Mrs. Baird

It’s difficult to complain about Lynn Johnston’s depiction of Mrs. Baird as she rises from the dead to reappear in today’s For Better or For Worse. As I went through the Who’s Who entry on her, with its selected strips reprinted for Mrs. Baird, I can see that Lynn Johnston’s drawing of her never seemed to stabilize. The nose, the head and jaw shape constantly changed. In the Farley adoption sequence coming up next week compared to today’s Mrs. Baird, she has pronounced jowels, and a pointed, clefted chin. She has different glasses, a different nose, and a different body shape (i.e. old Mrs. Baird was fairly large-breasted). Between all the strips, the only consistent feature was curly, white hair.

It appears that Lynn Johnston is going to live up to her promise to re-introduce Farley in October. The question to be introduced will mostly involve John Patterson, who is present for the Farley adoption story as it was originally shown. Will Lynn Johnston find some new way to make him look bad? Something else to look forward to will be the first new-run Farley and how Lynn plays him up in order to sell her Farley plush toy and the upcoming children’s book.