Elly, the Writer
One of the more fascinating aspects about when Lynn Johnston took her strip back in time was the re-imaging of Elly Patterson as a writer. The long-running story about Elly was that she quit going to university due to money reasons. However, when the character page on the website was updated for the newly young Elly, it said this instead:
It was in a campus library where she met John Patterson, snoozing away in her familiar study nook. He was funny, witty and charming (once awake, anyway) and she instantly felt comfortable in his company. The fact that he offered her free dental work was just a bonus! After a year of serious dating, he proposed and they were married the next February and settled happily into a small basement bachelor apartment. Elly's interest in her degree was fading by this time and she wanted to get out and WRITE! She left university early to work in a bookstore and do some freelance writing while John finished up his dentistry training.
Not money. Writing. Let’s not think too hard about the idea of Elly quitting the University of Toronto to have a chance to write so that she could eventually go to a Milborough night school to learn how to write, as represented in today’s new-run of For Better or For Worse. Money made more sense. In more recent strips, the implication is that Elly quit school to get her MRS degree, so maybe Lynn understands how silly that is too.
Nevertheless, what I took away from the updated character reference is that Lynn Johnston wants to establish Elly as a writer, and maybe not the way she appeared the first time through these strips in 1981, as a disinterested housewife thinking about writing as a hobby. We have recently learned that Lynn Johnston in personal appearances has a very shaky hand, implying that her career as a comic strip artist would be limited. The idea of pursuing writing as a career may resonate with Lynn in her own situation. It takes less manual dexterity to type than it does to draw. What we may have coming up is the last great round of wish-fulfillment for Lynn Johnston as experienced through Elly Patterson. It will be interesting to see where it goes. Unlike the situation with Michael Patterson, where Lynn Johnston made him outrageously and unbelievably successful in his writing career, Lynn is restrained by 30 years of her strip, where we know that Elly Patterson never becomes a best-selling author. The net effect is that we may get a more reasonable demonstration of Elly’s writing skills. And then again, it could be some disaster with her kids that stops her.
It was in a campus library where she met John Patterson, snoozing away in her familiar study nook. He was funny, witty and charming (once awake, anyway) and she instantly felt comfortable in his company. The fact that he offered her free dental work was just a bonus! After a year of serious dating, he proposed and they were married the next February and settled happily into a small basement bachelor apartment. Elly's interest in her degree was fading by this time and she wanted to get out and WRITE! She left university early to work in a bookstore and do some freelance writing while John finished up his dentistry training.
Not money. Writing. Let’s not think too hard about the idea of Elly quitting the University of Toronto to have a chance to write so that she could eventually go to a Milborough night school to learn how to write, as represented in today’s new-run of For Better or For Worse. Money made more sense. In more recent strips, the implication is that Elly quit school to get her MRS degree, so maybe Lynn understands how silly that is too.
Nevertheless, what I took away from the updated character reference is that Lynn Johnston wants to establish Elly as a writer, and maybe not the way she appeared the first time through these strips in 1981, as a disinterested housewife thinking about writing as a hobby. We have recently learned that Lynn Johnston in personal appearances has a very shaky hand, implying that her career as a comic strip artist would be limited. The idea of pursuing writing as a career may resonate with Lynn in her own situation. It takes less manual dexterity to type than it does to draw. What we may have coming up is the last great round of wish-fulfillment for Lynn Johnston as experienced through Elly Patterson. It will be interesting to see where it goes. Unlike the situation with Michael Patterson, where Lynn Johnston made him outrageously and unbelievably successful in his writing career, Lynn is restrained by 30 years of her strip, where we know that Elly Patterson never becomes a best-selling author. The net effect is that we may get a more reasonable demonstration of Elly’s writing skills. And then again, it could be some disaster with her kids that stops her.
posted by howard at 5:58 PM
4 Comments:
It will be interesting to see where it goes. Unlike the situation with Michael Patterson, where Lynn Johnston made him outrageously and unbelievably successful in his writing career, Lynn is restrained by 30 years of her strip, where we know that Elly Patterson never becomes a best-selling author. The net effect is that we may get a more reasonable demonstration of Elly’s writing skills. And then again, it could be some disaster with her kids that stops her.
It's most likely going to be the latter of the two; I don't know what odd moral lesson we'll be asked to derive from it but it's going to be more interesting to deconstruct that her being discouraged by editors who don't agree that leaden poems that presupposed that doing the dishes is some sort of existential crisis need publishing.
Lynn has had Elly's writing as a stand-in for her own art in the backstory for a long time. Dropping out to write doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but Lynn has always said that she herself dropped out of art school to pursue art. She was able to get art jobs, so it at least makes more sense than Elly's version, but we are asked to believe that Elly was able to get freelance work.
OTOH, someone posting here anonymously did point out that Lynn now wants to pursue writing, and that this was the motive behind the travelogue CT posts. So maybe she is trying to give that aspect of Elly's story more emphasis?
DreadedCandiru2,
…more interesting to deconstruct that her being discouraged by editors who don't agree that leaden poems that presupposed that doing the dishes is some sort of existential crisis need publishing.
Editors!! How could I have forgotten? Editors are going to get toasted in the new-runs. It seems almost guaranteed.
aprilp_katje,
Dropping out to write doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but Lynn has always said that she herself dropped out of art school to pursue art.
Imagine what would have happened if Lynn stayed in art school. We might see objects in proper perspective and maybe even characters with normally-shaped hands and feet.
OTOH, someone posting here anonymously did point out that Lynn now wants to pursue writing, and that this was the motive behind the travelogue CT posts. So maybe she is trying to give that aspect of Elly's story more emphasis?
That makes sense to me, and it actually makes a little sense as far as the strip goes. Lynn Johnston has almost always done her better strips when she talks about something she knows.
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