Young Michael Patterson Likes Wearing Girls' Painting Shirts

In today’s For Better or For Worse new-run, little Michael’s interest in Deanna takes a step into the creepy. In the old versions, Michael would antagonize Deanna and she would usually strike back physically or call the teacher on young Michael. These stories had the advantage of not only seeing Michael’s method of getting to know Deanna better, but also showed the perspective of Deanna. This modern version is 2 strips into it, and so far we have seen nothing about Deanna Sobinski which would inspire this attention from Michael, aside from the fact Deanna seems to be well-supplied in painting shirts. The way the story was laid out in 1980, Michael notices Deanna and insults Deanna, and then she slugged him. We got to see that Deanna was a cute, little girl who was not afraid to hit a boy to defend herself. That showed us some of her personality and you could kind of see why Mike might like her. In this new-run version, all you get is Mike’s thought balloons and Lawrence’s suspicions; but there is nothing to show why Mike has fallen so completely for Deanna that he would be ecstatic over the idea of wearing her painting shirt. It makes little Michael seem a little disturbed.

As for me and my family, we are off to visit my sister in Minnesota for Thanksgiving, so any Howard Bunt Blog entries for the rest of the week are going to be iffy. If you are celebrating US Thanksgiving or traveling, I wish you the best.