The Kiss / Kids of John and Elly
Lynn Johnston did a lot of new-runs fleshing out the “Elly goes to Vancouver, while John goes out with Ted” story. So, prepare yourselves for a lot of reprints. Today’s reprint of For Better or For Worse shows John and Elly kissing for 2 whole panels. The last time we saw them kiss was on New Years’ Eve 2009 where they kissed for 1 panel. Thanks to the joy of AMU reprints, I have searched for modern Elly and John kissing in the time period AMU has archived 1996 – present. I found one strip from 1/28/2002, where John forced Elly into a kiss. As for kisses of mutual consent, there are none in that time between Elly and John.
I think that is one of the reasons that today’s reprint image of John and Elly kissing is so startling to me. It has been so long since we have seen any affection between the modern John and Elly, to see it in the younger set throws me off. Going to the Oedipus and Electra complexes, it seems appropriate that Elizabeth would grab her father and Michael would grab his mother to pull them apart. Perhaps they sense the lack of affection that is to come in the future, or perhaps they sense that Elly and John being together is just wrong.
My wife and I don’t usually have make-out sessions in front of the kids, but when they were younger and we snuggled, the kids often wanted to join in on the snuggling. I can see the event happening. The more interesting aspect of it is the line: “So much for never letting the kids come between us.” That means that John and Elly had a conversation at some point where they made this promise to each other. Foolish John and Elly for ever making such a promise. I only hope that they made this promise before they had kids, and did not know any better. However, given that Michael was a surprise baby, I suspect it was afterwards.
I think that is one of the reasons that today’s reprint image of John and Elly kissing is so startling to me. It has been so long since we have seen any affection between the modern John and Elly, to see it in the younger set throws me off. Going to the Oedipus and Electra complexes, it seems appropriate that Elizabeth would grab her father and Michael would grab his mother to pull them apart. Perhaps they sense the lack of affection that is to come in the future, or perhaps they sense that Elly and John being together is just wrong.
My wife and I don’t usually have make-out sessions in front of the kids, but when they were younger and we snuggled, the kids often wanted to join in on the snuggling. I can see the event happening. The more interesting aspect of it is the line: “So much for never letting the kids come between us.” That means that John and Elly had a conversation at some point where they made this promise to each other. Foolish John and Elly for ever making such a promise. I only hope that they made this promise before they had kids, and did not know any better. However, given that Michael was a surprise baby, I suspect it was afterwards.
posted by howard at 10:19 PM
5 Comments:
howard,
The more interesting aspect of it is the line: “So much for never letting the kids come between us.” That means that John and Elly had a conversation at some point where they made this promise to each other. Foolish John and Elly for ever making such a promise. I only hope that they made this promise before they had kids, and did not know any better. However, given that Michael was a surprise baby, I suspect it was afterwards.
Probably; it sounds like the sort of foolhardy promise that idiots like them would make. I've noticed over the years that thinking things through is even rarer than affectionate behavior. It never occurred to them what they should do as far as children were concerned until after Mike was conceived.
I agree it's jarring to see John and Elly being physically affectionate. The net effect of the new-run/reprint enterprise has been, for me, that these two don't especially like each other.
My wife and I don’t usually have make-out sessions in front of the kids, but when they were younger and we snuggled, the kids often wanted to join in on the snuggling.
Same here--our guy likes to get in on a cuddle huddle. :)
DreadedCandiru2,
I've noticed over the years that thinking things through is even rarer than affectionate behavior.
True enough. When is the last time you looked at something Elly and John did in the strip and thought “Well, that was the intelligent thing to do!” It’s more like the characters praise themselves for doing something smart, when it wasn’t very smart at all. The most recent example was John’s reverse psychology to get Michael to put on his pyjamas, where he argued that the world would not end if Michael slept in his itchy clothes. All I could think about that was, "That would never work on my kid."
aprilp_katje,
I agree it's jarring to see John and Elly being physically affectionate. The net effect of the new-run/reprint enterprise has been, for me, that these two don't especially like each other.
These kinds of reprints, Lynn usually leaves out due to her overall theme of only reprinting strips that give a negative impression of John. I wonder why she slipped and let this one sneak in?
Same here--our guy likes to get in on a cuddle huddle. :)
Enjoy it while he is little. Our boy still wanted to do that after he was over 100 pounds, and the result was a little painful when he tried to crawl / leap into a cuddle huddle.
Enjoy it while he is little. Our boy still wanted to do that after he was over 100 pounds, and the result was a little painful when he tried to crawl / leap into a cuddle huddle.
LOL--my husband is 6'5" and our son is already the tallest kid in his class. We keep joking he'll be taller than I am by second grade. :)
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