Fathers’ Day 2009: A Return to Sweetness
Fathers’ Day, 2009 in For Better or For Worse is a new-run which starts off very similarly to Fathers’ Day, 2007, with the children jumping on and dragging their father out of bed.
In that strip, Michael Patterson was overwhelmed by his children’s attention and called for help from his wife, Deanna. In today’s strip, we have the same arm-dragging by kids, but John Patterson is made of sterner stuff than his son. This is made obvious in panel 2, where he stands as bowlegged as a professional cowboy. When Elly finally does pop in, John appears to be happily making pancakes for his kids. Although the rest of the strip plays on the joke that for everything John would like to do on Fathers’ Day, Elly adds a honey-do onto it; the tone of the strip is shockingly pleasant and ends with Elly kissing John on the cheek. The most shocking thing of all is that Elly actually says the word, “please,” to John. The last time that happened was in the 3/12/2000 strip (I love AMU reprints for being able to look up trivia like that). That’s right. It’s been more than 9 years. 2000 is the year many long-term fans mark as the year which began the strip’s descent into negativity.
Lynn Johnston had promised in her Blog entry on her website to lighten up the negative tone and here is a strip where it is clearly and obviously being done, and there is not a poop joke in sight. We have both John and Elly in a strip together and neither is doing a thing to vilify the other for their behaviour. I am agog at such a thing. It honestly makes me wonder what could have inspired Lynn Johnston to step away from the “slam John Patterson at every opportunity” paradigm, which has been the guiding force of the strip over the last 2 years. Maybe Lynn has finally realized that her ex-husband doesn’t read her strip, so her efforts to slam him via the strip have been in vain. Maybe Lynn has finally gotten the message from all those Coffee Talk comments from faithful fans which have complained about the constant negative tone. Maybe the sales of the strip have finally dropped low enough to give Lynn a wake-up call. Who knows? What I know is that, for the first time in a long time, people will probably write in and say that they have had a Fathers’ Day like this, for a strip that has been written recently.
On a personal note: My Fathers' Day will be spent taking boys to the Camp Lawton Boy Scout Camp for the week. There are no computers there that I can use, so the Howard Bunt Blog will be on hiatus until we return on Saturday. Have a happy week without me!
In that strip, Michael Patterson was overwhelmed by his children’s attention and called for help from his wife, Deanna. In today’s strip, we have the same arm-dragging by kids, but John Patterson is made of sterner stuff than his son. This is made obvious in panel 2, where he stands as bowlegged as a professional cowboy. When Elly finally does pop in, John appears to be happily making pancakes for his kids. Although the rest of the strip plays on the joke that for everything John would like to do on Fathers’ Day, Elly adds a honey-do onto it; the tone of the strip is shockingly pleasant and ends with Elly kissing John on the cheek. The most shocking thing of all is that Elly actually says the word, “please,” to John. The last time that happened was in the 3/12/2000 strip (I love AMU reprints for being able to look up trivia like that). That’s right. It’s been more than 9 years. 2000 is the year many long-term fans mark as the year which began the strip’s descent into negativity.
Lynn Johnston had promised in her Blog entry on her website to lighten up the negative tone and here is a strip where it is clearly and obviously being done, and there is not a poop joke in sight. We have both John and Elly in a strip together and neither is doing a thing to vilify the other for their behaviour. I am agog at such a thing. It honestly makes me wonder what could have inspired Lynn Johnston to step away from the “slam John Patterson at every opportunity” paradigm, which has been the guiding force of the strip over the last 2 years. Maybe Lynn has finally realized that her ex-husband doesn’t read her strip, so her efforts to slam him via the strip have been in vain. Maybe Lynn has finally gotten the message from all those Coffee Talk comments from faithful fans which have complained about the constant negative tone. Maybe the sales of the strip have finally dropped low enough to give Lynn a wake-up call. Who knows? What I know is that, for the first time in a long time, people will probably write in and say that they have had a Fathers’ Day like this, for a strip that has been written recently.
On a personal note: My Fathers' Day will be spent taking boys to the Camp Lawton Boy Scout Camp for the week. There are no computers there that I can use, so the Howard Bunt Blog will be on hiatus until we return on Saturday. Have a happy week without me!
posted by howard at 11:13 PM
3 Comments:
howard,
What I know is that, for the first time in a long time, people will probably write in and say that they have had a Fathers’ Day like this, for a strip that has been written recently.
This is a refreshing change; perhaps it does mean that the bitterness and boredom that made the strip bad is losing its grip on her. As for the real world, have a good time. You probably won;t miss much.
Please disregard that last sentence; Lynn stored up something awful to unleash in your absence.
hello... hapi blogging... have a nice day! just visiting here....
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