Elly Patterson and Lucy van Pelt: Sisters of Impatience
In today’s new-run of For Better or For Worse we have a comic strip which I know I have seen somewhere in Peanuts with Lucy van Pelt as the yeller, although not yelling at a Slow Cooker. I seem to remember it as Linus van Pelt telling Lucy that a watched pot doesn’t boil. Lucy ignores Linus and yells at the pot to hurry anyway.
The final panel where Elly has her nose in the air, her head tilted back without only her mouth visible is a visual language taken directly from Charles Schulz’s Peanuts comic strip. Normally at this moment, other characters in Peanuts would do a back flip in reaction to the yelling; but we have pretty much the Slow Cooker approximation to a back flip. I have noted many times over the past year when reprints stole directly from Charles Schulz’ style of art or humour; but this is the first new-run I recollect that did it. This is also the first time I have seen the strip with the punch line goes this far in ripping off Peanuts. I am embarrassed for Lynn Johnston.
The only other thing that strikes me about this strip is the use of the slow cooker. I didn’t remember Elly ever using a slow cooker. AMU reprints shows no slow cookers in its archives, but it does show a crock pot with a cute picture of a crocodile on it, which contrasted nicely with the milk with the cow picture on it in the same strip. At least in 2003, Elly finally figured out that these devices are for cooking the food for long periods of time.
I was tempted to entitle this Blog entry: Carrots: Elly’s Favourite Vegetable but the Peanuts rip-off was too distracting. Besides, as we know from Lynn’s Oaxaca trip entry #3, Lynn likes to buy carrots and give unwashed carrots to other unsuspecting people, but she doesn’t actually eat carrots.
The final panel where Elly has her nose in the air, her head tilted back without only her mouth visible is a visual language taken directly from Charles Schulz’s Peanuts comic strip. Normally at this moment, other characters in Peanuts would do a back flip in reaction to the yelling; but we have pretty much the Slow Cooker approximation to a back flip. I have noted many times over the past year when reprints stole directly from Charles Schulz’ style of art or humour; but this is the first new-run I recollect that did it. This is also the first time I have seen the strip with the punch line goes this far in ripping off Peanuts. I am embarrassed for Lynn Johnston.
The only other thing that strikes me about this strip is the use of the slow cooker. I didn’t remember Elly ever using a slow cooker. AMU reprints shows no slow cookers in its archives, but it does show a crock pot with a cute picture of a crocodile on it, which contrasted nicely with the milk with the cow picture on it in the same strip. At least in 2003, Elly finally figured out that these devices are for cooking the food for long periods of time.
I was tempted to entitle this Blog entry: Carrots: Elly’s Favourite Vegetable but the Peanuts rip-off was too distracting. Besides, as we know from Lynn’s Oaxaca trip entry #3, Lynn likes to buy carrots and give unwashed carrots to other unsuspecting people, but she doesn’t actually eat carrots.
posted by howard at 9:37 PM
4 Comments:
This is also the first time I have seen the strip with the punch line goes this far in ripping off Peanuts. I am embarrassed for Lynn Johnston.
I am even more embarrassed that we're about to see an example of the cultural cringe tomorrow; it seems to me that Lynn is actually ashamed that Canada celebrates Thanksgiving on a different day for a different reason and intends apologizing to her American readers for the inconvenience. As for her yelling at the appliance, it's her thinking that everything is plotting against her again.
Whoa. That 2003 strip is from the years I stopped reading the comic. We're supposed to find a parent throwing something at the back of an unsuspecting teenager's head FUNNY???
You don't throw things in jest at people's heads, ever, and especially not from the back; you get their attention and make sure they're looking (& can catch). Doesn't matter if the bag was "soft" or whatever, THAT strip clearly depicts abusive behavior, and it's NOT funny.
Verification word: "scram". ^__^
DreadedCandiru2,
I am even more embarrassed that we're about to see an example of the cultural cringe tomorrow; it seems to me that Lynn is actually ashamed that Canada celebrates Thanksgiving on a different day for a different reason and intends apologizing to her American readers for the inconvenience.
I doubt we will see this, except on the website. Lynn doesn’t usually do Thanksgiving strips, but the website usually puts up that “Elly with the turkey” picture.
As for her yelling at the appliance, it's her thinking that everything is plotting against her again.
Honestly, I think this has nothing to do with a characterization of Elly. Lynn has run out of ideas to the point where she is ripping off classic Peanuts.
Anonymous,
Whoa. That 2003 strip is from the years I stopped reading the comic. We're supposed to find a parent throwing something at the back of an unsuspecting teenager's head FUNNY???
The hurling of items at someone’s head was considered a comedy standard on this strip for many years, although John was usually the recipient of something hurled by Elly, and most times we didn’t get to see if the object actually connected with the head. Back when we used to do April’s Real Blog, one of the running jokes was that John’s less sexist behaviour from the early years to the modern years was due to brain damage from having been hit in the head so many times by things Elly threw at him.
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