The Tragedy of Michael and Deanna
How many days was Michael out of school? In today's new-run of For Better or For Worse, it looks like it was for Pizza Day, Painting Day, and Movie Day. That’s 3 days at least at what must be the best preschool in the world, which even has bus service. It’s good to know that even though Lawrence is describing all these things Michael missed, the only thing Michael is interested in is seeing Deanna again. The boy is dangerously obsessed.
The tragedy for young Michael is that Deanna left and he didn’t say good-bye to her. Will she have left him a note in his locker? Will she come back to Milborough just to say good-bye to Michael? Or will we simply see Michael go into a deep depression and attack everybody around him? In many respects, Deanna Sobinski should be happy she left while Michael was sick, just to avoid the scene which would have occurred from this obsessed boy during her departure party.
I had thought enough time might have passed since Lynn Johnston introduced the idea of Deanna leaving, that a Coffee Talk comment may have drifted back to her and she might have recanted this idea, in much the same way the Nichols boys magically reverted to their correct ages (1 year old and unborn). Now it is done, and I have no idea how Lynn Johnston is going to handle upcoming reprints that still feature Deanna, unless she treats Deanna like Fred / Frank the fish, by renaming her character to something similar, like Dooma. If I remember Deanna’s later appearances correctly, she looks enough different from time to time in the early years, that a renaming might work.
One of things that strikes me odd is this laundry list of things Mike missed while he was sick coming from Lawrence. The funniest part of this strip is that all these great things happened while Michael was sick. It’s not enough that Deanna left, but days so memorably wonderful that Lawrence can rattle them off days later, also happened, and Lawrence has to point out that everybody participated except Michael. It reminds me of an episode of the Simpsons, where Bart Simpson is forced to stay home as the rest of the school has the best day of their lives. It is not enough that Deanna left, but Lynn Johnston has to milk Michael’s tragedy for everything it’s worth.
As for the joke, Lynn contrasts the word “everybody” with “my body”. I think the joke would work better if “everybody” did not actually mean “every body.” Since it does, all you have is Michael thought-bubbling a correction to Lawrence’s exaggerated counting.
A better visual joke is the bus overhead storage which seems to be filled with military duffel bags. Maybe the preschool on a military base, and the preschoolers have to share a bus used for military transport. And let us not forget the window view with the falling snow. Even in Milborough, back in 1980, it snows every single day in the winter time. Of course, since this is a day of tragedy, snow is appropriate.
The tragedy for young Michael is that Deanna left and he didn’t say good-bye to her. Will she have left him a note in his locker? Will she come back to Milborough just to say good-bye to Michael? Or will we simply see Michael go into a deep depression and attack everybody around him? In many respects, Deanna Sobinski should be happy she left while Michael was sick, just to avoid the scene which would have occurred from this obsessed boy during her departure party.
I had thought enough time might have passed since Lynn Johnston introduced the idea of Deanna leaving, that a Coffee Talk comment may have drifted back to her and she might have recanted this idea, in much the same way the Nichols boys magically reverted to their correct ages (1 year old and unborn). Now it is done, and I have no idea how Lynn Johnston is going to handle upcoming reprints that still feature Deanna, unless she treats Deanna like Fred / Frank the fish, by renaming her character to something similar, like Dooma. If I remember Deanna’s later appearances correctly, she looks enough different from time to time in the early years, that a renaming might work.
One of things that strikes me odd is this laundry list of things Mike missed while he was sick coming from Lawrence. The funniest part of this strip is that all these great things happened while Michael was sick. It’s not enough that Deanna left, but days so memorably wonderful that Lawrence can rattle them off days later, also happened, and Lawrence has to point out that everybody participated except Michael. It reminds me of an episode of the Simpsons, where Bart Simpson is forced to stay home as the rest of the school has the best day of their lives. It is not enough that Deanna left, but Lynn Johnston has to milk Michael’s tragedy for everything it’s worth.
As for the joke, Lynn contrasts the word “everybody” with “my body”. I think the joke would work better if “everybody” did not actually mean “every body.” Since it does, all you have is Michael thought-bubbling a correction to Lawrence’s exaggerated counting.
A better visual joke is the bus overhead storage which seems to be filled with military duffel bags. Maybe the preschool on a military base, and the preschoolers have to share a bus used for military transport. And let us not forget the window view with the falling snow. Even in Milborough, back in 1980, it snows every single day in the winter time. Of course, since this is a day of tragedy, snow is appropriate.
posted by howard at 3:48 AM
16 Comments:
I certainly hope Michael at least managed to steal something of Deanna's- her dad's old shirt, or an harmonica, or something.
howard,
I had thought enough time might have passed since Lynn Johnston introduced the idea of Deanna leaving, that a Coffee Talk comment may have drifted back to her and she might have recanted this idea, in much the same way the Nichols boys magically reverted to their correct ages (1 year old and unborn). Now it is done, and I have no idea how Lynn Johnston is going to handle upcoming reprints that still feature Deanna, unless she treats Deanna like Fred / Frank the fish, by renaming her character to something similar, like Dooma.
That's probably what will happen. It's bad enough that we had the original implausible reunion of two people who drifted out of each others lives when they were ten. To have Mike fixated on her at this age is just plain crazy.
On a slightly different note, I should think his rage at his fake, impossible loss would be expressed by assigning cruel and mocking nicknames to his kid sister.
I thought the idea of these 'new runs' was to show more of the relationship between Mike and Dee. Not stop it short, years before it 'originally' did.
Judging by the FBOFW website, the strip isn't set in 1980 any more. It's either supposed to be timeless (the Pattersons' biographies don't state their year of birth any more) or set in the present (there was a letter from Elly dated January 2009 in Coffee Talk a couple of weeks ago). Either way, it works against the original strength of the strip, which was set in a recognizable ever-changing present. Since Lynn Johnston has admitted that she is out of touch (little contact with young children, not familiar with how writers back up copies of their manuscript, etc.), I don't know why she would try to move the story to 2009, but I don't think she's fully thought through the ramifications of trying to tell the same story twice.
John F Jamele,
I certainly hope Michael at least managed to steal something of Deanna's- her dad's old shirt, or an harmonica, or something.
That’s a lovely thought, but in this strip only ugly people with big noses or First Nations children are thieves.
DreadedCandiru2,
On a slightly different note, I should think his rage at his fake, impossible loss would be expressed by assigning cruel and mocking nicknames to his kid sister.
It could be. How old was Michael when he first started calling Lizzie Lizardbreath? Oh, I guess it doesn’t matter how old Michael is anymore.
Anonymous,
I thought the idea of these 'new runs' was to show more of the relationship between Mike and Dee. Not stop it short, years before it 'originally' did.
One of things Lynn Johnston expressly said in one of her interviews talking about stories she wanted to add was a story showing Deanna leaving and the reason for it. She has kept that promise. Of course the story she has told has much less emotional impact than Mike and Deanna’s real last time together as children at the costume dance in Grade 4, because Lynn is in this “tell, not show” style of story-telling that has ruined most of her stories for the last several years.
A better story-teller would show Deanna at school, wondering about sick Mike and hoping to see him before she leaves. Then it would cut to Mike thinking of Deanna and trying to convince his mother he was well enough to go back to preschool. Instead we get a strip like today’s where Lawrence rattles off his list of things that happened, summarizing the event, but with none of the emotion.
Since Lynn Johnston has admitted that she is out of touch (little contact with young children, not familiar with how writers back up copies of their manuscript, etc.), I don't know why she would try to move the story to 2009, but I don't think she's fully thought through the ramifications of trying to tell the same story twice.
She’s not really trying to tell the same story twice. Lynn wants the same money she has been getting from her strip, only she also wants to work less. That’s all this new-run stuff is about. If the hybrid had worked, that’s what she would be doing now, occasional gag-a-day stuff with the modern characters mixed in with reprints.
Of course, it is not possible that this strip is set in the present. Think about it. Grandpa Jim is a World War II veteran. Also, Elly had children 15 years apart without the aid of reproductive technology. She mentions being 39 or some such in the strip when she gets pregnant with April. It is also mentioned that Michael's birth occurred not long after Elly left college.
Unless she plans on dumping all the strips and extra-strip materials that refer to these events (which is possible, Lynn is crazy), Michael's childhood necessarily occurs in the 1970s and 1980s.
I agree the strip is not set in the present. But, remember when John said a job applicant looked like Shania Twain? In the original run of the strip, she looked like Cheryl Ladd.
Eilleen Twain began her career quite young, but did not change her name to "Shania" until 1993. I pointed this out in a letter to Coffee Talk--as part of the "there were no flu shots back then" argument.
Sadly, they chose not to print my contribution.
qnjones,
Unless she plans on dumping all the strips and extra-strip materials that refer to these events (which is possible, Lynn is crazy), Michael's childhood necessarily occurs in the 1970s and 1980s.
Lynn no longer seems to care if her story makes sense or not. The continuity errors with her old strip get worse as she goes along, with these this week being the worst so far. I wouldn’t be surprised if she maintains Grandpa Jim’s WWII vet status, while still trying to set the strip as modern (or as modern as Lynn can do). The website changes to the character biographies, the inclusion of modern pop culture references (as maggie-texas points out), and she changed the fashions to modern frumpy give the message that she is retelling as a story as if you have never heard it before.
Hey, if Grampa Simpson can be a WWII vet who married a woman who became a young sixties radical and has a son who graduated from High School in 1974 yet is only around forty in 2009, what's the problem, you H8ers! ;>)
Lost is back after a hiatus, with the sightly incoherent story line now complicated by time travel. Two confusing stories offering (a) John Patterson without a shirt or (b) Sawyer without a shirt.
Which do I prefer?
maggie_texas,
Lost is back after a hiatus, with the sightly incoherent story line now complicated by time travel. Two confusing stories offering (a) John Patterson without a shirt or (b) Sawyer without a shirt.
Which do I prefer?
If I were to guess, I'd say the one less likely to frighten and/or confuse small children.
John F Jamele,
Your reference to the Simpsons is about as close as I can get to new-run Foob, except in the Simpson’s case, they often make jokes about their lack of continuity, as they launch into stories about how Homer became a music star, etc. I wish Lynn would have one of her characters do the same thing, so we know that all these continuity changes are part of the joke.
maggie_texas,,
Two confusing stories offering (a) John Patterson without a shirt or (b) Sawyer without a shirt. Which do I prefer?
Lost is much better written than For Better or For Worse. On the other hand, Sawyer is one of my least favourite characters on that show, ever since he shot Mr. Smiley in cold blood.
The episode that really explored the absurdity of the Simpsons world was the one with "Grimey" Grimes, the "ordinary" worker who constantly questioned all the things the Simpsons took for granted- "how can you afford this house? What do you mean, you went into space? How do you go through life so incredibly clueless?" until he is finally killed trying to demonstrate the impossibility of anyone actually living like Homer Simpson. That was great.
If only Lynn Johnston could just admit that her strip is just a colossal joke, I think it would be easier to appreciate. Instead, she seems to want to be taken seriously.
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