Friday, March 27, 2009

Daddy Took Care of Everything – NOT!

When we began this whole “Elly goes to Vancouver” sequence at the beginning of March, Lynn Johnston appeared to have put Jean Baker in the office manager position she had in the modern age as opposed to the dental assistant job she originally had back in the 1980s. Instead of Jean Baker assisting Dr. John Patterson, we had the unnamed April Patterson-like assistant who laughed at John’s jokes and admitted that she turned down Ted McCaulay for a date. Then on March 9, Lynn redrew the strip where Jean talked to John about Elly’s upcoming strip so that it occurred while Jean was doing office manager stuff. In the reprints, we saw Jean Baker playing with dental equipment as she warned John about mice turning into rats. In today’s reprint of For Better or For Worse, Jean is clearly in the dental assistant role. There is a patient in the chair and she is handing Dr. Patterson dental equipment to use.

There were some obvious reasons for Lynn to put in the April Pattersonesque dental assistant. Lynn Johnston’s theme has been that John Patterson hires only attractive women to work with him in the office, and the young dental assistant fit that bill. Jean Baker did not, especially new-run Jean Baker who looks much heavier than 1980s Jean Baker. The rewrite of the Jean Baker strip introducing the story managed to work Ted McCaulay into it, since the story sequence was actually the combination of 2 different stories. After having gone through that trouble then the natural question is: Why destroy this setup with reprints showing Jean Baker doing exactly what the redrawn reprints avoided showing?

It is not only the re-done job of Jean Baker that has been ignored with the original reprint, but yesterday’s strip where Elly says “It looks like Dadd y took care of everything around here!” That statement does not match the statement in today’s reprint about John leaving things for Elly. If John truly did not do the dishes, the laundry, the floors and the mess for a full week, then it seems unlikely that Elly would not notice. The difference from the time this story was originally told is that before it was a weekend, now it’s a whole week. A weekend’s worth of mess escaping Elly’s attention as she walks through the door is more believable than a whole week.

Sometimes I think Lynn Johnston has forgotten the effect these little inconsistencies have on the story. If things don’t make logical sense, then the reader spends their time concentrating on all the things that have been done incorrectly, instead of concentrating on the story Lynn is trying to tell. The blending of the new-runs and reprints have been a nightmare of inconsistencies since they began. It’s been a snarker’s paradise, but as for story-telling, it stinks.

The final inconsistency comes today. If John had taken care of the kids for a weekend, Jean’s conversation with John would make sense. This would be the first time she had seen John since Elly left. The way the story was written, John was going to work every day, so Jean should have seen John several times before Elly came back. Her expectation that John would “rave on about the dishes, the laundry, the floors & the mess” is the kind of question she would have already asked John.

If you disregard this inconsistency, you still have a Jean Baker that seems to have a very low opinion of John. She disapproved of John going out with Ted, because she suspected he would turn into a rat. Here, she thinks not only can John not handle the kids and the housework, but she expects him to “rave on” about it. As it turns out from John’s answer, Jean is correct than John cannot handle the kids and the housework. She is right to have this low opinion of him. John takes it pretty well. Even though he is a household incompetent, he doesn’t mind having an assistant who points that out in front of patients. I guess you take what you can get, when you live in a remote place like Milborough.

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The entire premise of this strip, with Jean asking her boss about housework, is wonky; but the weird thing I'm stuck on is "floors". It's odd to latch onto them as being part of the "mess" after one week. But originally it was supposed to be one weekend! I have only known one person who vacuumed and swept every single day, and she has OCD that has debilitated her marriage and social life.

12:36 AM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

howard,

Sometimes I think Lynn Johnston has forgotten the effect these little inconsistencies have on the story. If things don’t make logical sense, then the reader spends their time concentrating on all the things that have been done incorrectly, instead of concentrating on the story Lynn is trying to tell.

It's more likely that Lynn simply doesn't give a damn any more; all that seems to matter to her is that she gets things done to her own satisfaction. Her every arch, passive-aggressive letter and interview reek with her refusal to care about the opinions of others.

3:01 AM  
Blogger howard said...

clio-1,

It's odd to latch onto them as being part of the "mess" after one week.

It’s odd for Jean Baker to latch onto floors, but not so for Lynn Johnston who had children close to the ages of Lizzie and Mike at the time. My son, at that age, was an incredibly sloppy eater. He would pick up his food and shove it towards his mouth and sometimes he hit and a lot of times he missed. There would often be an arc of about 2-3 feet behind him of foot bits that missed. Cleaning up the floors after he ate was part of the process of getting him to learn to feed himself. We put a 3x3’ plastic sheet under his high chair and he still managed to get food off it. However, we certainly could not have let that sit for a week. If we had a Farley in the house (which we didn’t because my son is allergic to dogs), Farley probably would have taken care of that kind of mess. Of course, Lynn Johnston did not have a Farley in her own house when she had kids that age, so I doubt she considered that when she had Jean Baker make that statement. The only way Jean Baker’s statement would make sense for Jean Baker is like you say, vacuuming and sweeping.

7:05 AM  
Blogger howard said...

DreadedCandiru2,

It's more likely that Lynn simply doesn't give a damn any more; all that seems to matter to her is that she gets things done to her own satisfaction.

If this is the case, then Lynn gave a damn enough to redraw the original Jean Baker strip that introduced the story and then gave a damn enough to show the April Pattersonesque assistant doing Jean’s job, but didn’t give a damn enough to redo today’s strip, so it would make sense. To be accurate she gave 2 damns, but then failed to give the 3rd damn the story needed. Since we are getting into percentages, I think the phrase “She did a half-assed job” is more appropriate.

7:05 AM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

howard,

Since we are getting into percentages, I think the phrase “She did a half-assed job” is more appropriate.

You're right, of course; I remember when she was using her whole ass. That was when she produced the strip I used to like.

8:18 AM  

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