Lettuce Make No Sense
In yesterday’s reprint of For Better or For Worse, John and family were fine. In today's reprint of For Better or For Worse, after a diet of rabbit food, John can actually see a bulge appear in his belly along with a floating gas bubble. From this he concludes that he needs to eat more lettuce. I don’t know about you, but if my belly suddenly bulged like that with a visible gas bubble, I might wonder how that gas bubble got there in the front of my body instead from the back, where gas bubbles usually make their appearances. I might think that I had something going seriously wrong with my internal organs, like a rapidly-developing tumor.
I know the humour setup behind it. We see it all the time on animated programs where a character is on a diet then smells one whiff of chocolate and instantly gains back all their lost weight. The part I don’t get is the gas bubble. I can’t think of a time when I saw a gas bubble used for humourous effect except when the character is farting, burping, or just plain old drunk. Usually, the comic strip writer, to show the humourously upset stomach will put “growl” or “rumble” as a side-effect beside the stomach. This is not that situation though. This is the rapid weight gain to be funny, not the upset stomach to be funny. Why would a stomach that is gassy have anything to do with rapid weight gain, when it comes to classic humour? They are two different points of humour.
The other part of the strip which does not make sense is that John’s rapid weight gain occurs after he has been on the rabbit food diet long enough to threaten to leave home. The logical conclusion would then be that the bulge in the stomach would be related to the rabbit food and John should try something less taxing to digest on his system. In order for this strip to make sense as John goes back to eat more lettuce, John has to have gained weight rapidly from something he ate before he went on the diet. If that is true, then John has barely been on the diet and has no reason to complain about it.
There is another possibility which does make sense. Due to the drawn placement of the bulge on John’s body and the use of the word "bulge," which has sexual connotations; what may be happening is that John has become sexually aroused in front of Elly. In order to prevent anything from happening due to that, John eats lettuce to get himself out of the mood. If I were in that situation, with Elly Patterson as the logical recipient of my ardor, and I knew lettuce would calm me down, then I think I would eat a lot of lettuce too.
I know the humour setup behind it. We see it all the time on animated programs where a character is on a diet then smells one whiff of chocolate and instantly gains back all their lost weight. The part I don’t get is the gas bubble. I can’t think of a time when I saw a gas bubble used for humourous effect except when the character is farting, burping, or just plain old drunk. Usually, the comic strip writer, to show the humourously upset stomach will put “growl” or “rumble” as a side-effect beside the stomach. This is not that situation though. This is the rapid weight gain to be funny, not the upset stomach to be funny. Why would a stomach that is gassy have anything to do with rapid weight gain, when it comes to classic humour? They are two different points of humour.
The other part of the strip which does not make sense is that John’s rapid weight gain occurs after he has been on the rabbit food diet long enough to threaten to leave home. The logical conclusion would then be that the bulge in the stomach would be related to the rabbit food and John should try something less taxing to digest on his system. In order for this strip to make sense as John goes back to eat more lettuce, John has to have gained weight rapidly from something he ate before he went on the diet. If that is true, then John has barely been on the diet and has no reason to complain about it.
There is another possibility which does make sense. Due to the drawn placement of the bulge on John’s body and the use of the word "bulge," which has sexual connotations; what may be happening is that John has become sexually aroused in front of Elly. In order to prevent anything from happening due to that, John eats lettuce to get himself out of the mood. If I were in that situation, with Elly Patterson as the logical recipient of my ardor, and I knew lettuce would calm me down, then I think I would eat a lot of lettuce too.
posted by howard at 9:40 PM
14 Comments:
howard,
In order for this strip to make sense as John goes back to eat more lettuce, John has to have gained weight rapidly from something he ate before he went on the diet. If that is true, then John has barely been on the diet and has no reason to complain about it.
I'd rather that this be the case than have to think about John and Elly having sex. Having him be a smug hypocrite who doesn't know what he's talking about is not only familiar, it's also reassuring.
dreadedcandiru2,
Some people might say John is a smug hypocrite; but we all know the real moral of the story is:
Elly is always right, even when she is wrong.
howard,
They used to say that about Mussolini and look what happened to him. I'm not saying Elly and John should have been hunted down by an angry mob, shot and put on display as a climax to the strip but it's not inherently a bad idea.
howtheduck, I'm thinking John's gut grew based on the mere anticipation of holiday indulgence. That's even worse than gaining weight from a whiff of chocolate. Worse still, John's gut has probably read ahead and seen that Phil will arrive and make his giant, greasy pizza. ;)
DreadedCandiru2,
I'm not saying Elly and John should have been hunted down by an angry mob, shot and put on display as a climax to the strip but it's not inherently a bad idea.
The TV show Seinfeld tried something like that for an ending. It’s difficult to do and still be funny. If the horde of mutants that inhabit Milborough were to turn on the Pattersons, it might seem more like a zombie movie than justifiable revenge.
aprilp_katje,
I'm thinking John's gut grew based on the mere anticipation of holiday indulgence.
That could explain it. Do you have an explanation for the bubble?
Worse still, John's gut has probably read ahead and seen that Phil will arrive and make his giant, greasy pizza. ;)
John’s gut is prophesying a saviour for the holiday season. That’s very Christmassy.
howtheduck, maybe John's gut also knows that Elly's holiday foods make it gassy. It seems to be a very prescient gut. (And Christmassy, as you note.) ;)
AprilP's suggestion makes a lot of sense.
I think it could also be that John really does have a gut - if he stands up straight and holds it in, it doesn't show. If he relaxes - "bulge".
In comics-exaggeration-mode, the conversation went on too long, John couldn't hold it in, and there pops out the bulge that proves he needs a diet, even before the Christmas weight gain. He could have been following the diet for a couple of weeks and not have lost that gut yet.
As for the bubble, I think LJ just thought a bubble matched a "bulge" sound (bubbles expand and pop!). I doubt she was following any convention about humour.
howard,
If the horde of mutants that inhabit Milborough were to turn on the Pattersons, it might seem more like a zombie movie than justifiable revenge.
I know. It's just a pleasant little fantasy that I had. The best ending would have been Elly and John realizing that they'd made a huge mistake betting on Anthony and taking action on which of the Caines would cheat first.
aprilp_katje,
maybe John's gut also knows that Elly's holiday foods make it gassy. It seems to be a very prescient gut.
I am beginning to think that John’s gut may be the smartest character in this strip.
InsertMonikerHere ,
In comics-exaggeration-mode, the conversation went on too long, John couldn't hold it in, and there pops out the bulge that proves he needs a diet, even before the Christmas weight gain.
This would mean that John holds his gut in when having conversations with Elly about diet, or maybe John holds his gut in when having conversations with Elly in general.
As for the bubble, I think LJ just thought a bubble matched a "bulge" sound (bubbles expand and pop!). I doubt she was following any convention about humour.
That could be. Sometimes Lynn has her comic shorthand that I have never seen anywhere else. I still don’t know what those fleas that occasionally appear about the Patterson’s head mean.
DreadedCandiru2,’
The best ending would have been Elly and John realizing that they'd made a huge mistake betting on Anthony and taking action on which of the Caines would cheat first.
I can see the strip. Elly and John walk in on Elizabeth and Warren Blackwood together. After the shocked look on their faces, John opens up his wallet, hands Elly some money and says, “You win! I was sure Anthony would cheat first.” To which Elly responds, “Wanting and doing are two different things. Remember we agreed that thought balloons don’t count.”
This would mean that John holds his gut in when having conversations with Elly about diet, or maybe John holds his gut in when having conversations with Elly in general.
But Howard, wouldn't you suck in your gut every time you talked about food with the thin woman who thinks she needs to diet, diet, diet? :-)
(I actually contend that's an art weakness, and Elly was supposed to be chubby enough that she worried, even though her weight was healthy.)
InsertMonikerHere
But Howard, wouldn't you suck in your gut every time you talked about food with the thin woman who thinks she needs to diet, diet, diet? :-)
Maybe so, out of fear of being put on that diet. Art weakness is a possibility. Lynn drew herself as Elly more realistically in those days and she looked thin. In the modern days, Lynn drew Elly much larger than Lynn was in real life. It was more of a reflection how she felt vs. how she looks. In the early days, I don’t think Lynn had moved to that point yet.
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