Farley is Here. Really he is.

With today’s new-run of For Better or For Worse, I am beginning to detect a pattern. Back on August 20, there was a new-run showing that, while the Pattersons were on vacation at the beach in the reprint strips prior to that point; Farley the dog had been kept in a kennel. The beach story strips in their original publication were pre-Farley, so Lynn Johnston added the new-run at the end of the storyline for apparently no other purpose than to make the strip storyline seem post-Farley.

This trouble was introduced when Lynn decided in this incarnation of the story, Farley the dog would be adopted while little Michael was in pre-school and not in Grade 1, as it was done the first time around. With today’s new-run, I have the feeling I am seeing the same type of thing again. We see Elly tell Mike that while she is at work, Anne will look in on Farley. The "Elly helps John at work" storyline was originally published pre-Farley. Now it is post-Farley.

I am beginning to wonder if this is the thing which Lynn Johnston was talking about, when she said some months ago that she wouldn’t start the strip into straight reprints until the story was strong enough to stand on its own. Maybe by "strong enough" she meant that the reprints had to progress to the point in the original storyline chronology to where Farley had original appeared when Michael was in Grade 1, so she would no longer have to explain why Farley was gone from the strips. Until that time comes in the reprint chronology, Lynn has to create the occasional odd new-run to let us readers know where Farley was, while he wasn't there yet.