Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Nizzie Needs a Different Boyfriend than Her Dad

In today’s reprint of For Better or For Worse, we see little Nizzie (doing a great imitation of young Sally Brown from Peanuts), sitting down and going at the cookie box, saying, “Cookie! Num-num! Cookie good. Nizzie eat cookie!” From this John Patterson draws the conclusion that Nizzie is “walking and talking and turning into a real little girl.” At this point I would say to John, “The way it works is that you see her do those things, and then you praise her for doing them." Cause and effect works better as a story-telling device. That way you don't get people scratching their heads and thinking, "What is John talking about? Nizzie is just imitating Cookie Monster."

Then John picks up Nizzie and says, “Let’s hope I’ve got a few years before she finds another boyfriend!” My initial thought was, “What? John considers the cookie to be Nizzie’s boyfriend?” Then I thought maybe I missed a strip where Nizzie had a boyfriend. Then I remembered that when it comes to his daughters, John Patterson is creepy. He is talking about being Nizzie’s boyfriend himself. I have a daughter and trust me when I say that I have never said that I was her boyfriend.

As proof of John Patterson’s creepiness factor, I offer the following strips:

April

12/4/2001 - John’s says his baby turn into a babe.

9/25/2004 – John says April won’t be invisible for much longer while giving her the eye.

3/10/2005 – April talks about how she has been getting the look, and not the look that comes from dad.

8/2/2007 – John and April have a vicious pillow fight as if they were a couple.

12/31/2007 – April wears a slinky dress and John has to hug her

8/5/2008 - April dresses John for Liz’ wedding, as if they were a couple.

Elizabeth

5/17/2002 – John immediately notices when Liz has her navel exposed

2/24/2007 – The strip where John comes into Liz’s bedroom and then puts odds on which of Liz’s suitors will be successful in wooing her.

12 Comments:

Blogger Clio said...

Once, when my dad took my mom and I on one of his work trips, one of his soused colleagues -- I think it was actually his new boss -- who had yet to meet my mother, said, "oh, so this is your wife Tom, so glad to meet her, she's gorgeous!" My father and I jumped about 15 feet from each other and he quickly said something like, "this is my DAUGHTER" while I said something like "I'm 16!" This colleague (whose wife was about 25 years younger than him) was suitably embarrassed, and I was completely grossed out for the rest of the trip. I think my mother found it funny but didn't laugh too much because she saw how disturbed my father and I (especially I) were by it.

So, Lynn, thanks for making the comics a nausea zone, and bringing back icky memories.

10:10 PM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

Then I remembered that when it comes to his daughters, John Patterson is creepy. He is talking about being Nizzie’s boyfriend himself. I have a daughter and trust me when I say that I have never said that I was her boyfriend.

You aren't the creation of someone who imparts sick motives to the father-daughter bond; the cynical blowhard in me has the appalling suspicion that, on some level, Lynn saw Katie as competition for Rod's affections. Since she can't stand it that she's not the centre of everything, she imparts dark motives to harmless things.

10:32 PM  
Blogger Holly said...

John's hero must be Jessica Simpson's father.(*)

I just finished saying in the Foobiverse that this strip didn't bother me when I first read it all those years ago. I even thought it was kind of sweet, but in light of the comments and looks you've reminded us that John would make as his daughters grew up, not to mention Liz's programming to marry a man like her father, I can't look at it in the same way anymore.

Ew.

(*)I don't know if this story is a since-debunked urban legend; I wasn't interested in looking further after first hearing about it.

11:09 PM  
Blogger April Patterson said...

Then I remembered that when it comes to his daughters, John Patterson is creepy. He is talking about being Nizzie’s boyfriend himself.

Yup. This strip gives me the heebee geebees.

3:33 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes, that one where he's in "adult" Liz's bedroom took the cake. But there were so many other strong contenders. And even in matters non-sexual, the guy was always a total creep. Telling Granthony "you can't cheat an honest man." Forcing April to apologize to her mother for having asserted herself. I could go on all day. What horrible people. No wonder they found each other.

4:48 AM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

josephusrex,

I agree on how fitting it is that two people that revolting married one another and thus minimized the misery of the world; it just seems somewhat depressing that we can say the same thing about their first two children. In Mike and Deanna, we have a entitled jackhole and his simpering, immature twerp of an enabler and the Lizthony dynamic is best understood as a faithful replication of the original horrible marrriage.

5:08 AM  
Blogger howard said...

Clio,

My father and I jumped about 15 feet from each other and he quickly said something like, "this is my DAUGHTER" while I said something like "I'm 16!"

That’s a great, but icky, story. Creepy John Patterson brings out the best stories.

9:22 AM  
Blogger howard said...

DreadedCandiru2,

You aren't the creation of someone who imparts sick motives to the father-daughter bond; the cynical blowhard in me has the appalling suspicion that, on some level, Lynn saw Katie as competition for Rod's affections.

Freud would be having a field day with that one.

9:23 AM  
Blogger howard said...

forworse

John's hero must be Jessica Simpson's father.(*)

If only April or Elizabeth got implants like Jessica Simpson, then John could brag on their double-D’s too.

9:23 AM  
Blogger howard said...

josephusrex,

Yes, that one where he's in "adult" Liz's bedroom took the cake. But there were so many other strong contenders. And even in matters non-sexual, the guy was always a total creep.

The strange part about the later strips is that in them Lynn Johnston is not intentionally trying to make John look bad, as she has done so many times in these early strips. I think part of it is the problem she has writing for men. It’s one thing for a mother to admire her daughter’s beauty, but if she is going to write that for the father, she has to take the sexual part out of it.

9:24 AM  
Blogger April Patterson said...

Telling Granthony "you can't cheat an honest man."

josephusrex, I believe you're thinking of the infamous "It's easy to lie to an honest guy" strip.

5:30 PM  
Blogger The North York Nut said...

Nizzie? You mean lizzie

8:49 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home