New-Run, Old Joke
Today’s For Better or For Worse new-run seems like an amalgamation between yesterday’s strip and the day before. In yesterday’s strip, young Farley the dog proved his worth to Lawrence by licking his face. In the day before, Elly explained to Connie why she took on Farley when she already had a lot to handle: Farley is cute. And now today, Elly is heading along the same grounds of quandary that Connie did 2 days ago. I have so much to do. Why did agree to do this? The answer is that Farley is cute, and this time Farley demonstrates it by licking Michael instead of Lawrence. The additional piece of information from the prior 2 strips is that cute = photogenic. It’s not just that young Farley the dog is cute, but that he does things worthy of putting on photography slides to be used to fill up a lot of empty space in her basement.
You would think this would hardly be worth another strip to cover this same ground. However, one of the new-run trends seems to be to recycle jokes from prior strips, and more startlingly jokes from strip just reprinted. The “Marie the hygienist has gone” was done twice. Farley peeing on Elly was repeated with John as the pee recipient. It’s one thing to set up a reprint sequence and then add strips to it which enhance that storyline. It’s another thing to set up a reprint sequence and then repeat the jokes from those same reprints.
You would think this would hardly be worth another strip to cover this same ground. However, one of the new-run trends seems to be to recycle jokes from prior strips, and more startlingly jokes from strip just reprinted. The “Marie the hygienist has gone” was done twice. Farley peeing on Elly was repeated with John as the pee recipient. It’s one thing to set up a reprint sequence and then add strips to it which enhance that storyline. It’s another thing to set up a reprint sequence and then repeat the jokes from those same reprints.
posted by howard at 10:16 PM
9 Comments:
Maybe Lynn has done a demographic study of her reader base and learned that most of them suffer from memory impairment. Thus the extra effort to get simple messages to sink in.
The kids in the last panel are drawn way cuter than Mike and Lizzie were originally drawn. They are even much cuter than they have appeared in most of the new fill-in material. They are startlingly cute. That part of the scene, with the laughing Mike and eager Liz, made me almost say Lynn had done a good job of drawing. But then I looked at Mike's ass. Either his butt is hovering off the floor (a distinct possibility in Lynn's world), or he's sitting on the floor but the perspective/proportions are all wrong on his legs. This distortion looks even worse when you look at Lizzie's position in relation to Mike. Awful.
qnjones,
Maybe Lynn has done a demographic study of her reader base and learned that most of them suffer from memory impairment.
That's probably it. After all, just last month, we had to deal with six variations of the theme "Elly thinks John wants to hire a pretty hygienist so he can ogle (and possibly have sex with) her." Back in the eighties, Lynn knew she only needed two or three strips to cover that. Now, she realizes she needs at least five.
qnjones,
Maybe Lynn has done a demographic study of her reader base and learned that most of them suffer from memory impairment. Thus the extra effort to get simple messages to sink in.
Well, it may mean that Lynn herself has the memory impairment. I remember when my grandfather got into his late 80s and he started repeating jokes on his radio program. It was very sad to me. The same thing seems to be happening with Lynn Johnston. When you see her in interviews, it's not like her mind is firing on all cylinders.
That part of the scene, with the laughing Mike and eager Liz, made me almost say Lynn had done a good job of drawing.
It is so startling in this strip to see happy children playing, it can definitely play with your mind. When you think about it, how long has it been since you have seen two young siblings happily playing with each other in this strip when they were not in trouble for disobeying some rule or torturing their parents with their childlike behaviour and noises? I am not sure Robin and Merrie ever had such a strip. I might have to go back to Paul and Rosemary to find one.
dreadedcandiru2,
Back in the eighties, Lynn knew she only needed two or three strips to cover that. Now, she realizes she needs at least five.
That is one thing the new-runs have done for me. It makes me realize that back in the 1980s, when Lynn did not feel she had to fill out story enough to run 6 days, she used to tell a story in a minimal number of strips. The only things being added to these old stories are (a) Elly is a better mom, (b) John is an asshat and (c) skip ahead 2 years into the Anne Nichols timeline for reasons yet to be satisfactorily explained.
I have a feeling that the jump-ahead will never be explained. If Lynn decides to include old strips that have Christopher, Richard , and (if the strip lasts long enough), Leah, she'll run the originals as they were--with their original age differences. And if anyone asks about the discrepancy, provided she bothers to answer, we'll get an "oops" response.
On a related note, my five-year-old and I recently established that we share an interest in making "cartoon drawings." This morning, I asked him if he'd like to draw his own comic strips. His response was, "Yes. I want to draw For Better or For Worse." Then he was convinced that this had to be done on a computer program, so I showed him Lynn's "Making of a comic strip" feature so he could see the strips are done in pencil and ink and then scanned. :)
april_patterson,
I have a feeling that the jump-ahead will never be explained. If Lynn decides to include old strips that have Christopher, Richard , and (if the strip lasts long enough), Leah, she'll run the originals as they were--with their original age differences. And if anyone asks about the discrepancy, provided she bothers to answer, we'll get an "oops" response.
Of course she'D just go "OOPS" and act as if the glaring discrepancy was nothing to get too worked up about. That's because she not only doesn't care if it makes senjse, she likes it better when it's irriational.
Okay, so I've just read tomorrow's strip, and guess what? It's a new-run and features Michael playing with.... Richard Nichols. Portrayed as Michael's peer. Last time we saw the Nichols kids in the new-runs, Christopher was depicted as Mike's peer and Richard as Liz's. In the originals, Christopher was close to Liz in age. Lynn just really doesn't care.
april_patterson,
The only thing Lynn cares about is getting the punchline (Poor pitiful me, I'll never know which child to punish) across; she can't bother herself with trivia like who was born when.
Yes, what is remarkable about Lynn's interviews is
1) how passive she seems,
2) how often she contradicts herself in the same interview, never mind interviews she has done in the past, and
3) how she sometimes even seems confused or surprised by very ordinary questions.
Some people start to become senile rather early. Also, I have noticed that some people seem senile when they are really just going deaf. I think either could be true of Lynn. Although deafness doesn't explain the repetition of strips, ideas, and the discontinuity between new and old run strips. So, senility it is!
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