Taking Candy From Babies
The joke is that Dr. John Patterson spends panel after panel railing about the evils of candy consumption on Halloween, when he himself has stolen candy from his son to eat on Halloween. I think most parents look over their children’s Halloween loot and sneak away the candy they desire. I know I do it. Of course, the difference is that I tell my kids I am going to do it, so they don’t need to do any inventory. The way I figure it, if I am going to have to walk them around the neighbourhood to get the candy, then I deserve my cut of the loot. Usually, my kids don’t have a problem with this, because the candy I like is often, not the candy they like. My boy has actually gotten to the point where he goes through his candy and separates out the candy I like and hands it to me.
As for the 1980 reprint strip of For Better or For Worse, we can say the obvious things. John looks bad, and so Lynn will pick that strip to reprint. Or I could say my usual thing of “It appears to be a 4-panel strip stretched into 7 panels, with several huge panels with virtually nothing in them except a wall of colour”. I can’t figure it for Lynn Johnston in her second year. If it were me, I would chafe under the 3-4 panels of dailies and I would lavish attention on my Sunday colour strips with longer stories. But then again, I am not Lynn Johnston.
As for the 1980 reprint strip of For Better or For Worse, we can say the obvious things. John looks bad, and so Lynn will pick that strip to reprint. Or I could say my usual thing of “It appears to be a 4-panel strip stretched into 7 panels, with several huge panels with virtually nothing in them except a wall of colour”. I can’t figure it for Lynn Johnston in her second year. If it were me, I would chafe under the 3-4 panels of dailies and I would lavish attention on my Sunday colour strips with longer stories. But then again, I am not Lynn Johnston.
posted by howard at 10:53 PM
4 Comments:
howard,
It dpes make sense that Lynn would pick a strip that shows Rod in a bad light. First off, she has him pose as a killjoy dentist ready to destroy the fun of Halloween by turning into a hunt for raisins and other examples of nature's candy and follows that up by turning him into a hypocrite. Dentists everywhere have just retaken a public beating because she was upset ar having to live in Lynn Lake.
dreadedcandiru2,
Dentists everywhere have just retaken a public beating because she was upset ar having to live in Lynn Lake.
This was a mild dental beating compared to some of the more modern strips where Lynn frequently portrayed John as a bumbling dentist with the patient frequently unaware of his incompetence. At least in this strip his hypocrisy is exposed, so no one will take his ranting seriously.
Actually, this strip is very likely factual. I have known the kids of 3 different dentists. All of these dentists hated Halloween and Easter, and were not shy about saying so to their kids. As with Mike, the kids just ignored them.
My parents didn't even have to ask for candy. We would go through our sacks and weed out all the stuff we thought was weird or yucky. This often included candy that appealed to my parents. We would hand it over, and they would further weed out the things they wanted versus what went into the garbage. They loved getting stuff from me because I hated peanuts in candy (still do) and many other nut flavors. Every Butterfinger, Baby Ruth, Snickers, etc. went to them. Later, if they wanted more candy, they would just ask for a piece and we would say, "Just don't take anything too good!!" LOL. My parents looked on Halloween as a time to teach about sharing. I'm guessing that between Elly and John, Mike got a pretty uniformly negative Halloween experience.
qnjones,
My parents looked on Halloween as a time to teach about sharing. I'm guessing that between Elly and John, Mike got a pretty uniformly negative Halloween experience.
Oh, probably. What's more, they'd probably have seen nothing wrong in wrecking it for him.
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