Solo Parenting: The Retcon Begins
Since John Patterson says he is going to “try his hand at solo parenting” in today’s new-run of For Better or For Worse, I suppose this means that we are going back to the first year of the strip when John offered to ease Elly’s stress and look after the kids for a weekend while she made a visit to her parents in Vancouver. We saw a reprint from this storyline back on Thursday April 3, 2008. Maybe we will be lucky enough to see this strip reprinted again. This is the first year storyline that usually flies in the face of all those stories where John doesn’t do anything with the kids; so I cannot say that I am too surprised that Lynn Johnston would address it. And by “address it”, I mean “rewrite it to make John look bad.”
As John tells his story to Jean Baker, whose head shape and head’s relative size to her body changes in every single panel (Good job, Lynn!!), we get the first glimmer of retcon. Jean tells John that he is a nice guy; but John seems to prefer the compliment he got from Dr. Ted McCaulay that he is a saint. Because the compliment comes from Ted, from the author’s perspective, it should be disregarded. The main point is that John Patterson is complimenting himself for doing this thing for Elly. The seeds have been sown for John to be shown to be less competent than he was before when the strip storyline was originally presented.
This is an odd statement from Ted. I don’t remember Ted as being the guy who commiserated with John over having to take care of children. As I recollect, Ted does have the idea that the woman should do the cooking and the laundry; but I thought when Ted and Connie were dating, Ted bonded better with Lawrence than he did with Connie. I am not sure 1980 Ted’s views with respect to a man taking care of his kids are as severe as they are made out to be in today’s strip. Of course, I don’t own a copy of the collection for the first year, so there may be something I am forgetting.
As we progress this week, I suspect we can expect new-runs showing things like:
a. John desperately calling Elly to ask about a spare peeler.
b. John getting help from Connie or Annie with the kids.
c. The kids weeping over their mother leaving them with dad.
d. John trying to sell his children into slavery.
e. Other moments of John’s gross incompetence with the kids.
As John tells his story to Jean Baker, whose head shape and head’s relative size to her body changes in every single panel (Good job, Lynn!!), we get the first glimmer of retcon. Jean tells John that he is a nice guy; but John seems to prefer the compliment he got from Dr. Ted McCaulay that he is a saint. Because the compliment comes from Ted, from the author’s perspective, it should be disregarded. The main point is that John Patterson is complimenting himself for doing this thing for Elly. The seeds have been sown for John to be shown to be less competent than he was before when the strip storyline was originally presented.
This is an odd statement from Ted. I don’t remember Ted as being the guy who commiserated with John over having to take care of children. As I recollect, Ted does have the idea that the woman should do the cooking and the laundry; but I thought when Ted and Connie were dating, Ted bonded better with Lawrence than he did with Connie. I am not sure 1980 Ted’s views with respect to a man taking care of his kids are as severe as they are made out to be in today’s strip. Of course, I don’t own a copy of the collection for the first year, so there may be something I am forgetting.
As we progress this week, I suspect we can expect new-runs showing things like:
a. John desperately calling Elly to ask about a spare peeler.
b. John getting help from Connie or Annie with the kids.
c. The kids weeping over their mother leaving them with dad.
d. John trying to sell his children into slavery.
e. Other moments of John’s gross incompetence with the kids.
posted by howard at 10:34 PM
9 Comments:
howard,
This is the first year storyline that usually flies in the face of all those stories where John doesn’t do anything with the kids; so I cannot say that I am too surprised that Lynn Johnston would address it. And by “address it”, I mean “rewrite it to make John look bad.”
Of course John is going to be catastrophically inept; if he were competent, that would mean that Elly's burden might one day be lightened. Since her agony can only ever increase, not only must he fail, his failure keeps on failing. That's because he'll accidentally-on-purpose put the idea in Mike's head that Elly was trying to ditch him and Lizzie because they were naughty; given how insecure Mike is, he'll end up thinking that any attempt Elly makes at developing an outside interest is a slam against him.
Jean tells John that he is a nice guy; but John seems to prefer the compliment he got from Dr. Ted McCaulay that he is a saint.
Curiously, today's strip seems to be another instance of LJ replacing an old strip with a new-run covering the same ground with slightly different dialogue.
The original has three panels. John and Jean are working on a patient. Panel one has John telling her, "I told Elly to take off this weekend... And let me take the kids for a change." Panel two has him adding "I figure she needs a break." Jean compliments him, "You're a nice guy, Dr. Patterson." Panel three has him saying, "I'm a saint," while looking grim.
Major changes in the new-run: Jean raises the subject--why, and from whom did she "hear" about Elly's stupid trip to Vancouver? The "saint" line is attributed to Ted. Is this meant to make John appear less self-serving? Ted appear worse? And are Ted and John getting together for coffee and talking, like Connie and Elly with "Y" chromosomes? This conversation with Jean is not taking place over a (fully conscious) patient--is Lynn trying to make John seem less irresponsible (after she already made him look terrible with last week's strips?)
And by “address it”, I mean “rewrite it to make John look bad.”
The original arc did a fairly good job of that by having John tell Jean that he'd left all the dirty dishes, laundry, and other cleaning for Elly to do on her return. Yuck.
BTW, the strip that ran on April 3, 2008 was not part of this arc.
April_Patterson,
I, too, look forward to seeing how much worse she can make Rod look; not only must he made to look to be a witless, skirt-chasing failure, he must also depicted as a complete incompentent with the children.
aprilp_katje,
Curiously, today's strip seems to be another instance of LJ replacing an old strip with a new-run covering the same ground with slightly different dialogue.
She’s done this before, but I thought there was a typewriter involved she wanted to exclude. Was there a typewriter in the original strip? Maybe hanging around in the background or lurking behind a corner?
The original has three panels. John and Jean are working on a patient.
Jean working on a patient may be working against what appears to be Lynn’s current position that Jean is working as an office manager only. In the latter years of the modern strip, we never saw Jean working on patients. It also flies in the face of the idea that John’s assistants are all pretty young women, which Lynn has mentioned in more than one interview. I suspect this is the main reason for the redraw.
Panel one has John telling her, "I told Elly to take off this weekend... And let me take the kids for a change."
There are a lot of words of explanation inserted in place of this. For one, we learn that Elly’s mom and dad are in Vancouver. If I remember correctly, we did not learn this fact immediately in the strip. Plus we have the caveat that Elly has not seen her mom and dad in a long time. You can correct me if I am wrong, but I seem to remember Elly going to Vancouver pretty regularly in the first few years of the strip. However the key ingredient here is new-run “I suggested” vs. the reprint “I told”.
Panel two has him adding "I figure she needs a break."
BTW, the strip that ran on April 3, 2008 was not part of this arc.
The new-run has a lot more words here, because John’s line about “I thought I’d try my hand at solo parenting” implies he has never done this before. However, if the strip that ran on April 3, 2008 was before this arc, then it is clear that John has done this before.
Jean compliments him, "You're a nice guy, Dr. Patterson."
Dr. P vs. Dr. Patterson. I guess Lynn wanted to work in John’s nickname.
Major changes in the new-run: Jean raises the subject--why, and from whom did she "hear" about Elly's stupid trip to Vancouver?
This goes to the idea that Jean and Elly would have regular conversations. When my wife worked for a doctor, the office staff for the doctor dreaded visits or phone calls from the doctor’s wife, because she had a tendency to treat the office staff as if they were her personal employees. However, in the case of Elly Patterson, I am sure Jean adores her and has regular conversations for the benefit of John Patterson.
The "saint" line is attributed to Ted. Is this meant to make John appear less self-serving? Ted appear worse?
When John looked grim with the saint line, it makes it appear that he is dreading having to deal with the children himself, as if he knows what that is like. In this version, he doesn’t know what that is like, since he is “trying his hand at solo parenting.” By attributing the saint line to Ted, you get a comparison / contrast between Jean and Ted. Jean just thinks he is “nice”; but among men, John is a candidate for sainthood. Whenever I have done things like that for my wife, frequently those kinds of compliments came from women and not from men, and those compliments frequently irritated my wife, especially if a woman made the mistake of referring to me as “the baby-sitter.”
And are Ted and John getting together for coffee and talking, like Connie and Elly with "Y" chromosomes?
Exactly. It doesn’t seem like a Ted and John conversation, which usually dealt with Ted wanting John to go out drinking, or talking about Ted’s single life.
The original arc did a fairly good job of that by having John tell Jean that he'd left all the dirty dishes, laundry, and other cleaning for Elly to do on her return. Yuck.
I am sure this part of it will be left in. Lynn Johnston will just add a few more things in to improve our opinion of John.
DreadedCandiru2
I, too, look forward to seeing how much worse she can make Rod look; not only must he made to look to be a witless, skirt-chasing failure, he must also depicted as a complete incompentent with the children.
We haven’t really seen the skirt-chasing part exactly. However, in comparison with the original strip (described by aprilp_katje), it appears that we have moved from Jean being the assistant to the April Patterson-esque assistant. That does re-emphasize John’s practice of hiring pretty, young woman for assistants.
However, if the strip that ran on April 3, 2008 was before this arc, then it is clear that John has done this before.
I tried to find this strip in the first two collections this morning, and I could not. The reason I also checked the second collection was that I noticed a "c. 1981" and "1/31" which I expect must have been on the strip as it originally ran--on January 31, 1981? This tells me it ought to appear in the second collection, not too far after the "Connie and Phil have a NYE date" arc. But I didn't see it there. I'm not sure whether it was left out or whether in my hurry (perusing collections when I should have been showering/readying myself for work!) I missed it. forworse--if you're reading this--have you come across that 4/3/2008 reprint in the collections?
aprilp_katje,
If January 31, 1981 is the correct date, then this occurred after the "Elly goes to Vancouver" story in the first collection. That means John's line about "I thought I’d try my hand at solo parenting” could mean that he has never done this before as it appeared in the strip. The difference is that in the new-run Lynn is spelling out that John has never done it before. The original strip has John telling Elly to visit her parents, and shows John dreads it and thinks of himself as a saint for having set it up. However, the original did not imply it was John's first time to do it, only that he was never very good at it, and he left a mess for Elly to clean up when she came back.
If Lynn chooses to rerun that anachronistic "Woman's Lip" strip again (a modern-day Mike would likely never have heard of the phrase "Woman's Lib"), that mini-Lizzie looks like she will be regressed back to pre-crawling age...
Found it! Apologies for the delay -- I was a bit swamped at work (y'know, doing work stuff) so didn't read Howard's blog until this morning. It's on p. 25 of One More Washload Blues, as is the original of today's (11 March) re-drawn strip. It's followed by one with John asking Mike where Elly keeps the spaghetti, Lizzie's clean pants, Lizzie's bottle...then asking why he's supposed to know where things are: he just lives there. Then Elly returns to annonce that her mother called her a spoiled brat. The arc finishes with John telling Jean that he left all the housework and laundry for Elly.
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