Monday, December 08, 2008

Shocking Things

In today’s For Better or For Worse, perhaps the most shocking thing was the drawing in Panel 4 which made little Lizzie look like her mother was Connie Poirier and not Elly. They have nearly identical noses, eyes, mouths, jawlines, hair texture, and lipstick use. If I had never read the strip before, I would look at the last panel and see a mother and daughter both eager to find out if Elly’s brother has a girlfriend.

Another shocking thing is the way this new-run actually makes Connie Poirier seem more desperate for brother Phil than in the original strip. Who would have thought that was possible? In yesterday’s For Better or For Worse, there is a hint when Connie on the other side of the phone asked Elly if Phil was married. That was at least subtle. In today’s version, Connie knows 4 panels of information that she should not know about Phil. How would she know if he was attractive or had a great sense of humo(u)r? That’s not the way Elly would describe her brother (I hope). Moreover, how could Connie know so much about Phil without knowing if he had a girlfriend or not? Unless she had someone run background checks for her, Elly is the likely source of her Phil information and Elly would have mentioned his love life. After all, she did mention it in yesterday’s strip when she mentioned his crazy life of late nights, women and traveling.

Another shock was Elly’s appearance. In yesterday’s reprint, she was rail-thin and wore an earring. In today’s new-run, she’s put on quite a bit of weight, and looks more like middle-aged frumpy Elly than Elly in her 20s. For some reason, Lynn just doesn’t seem to be able to draw a thin new-run Elly. If you compare today’s strip to yesterday’s, you can tell the Lynn is barely able to restrain herself from plunking a giant nose on the woman.

A fun shock was to see Lynn Johnston incorporate some background action with little Lizzie. As Connie picks her up, she grabs onto the panel wall, to keep from being moved. Then when Connie gets Lizzie close to Elly, Lizzie lunges for Elly to get away from Connie, all while holding that rabbit by the ear.

The last shock was that Lynn Johnston is not going to skip over the Connie / Phil / Ted love triangle story. The hooks are being put in place to tell that whole story. Get ready!! Lynn is getting ready to tackle romance again. There are few who are worse at telling romance stories than Lynn Johnston.

13 Comments:

Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

howard,

The last shock was that Lynn Johnston is not going to skip over the Connie / Phil / Ted love triangle story. The hooks are being put in place to tell that whole story. Get ready!! Lynn is getting ready to tackle romance again. There are few who are worse at telling romance stories than Lynn Johnston.

I know. The horrible dialog! The inability to depict realistic male behavior! Lynn's envy of those having a better time than she is coupled with the insane belief that the happy people of the world secretly want (or need) to be as miserable as Pattersons! The equally insane neediness and passivity of the female lead! They're all going to be there.

This reminds me of a poem Walt Kelly wrote called "For The Children:"


The gentle journey jars to stop/
The drifting dream is done/
The long gone goblins loom ahead;/
the deadly, that we thought were dead,/
stand waiting, every one.

3:40 AM  
Blogger April Patterson said...

Mua-ha-ha, this fits right in with my "FOOBAR" plans. [Monty Burns]Excellent![/Monty Burns]

4:12 AM  
Blogger howard said...

dreadedcandiru2,

All those things are going to be there, plus the added twist is now we get the perspective that Lynn Johnston never had before -- the idea that she might actually personally relate to Connie Poirier as a single woman. Connie could well become the means by which Lynn espouses her current beliefs about older woman dating and there is no telling how odd that perspective may be. We could be hitting new highs in For Better or For Worse romance writing. There is so much to look forward to.

6:17 AM  
Blogger howard said...

aprilp_katje,

Isn't nice when your plans and Lynn's coincide? Of course there is the question of thinking like Lynn which could be scary just by itself.

6:18 AM  
Blogger April Patterson said...

Of course there is the question of thinking like Lynn which could be scary just by itself.

Heh, you almost scared me, there, but fortunately I'm not so much thinking like Lynn as benefitting from serendipitous new-run embellishment. (You'll see what I mean when we get to Friday's FOOBAR--tomorrow's sets up a fun little twist. :) )

7:03 AM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

howard,

Connie could well become the means by which Lynn espouses her current beliefs about older woman dating and there is no telling how odd that perspective may be. We could be hitting new highs in For Better or For Worse romance writing. There is so much to look forward to.

I know; any assaination of sanity and decency might occur. That's the nice thing about Foob: it might be awful but it's never boring.

7:28 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I would rather watch the "romance" scenes in Attack of the Clones on a loop than go through another Lynn-generated courting sequence.

7:31 AM  
Blogger howard said...

aprilp_katje,

Thinking like Lynn or serendipitous new-run embellishment? I can’t wait for Friday's FOOBAR.

8:42 AM  
Blogger howard said...

DreadedCandiru2

I know; any assaination of sanity and decency might occur. That's the nice thing about Foob: it might be awful but it's never boring.

Sometimes it can even be awfully boring.

8:43 AM  
Blogger howard said...

dlauthor

I would rather watch the "romance" scenes in Attack of the Clones on a loop than go through another Lynn-generated courting sequence.

Considering how George Lucas treated his own earlier material, a comparison with Lynn Johnston is not out-of-line. Your comment reminds me of a story told back during the production of the original Star Wars, where Harrison Ford threatened to tie Lucas up and force him to read his own dialogue.

8:43 AM  
Blogger April Patterson said...

I'm drawing it today, howtheduck. :)

8:54 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Aah, Connie's desperate man hunt. I hope it gets more salacious, but probably Lynn is going to sanitize the story.

Wild guess: Phil will be desperate to get married now, but will be repulsed by Connie's relationship with Ted. Ted will be extra disgusting and piggish.

11:25 AM  
Blogger howard said...

Repulsed by Connie's relationship with Elly is more likely.

5:09 PM  

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