Elly’s Story / Lynn’s Strip Parallels
Today’s new-run of For Better or For Worse has such odd parallels with Lynn’s own writing method, it is difficult to ignore:
1. Judging from the clothes compared to yesterday's strip, Elly writes her story in less than a day. When I look back on the old website “Making Of” section, it appears that Lynn Johnston did much the same thing. She would sit down one day and write up the whole week’s worth of strips. Good stories take a little longer to write, but either this difference is lost on Lynn, or she is trying to show how slight Elly's story is.
2. Elly’s story is a story about her childhood. For Better or For Worse is largely based on a story of Lynn Johnston’s own life. Both women did not choose to write about things they don’t know. After all, Lynn’s original idea was to call her strip “The Johnstons”.
3. Elly can’t get the pages of her story organized to find the first page. It should be noted that after all these reprints, Lynn Johnston still has not reprinted the very first strip she published.
4. Elly is nervous reading to her own family. In this case, Lynn is nervous presenting material to her own family, i.e. her devoted fans. Although much has been made of Lynn’s inability to admit mistakes graciously, I still remember very clearly how concerned she was when she found out a large portion of her readership did not like the character of Anthony Caine.
5. John tells Elly to relax about reading her story. Michael says no matter how bad it is, he will enjoy it. Here the family represent the loyal Lynn Johnston fans. John represents the readers who will accept whatever stuff Lynn churns out. Michael represents the snarkers who are more than happy to point out to Lynn how bad her material is.
This also summarizes why Elly is nervous. Elly knows her family is accepting and yet also her worst critics, because they will pay attention to what she writes. In many respects that is the biggest problem with us snarkers. We notice when Lynn Johnston makes mistakes because we are so devoted to the material. Take the Fred and Frank the fish problem. Fred appeared in the September, 2008 strips. Frank was the naming mistake made in a January, 2009 strip and in last week' strips. That’s 4 months between the first set of strips and 10 months to the next set. Only members of Lynn’s devoted family of readers have the wherewithal to notice those kinds of errors over such a long period of time. Other less devoted readers are saying, “Michael has a fish?” and "Why are Michael and Lizzie so little?"
1. Judging from the clothes compared to yesterday's strip, Elly writes her story in less than a day. When I look back on the old website “Making Of” section, it appears that Lynn Johnston did much the same thing. She would sit down one day and write up the whole week’s worth of strips. Good stories take a little longer to write, but either this difference is lost on Lynn, or she is trying to show how slight Elly's story is.
2. Elly’s story is a story about her childhood. For Better or For Worse is largely based on a story of Lynn Johnston’s own life. Both women did not choose to write about things they don’t know. After all, Lynn’s original idea was to call her strip “The Johnstons”.
3. Elly can’t get the pages of her story organized to find the first page. It should be noted that after all these reprints, Lynn Johnston still has not reprinted the very first strip she published.
4. Elly is nervous reading to her own family. In this case, Lynn is nervous presenting material to her own family, i.e. her devoted fans. Although much has been made of Lynn’s inability to admit mistakes graciously, I still remember very clearly how concerned she was when she found out a large portion of her readership did not like the character of Anthony Caine.
5. John tells Elly to relax about reading her story. Michael says no matter how bad it is, he will enjoy it. Here the family represent the loyal Lynn Johnston fans. John represents the readers who will accept whatever stuff Lynn churns out. Michael represents the snarkers who are more than happy to point out to Lynn how bad her material is.
This also summarizes why Elly is nervous. Elly knows her family is accepting and yet also her worst critics, because they will pay attention to what she writes. In many respects that is the biggest problem with us snarkers. We notice when Lynn Johnston makes mistakes because we are so devoted to the material. Take the Fred and Frank the fish problem. Fred appeared in the September, 2008 strips. Frank was the naming mistake made in a January, 2009 strip and in last week' strips. That’s 4 months between the first set of strips and 10 months to the next set. Only members of Lynn’s devoted family of readers have the wherewithal to notice those kinds of errors over such a long period of time. Other less devoted readers are saying, “Michael has a fish?” and "Why are Michael and Lizzie so little?"
posted by howard at 10:30 PM
8 Comments:
I still remember very clearly how concerned she was when she found out a large portion of her readership did not like the character of Anthony Caine.
What was really striking about this time was how surprised she seemed to be to discover that not everyone loved Anthony, and indeed a large portion would rather see Elizabeth reconcile with Eric Chamberlain than settle for Anthony. It does prove Lynn's point about her fantasy bubble that she should be so unaware for so long of the depth of feeling against the resumption of Anthony and Elizabeth's high school romance. It didn't take her quite as long this time to acknowledge all the letters she'd received pointing out that she'd messed up on the fish's name, but she did ignore the point when it was first made last January.
howard,
This also summarizes why Elly is nervous. Elly knows her family is accepting and yet also her worst critics, because they will pay attention to what she writes. In many respects that is the biggest problem with us snarkers. We notice when Lynn Johnston makes mistakes because we are so devoted to the material.
It says something about her that she'd rather pander to people who don't care what she writes than accept our dedication to the strip; what that thing is is hard to say.
forworse,
What was really striking about this time was how surprised she seemed to be to discover that not everyone loved Anthony, and indeed a large portion would rather see Elizabeth reconcile with Eric Chamberlain than settle for Anthony. It does prove Lynn's point about her fantasy bubble that she should be so unaware for so long of the depth of feeling against the resumption of Anthony and Elizabeth's high school romance.
I wonder who was in charge of keeping her from realizing things like that back then; whoever they were, they were good at it.
forworse,
It does prove Lynn's point about her fantasy bubble that she should be so unaware for so long of the depth of feeling against the resumption of Anthony and Elizabeth's high school romance.
At the very beginning, she showed that Elly and John were enthusiastically in favor of Anthony and Elizabeth getting back together. This was shown over and over again, including times when Anthony was married and had a child. I think Lynn had the idea her readership would understand anything John and Elly supported, they should also support.
Based on the way it was set up, Anthony was a representative of Lynn Johnston in her first marriage, because Thérèse’s departure was modeled off her first husband’s departure. So, when the readers were rejecting hard-working and dependable Anthony, they were actually rejecting hard-working and dependable Lynn.
It didn't take her quite as long this time to acknowledge all the letters she'd received pointing out that she'd messed up on the fish's name, but she did ignore the point when it was first made last January.
This could be why she waited until November to use Frank again, with the hope that her readers would have forgotten that January moment. Oddly enough, they seem to have forgotten the January moment, but remembered the September, 2008 naming of Fred.
In both cases, Lynn Johnston thought she could lead her readers in a particular direction and she underestimated just how intelligent we are. We can remember the name of Fred more than a year later. Not only that, but we don’t like a person who ignores his responsibilities to his wife and child, in order to pursue an old girlfriend.
DreadedCandiru2,
I wonder who was in charge of keeping her from realizing things like that back then; whoever they were, they were good at it.
I believe that person was Lynn Johnston. As near as I can tell from her interviews, no one deludes Lynn as well as Lynn.
Elly and John were enthusiastically in favor of Anthony and Elizabeth getting back together. This was shown over and over again, including times when Anthony was married and had a child.
Actually, there was a point where Elly wanted Liz to stay away from Anthony. If you go back just a couple of days, you'll see that this conversation with Connie took place immediately after Paul came to Mtigwaki to return Elly's sunglasses and to meet Elizabeth. It's quite clear that he was being set up to be the big love of her life, between the "Mr Right / Constable Wright" strip a few weeks earlier, and then this series of strips showing the meet cute of Paul and Liz, contrasted with her mother's wish for her to find that someone special, noting specifically that Liz should stay away from Anthony.
It wasn't until some later point that Anthony became Lynn's avatar.
forworse,
…contrasted with her mother's wish for her to find that someone special, noting specifically that Liz should stay away from Anthony.
Well, except for that “sigh” as she says it. Also, as Connie and Elly are going over the litany of possible men for Elizabeth, Connie brings up Anthony without reservation, as if a married man with a newborn baby is still a choice. 2005 was a strange year for reading Lynn on this subject. She just had Elly visit Mtigwaki and praised it so highly as a place for Elizabeth, I was convinced that this was Elizabeth’s ultimate destination. If you read the strip, this is the way you think and it was one of the most glaring instances of “what is in my mind vs. what is in the strip” for Lynn Johnston. According to an interview she had later on (I think Chicago Tribune), all along she planned for Elizabeth’s stay in Mtigwaki to mirror her stay in Lynn Lake. When I first read that interview, I was completely floored at how differently Lynn Johnston thought about this storyline than I did.
It wasn't until some later point that Anthony became Lynn's avatar.
Except that he is married, with one child, and he has already been shown to have marital difficulties – just like Lynn’s first marriage. I think he already was, at that point.
Didn't an Anonymous strongly imply that Paul and Mtigwaki in general were someone else's ideas, and when Lynn emerged from whatever cloud she lives on and saw the plan, she said no, Liz must be with Anthony?
Howard: I have to agree with you about Elly's reaction to Connie suggesting Anthony as a potential love interest for Liz as being insufficient.
A much more appropriate reaction on Elly's part would have been "Wait -- you remember that Anthony is married, right?" To which Connie would either have apologized and admitted that she forgot, or persisted and suggested that Anthony's marriage was on the rocks anyway. In the latter case, Elly should have responded, "Connie! I can't believe you would suggest that Liz should have an affair with a married man! That's terrible!"
The fact that a potential romantic partner is already married to someone else is more than just a "complicated situation."
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