The Shrieker Cometh
One of the nice things about first year Elly was that, when faced with a difficult circumstance, she oftentimes responded with big, bulging eyes and a shocked expression on her face. While on the outset of it, that doesn’t sound very pleasant, it is more pleasant than the stance that Elly developed in later years of shrieking at the top of her lungs with her mouth wide open. With today’s new-run of For Better or For Worse, I think Lynn has officially introduced shrieking Elly to the world of 1980.
Today’s new-run joke with young Michael staring at Elly in mid-shriek is similar to this strip with April from 2007. Michael did not really develop this ability to handle Elly’s shrieking until much later in life. Similarly with April, her look at Elly shrieking came after many years of dealing with situations more like this.
Today’s new-run joke with young Michael staring at Elly in mid-shriek is similar to this strip with April from 2007. Michael did not really develop this ability to handle Elly’s shrieking until much later in life. Similarly with April, her look at Elly shrieking came after many years of dealing with situations more like this.
posted by howard at 10:13 PM
5 Comments:
That's a really appealing thing to see, isn't it? Today's strip shows her having a meltdown because of something that not only had not happened yet, it could have been prevented if she'd used the brains God gave her. The later ones depict her as losing her religion because of a non-issue and her blowing her stack because she'd decided April, who'd dared express the mildest dissent to her decrees, was being a defiant, out-of-control, picky-face Martian princess.
Why it is that Lynn thinks that showing us that Elly standing around hollering blue murder in public when faced with the inconsequential is comedy gold is something I have never understood.
::checks first collection::
I see shrieking-Elly roughly three months into the run of the strip. The one where she rants about being tired of picking up and housework and dirty noses and the never-ending mess, and John tells her she's the one who wanted kids in the first place.
DreadedCandiru2,
Why it is that Lynn thinks that showing us that Elly standing around hollering blue murder in public when faced with the inconsequential is comedy gold is something I have never understood.-
The image of someone with the jaw wide open screaming is one of the few elements of Charles Schulz’s style of humour which Lynn Johnston adapted and never let go in 30 years of writing her comic strip. In the Peanuts version, one of the characters would yell loudly and the others would flip in the air for comic effect. It worked for Charles Schulz because (a) the characters who did this were all kids and (b) the unrealistic flipping in the air reaction. With Lynn Johnston, she almost always puts the shrieking into Elly’s character (although latter day Liz was beginning to do it too) and puts the recipient of the shrieking as Elly’s family and pets. The reason it doesn’t work for Lynn Johnston is (a) it is dominant character using it to overpower a weaker character and (b) the recipients of the shrieking often act just like someone would in real life if they had been shrieked at. While this may be more realistic than Charles Schulz’s version, it has the side effect of reminding the readers of every overbearing, abusive parent that they have ever seen screaming at their kids in public.
aprilp_katje,
I see shrieking-Elly roughly three months into the run of the strip. The one where she rants about being tired of picking up and housework and dirty noses and the never-ending mess, and John tells her she's the one who wanted kids in the first place.-
3 months? That’s depressing. OK. How about shrieking Elly where we just see her shrieking and we don’t know what she is saying?
How about shrieking Elly where we just see her shrieking and we don’t know what she is saying?
Not within the first year. I'll dig further another time. :)
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