly indicates the aside to John Patterson about her secret plan to help him get the puppy.
These hands are so expressive, I would say that if you stripped off the dialogue, you could have a pretty good guess what this strip was about just by looking at the hands. This is one of the key things that Lynn has lost in her cartooning art – the ability to tell the story by using the hands of the characters. Even if you go back 2 Sundays ago to the dialogue-free Sunday strip where Lizzie is assaulted by the ugly, old lady, Lynn resorted primarily to emotion lines off Lizzie’s head to tell the story. Looking at that strip, the hands have the fingers either all together or all apart with respect to what they meant for the story. Lynn Johnston seems to have lost that hand art.
As for the content of today’s reprint, it forces me to eat my words about yesterday. Mrs. Baird is still the conniving dog breeder we remember from 1980 and Farley is still a runt – a runt which will require no special care. I thought Lynn would fix those problems from 1980, but they are still there. It’s just as well. I liked Mrs. Baird pulling a fast one on Elly. It was my favourite strip of the sequence.
Just to let you know I got some correspondence with Lynn Johnston's Coffee Talk I will share with you:
My question: Dear Lynn,
We all know that the dog Farley was based on a real-life dog you once owned. Since Mrs. Thelma Baird has also come back to your comic strip, was she based on a real-life person in your life, and if so, what was the relationship between you two?
Signed,Me
Hi,
Thelma Baird is based on a number of ladies I have known over the years. She's most like my mom's British war bride friends..people I knew as a child.
Thanks for writing and all the best,
Lynn J.
Lynn Johnston has traditionally had a hard time drawing hands, and for whatever reason, usually ends up drawing deformed claws where hands should be. However, in today’s For Better or For Worse reprint, we can see that this was not always the case. The hands are not perfectly drawn, by any stretch of the imagination, but they are expressive.
In panel 1, we see Elly holding a small-looking Farley with just 2 fingers and a thumb, while Thelma Baird is pointing at the dog to make sure Elly is looking to see he is a runt.
In panel 2, Elly’s hands are snuggling Farley to her face with his little paws so cute on top of her right hand. Thelma has her hands clasped as if she is begging Elly to take the dog.
In panel 3, Thelma’s hand very clearly indicates the aside to John Patterson about her secret plan to help him get the puppy.
These hands are so expressive, I would say that if you stripped off the dialogue, you could have a pretty good guess what this strip was about just by looking at the hands. This is one of the key things that Lynn has lost in her cartooning art – the ability to tell the story by using the hands of the characters. Even if you go back 2 Sundays ago to the dialogue-free Sunday strip where Lizzie is assaulted by the ugly, old lady, Lynn resorted primarily to emotion lines off Lizzie’s head to tell the story. Looking at that strip, the hands have the fingers either all together or all apart with respect to what they meant for the story. Lynn Johnston seems to have lost that hand art.
As for the content of today’s reprint, it forces me to eat my words about yesterday. Mrs. Baird is still the conniving dog breeder we remember from 1980 and Farley is still a runt – a runt which will require no special care. I thought Lynn would fix those problems from 1980, but they are still there. It’s just as well. I liked Mrs. Baird pulling a fast one on Elly. It was my favourite strip of the sequence.
Just to let you know I got some correspondence with Lynn Johnston's Coffee Talk I will share with you:
My question: Dear Lynn,
We all know that the dog Farley was based on a real-life dog you once owned. Since Mrs. Thelma Baird has also come back to your comic strip, was she based on a real-life person in your life, and if so, what was the relationship between you two?
Signed,Me
Hi,
Thelma Baird is based on a number of ladies I have known over the years. She's most like my mom's British war bride friends..people I knew as a child.
Thanks for writing and all the best,
Lynn J.
posted by howard at 9:56 PM
7 Comments:
Lynn has lost the ability to convey genuine emotion in any way whatsoever. It all comes off as contrived now.
I echo the pleas for someone to transcribe the letter to Maclean's that decries Lynn's comments about Lynn Lake. Pretty please? :)
howard,
It kinda bugged me that they tricked Elly into doing something she didn't want to do. It seems to me that a big part of her resentment of Farley stemmed from the realization that she got hoodwinked.
howard,
These hands are so expressive, I would say that if you stripped off the dialogue, you could have a pretty good guess what this strip was about just by looking at the hands. This is one of the key things that Lynn has lost in her cartooning art – the ability to tell the story by using the hands of the characters.
Not, of course, that she'd admit that. She doesn't want to see that she's lost the ability to portray real emotion any more than she wants to own up to her failure to make the new-runs timeless. The end result is that we have people that look like mannequins drawn in a travesty of her more vital style.
She's most like my mom's British war bride friends..people I knew as a child.
Yeesh, so now we know where the Agnes Dingle/Sheilaugggggh prototype came from. And also, I guess, Lynn's penchant for Britishisms like "loo" and "chap."
qnjones,
I echo the pleas for someone to transcribe the letter to Maclean's that decries Lynn's comments about Lynn Lake. Pretty please? :)
I called around the local Tucson magazine sellers to see if anyone carried Maclean’s. No one did. Hopefully one of our Canadian friends with easier access will come through.
DreadedCandiru2,
It kinda bugged me that they tricked Elly into doing something she didn't want to do. It seems to me that a big part of her resentment of Farley stemmed from the realization that she got hoodwinked.
Nevertheless, that seems to be a common theme in the strip. Elly almost always gets her way, unless those that oppose her gang up on her.
She doesn't want to see that she's lost the ability to portray real emotion any more than she wants to own up to her failure to make the new-runs timeless.
I have seen some interview where Lynn admitted she doesn’t draw hands well, and consequently in the modern strips you often would have characters with their hands in their pockets, so she wouldn’t have to draw them. Like anything else with her art in recent years, she has the capability of producing good work (which we witnessed in the pow-wow strips of 2005), if she will simply bother to take the time to do it well, instead of these sketches she passes off as her work these days. She could draw expressive hands, if she wanted to, and back in 1980, she used to want to.
april_katje,
Yeesh, so now we know where the Agnes Dingle/Sheilaugggggh prototype came from. And also, I guess, Lynn's penchant for Britishisms like "loo" and "chap."
The interesting part is that Agnes Dingle was a much more developed character than Mrs. Baird. As a storyteller, Lynn was much improved by the time she got to Mike’s university days.
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