Art Review
aprilp_katje requested an in-depth art review of today’s reprint of For Better or For Worse. Off we go!
Panel 1: John appears on the left with his collar turned up for some reason. It’s down for the rest of the strip. John’s glasses are missing the ear piece throughout the strip. Somehow I don’t think Lynn means for him to be wearing a pince-nez. In this panel, the Yahoo colourist works to good effect. The action should be on the figure of the instructor and maybe John, and yet the center of the strip focuses on 2 unknown characters and their dogs, which are nearly silhouetted. One has their dog by the collar, the other by a nice loose leash. Farley the dog, on the other hand, is being hung by the neck by John, judging from his snout straight up and the tightness of his leash. Possibly he is stuck in the bottom of the panel and John is trying to pull him out. In the background we see a modern Lynn art style: The giant blob of black silhouettes. In later years, Lynn would get better about giving these more definition. Not so in this panel, where we have simply a blob with an occasional, somewhat head-looking thing popping out.
Panel 2: This panel is better-composed than the first. The instructor is more prominently drawn and is mostly in-panel. However, the mismatched size between her head and the rest of her giant-sized body is distracting. Clearly Lynn drew the body first and then when she realized that the head to match it would exceed the bounds of the panel, she drew the head smaller to fit. This is the old “Lynn refuses to use an eraser” scenario which plagues her art for the next 30 years. In this panel we also see another favourite Lynn art style: The ever-changing perspective. Lynn loves to change the perspective in every single panel. Someone told her that changing perspective is a good thing, and she has done it ever since, even when it is confusing. We can see John is in the same place relative to the woman in the first panel. With this new perspective, we can see that embedded in the silhouette blob, are Elly, Michael and Lizzie. They are apparently sitting or standing right behind a very short black blob thing that is actually shorter than little Lizzie. In this panel the Yahoo colourist does not work to Lynn’s advantage, as Elly and the kids are not coloured in to help you notice them. One particularly nice touch in this panel, which Lynn eventually loses in her art is the changing interests of Farley the dog. Modern Lynn turns the dogs as eyeless and unemotional as the instructor. In this panel, Farley has spotted the other dog, who has turned to look away from Farley. This is nice background detail that enhances the story.
Panel 3: The silhouette blob is even more obvious in this panel, where it looks like there are both feet and heads sticking out of it, like it is a giant centipede. The focus is very poor on this one. Michael or Lizzie (I’m honestly not sure which one) appears as some kind of goiter coming out of Elly’s neck and has switched positions with Elly from the last panel. Both of them have eyes, but seem to have lost their mouths somewhere along the way. John is the speaker and should be the focus and yet he is almost completely off-panel, except for his head and arm. The focus of the panel is the unimportant lady in the back with her dog. Farley the dog appears to have been replaced by some kind of round hairy, tongue thing. He has completely lost the angular dog-like shape to his head.
Panel 4: Here, we have another example of a head attached to a body of a differing size. Clearly Lynn drew Elly’s arm first to touch John and then drew in Elly’s head later to fit the size of the panel. That’s twice in one strip she did that. Other later additions appear to be Farley, Lizzie and Mike’s heads and John’s leg. Mike does not have the correct relative height to Lizzie. Unless Farley’s head is now attached to John’s leg, it looks like he has pulled the poor dog’s head off its body. The Yahoo colourist salvaged Lizzie with a blot of pink under her head, otherwise she and Michael would also appear to be nothing but disembodied, floating heads.
That's it for the art review. As for the joke, Elly is demeaning or mocking John’s question by treating him like a dog. It looks like she is joking with the expression on her face, but John's expression tells us he doesn’t seem to get the joke. On the other hand, this may be one of the few times during the entire course of the strip where Elly actually tells John that he is wonderful. If I were John married to Elly, I would run with it.
Panel 1: John appears on the left with his collar turned up for some reason. It’s down for the rest of the strip. John’s glasses are missing the ear piece throughout the strip. Somehow I don’t think Lynn means for him to be wearing a pince-nez. In this panel, the Yahoo colourist works to good effect. The action should be on the figure of the instructor and maybe John, and yet the center of the strip focuses on 2 unknown characters and their dogs, which are nearly silhouetted. One has their dog by the collar, the other by a nice loose leash. Farley the dog, on the other hand, is being hung by the neck by John, judging from his snout straight up and the tightness of his leash. Possibly he is stuck in the bottom of the panel and John is trying to pull him out. In the background we see a modern Lynn art style: The giant blob of black silhouettes. In later years, Lynn would get better about giving these more definition. Not so in this panel, where we have simply a blob with an occasional, somewhat head-looking thing popping out.
Panel 2: This panel is better-composed than the first. The instructor is more prominently drawn and is mostly in-panel. However, the mismatched size between her head and the rest of her giant-sized body is distracting. Clearly Lynn drew the body first and then when she realized that the head to match it would exceed the bounds of the panel, she drew the head smaller to fit. This is the old “Lynn refuses to use an eraser” scenario which plagues her art for the next 30 years. In this panel we also see another favourite Lynn art style: The ever-changing perspective. Lynn loves to change the perspective in every single panel. Someone told her that changing perspective is a good thing, and she has done it ever since, even when it is confusing. We can see John is in the same place relative to the woman in the first panel. With this new perspective, we can see that embedded in the silhouette blob, are Elly, Michael and Lizzie. They are apparently sitting or standing right behind a very short black blob thing that is actually shorter than little Lizzie. In this panel the Yahoo colourist does not work to Lynn’s advantage, as Elly and the kids are not coloured in to help you notice them. One particularly nice touch in this panel, which Lynn eventually loses in her art is the changing interests of Farley the dog. Modern Lynn turns the dogs as eyeless and unemotional as the instructor. In this panel, Farley has spotted the other dog, who has turned to look away from Farley. This is nice background detail that enhances the story.
Panel 3: The silhouette blob is even more obvious in this panel, where it looks like there are both feet and heads sticking out of it, like it is a giant centipede. The focus is very poor on this one. Michael or Lizzie (I’m honestly not sure which one) appears as some kind of goiter coming out of Elly’s neck and has switched positions with Elly from the last panel. Both of them have eyes, but seem to have lost their mouths somewhere along the way. John is the speaker and should be the focus and yet he is almost completely off-panel, except for his head and arm. The focus of the panel is the unimportant lady in the back with her dog. Farley the dog appears to have been replaced by some kind of round hairy, tongue thing. He has completely lost the angular dog-like shape to his head.
Panel 4: Here, we have another example of a head attached to a body of a differing size. Clearly Lynn drew Elly’s arm first to touch John and then drew in Elly’s head later to fit the size of the panel. That’s twice in one strip she did that. Other later additions appear to be Farley, Lizzie and Mike’s heads and John’s leg. Mike does not have the correct relative height to Lizzie. Unless Farley’s head is now attached to John’s leg, it looks like he has pulled the poor dog’s head off its body. The Yahoo colourist salvaged Lizzie with a blot of pink under her head, otherwise she and Michael would also appear to be nothing but disembodied, floating heads.
That's it for the art review. As for the joke, Elly is demeaning or mocking John’s question by treating him like a dog. It looks like she is joking with the expression on her face, but John's expression tells us he doesn’t seem to get the joke. On the other hand, this may be one of the few times during the entire course of the strip where Elly actually tells John that he is wonderful. If I were John married to Elly, I would run with it.
posted by howard at 10:02 PM
8 Comments:
Treasure it? Even if Elly -does- think she's joking, this is by far one of the emotionally cruelest things I've seen Elly do. Humiliating her own husband in front of countless strangers and their own children, just so she can get a dig in.
John may be a sexist, clueless twit, but one thing the reruns have made clear is that the faults in the marriage were definitely not solely his, no matter how Lynn tries to stack the deck against him.
Anonymous,
Even if Elly -does- think she's joking, this is by far one of the emotionally cruelest things I've seen Elly do. Humiliating her own husband in front of countless strangers and their own children, just so she can get a dig in.
The sad thing is that she doesn't see what she's doing is wrong; this is the same woman who'd later react to Mike's concerns about the changes his body was going through with passive-aggressive insults and the Sticky-Out-Tongued Laugh of Malice.
howtheduck,
It's just as you said yesterday; Elly is not only not an active participant in this, she mocks John for doing things instead of waiting for the magic to happen. It's sort of obvious that with her avoid-work-to-win attitude and not wanting to "be told how to live" (i.e. dismissing out of hand the constructive criticism of outsiders), obedience school is a waste of time.
Anonymous,
Treasure it?-
That was intended as a joke, but I don’t think it came across.
Even if Elly -does- think she's joking, this is by far one of the emotionally cruelest things I've seen Elly do.-
I would rate it maybe in the top 30-40 of cruel things Elly has done. There were so many strips with Elly screaming at and humiliating her kids, where they looked at her in fear and terror.
John may be a sexist, clueless twit, but one thing the reruns have made clear is that the faults in the marriage were definitely not solely his, no matter how Lynn tries to stack the deck against him.-
Very true. In fact, the deck-stacking usually turns me against Elly, not for Elly. I feel the need to protect someone from a bully, even if that bully is the character’s own creator.
DreadedCandiru2,
…this is the same woman who'd later react to Mike's concerns about the changes his body was going through with passive-aggressive insults and the Sticky-Out-Tongued Laugh of Malice.-
And the same woman who was completely unconcerned her employee, Kortney Krelbutz threatened to physically harm her daughter. And the same woman who was more concerned about her daughter burning her casserole than the fact she was almost raped. There is a long list here and it goes back 30 years.
Thanks for the analysis, howtheduck. I also noticed that the woman in the first panel, to John's left and (our right of him) appears to have a floor-length skirt and a mullet haircut. Between panels one and two, she apparently hands off her dog to a friend who has straight shoulder-length hair and pants.
The panel-three goiter I take to be Lizzie, based on the curls of hair and the being-carried position that was poorly conveyed. (I did today's FOOBAR based on this strip, but could not bring myself to draw Lizzie coming directly out of Elly's neck like that.)
I also want to know why dog training is a spectator sport in this silly strip. Cesar Millan would have gotten the whole family involved!
aprilp_katje,
I also want to know why dog training is a spectator sport in this silly strip. Cesar Millan would have gotten the whole family involved!-
I agree. Perhaps this is the point where Lynn Johnston started using magazine or newspaper clippings as models, and found a couple of pictures of a dog show to use. This would not only explain the change in fashion of the women in panels 1 and 2, but would also explain the spectator sport aspect. Who knows? Maybe Lynn Lake dog training classes are like the Mtigwaki star party, where the entire town shows up for an elementary school star gazing, and Lynn thinks this is the way it is everywhere.
Maybe Lynn Lake dog training classes are like the Mtigwaki star party, where the entire town shows up for an elementary school star gazing, and Lynn thinks this is the way it is everywhere.
Lynn Lake Resident #1: I'm taking Fido to dog-training class tomorrow.
Lynn Lake Resident #2: Dog-training class? Omigod, really? What time? I'll call all my friends, and they'll call all their friends, and we'll all bring our families, and afterwards we'll have a great big barbecue by the lake!
Lynn Lake Resident #1: Well, duh!
;)
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