The Typewriter
With today’s new-run of For Better or For Worse, it appears that Lynn Johnston has fully embraced the idea that the storyline is set back in the 1980s, with the appearance of a typewriter. Back on February 7, 2009, Lynn Johnston redrew a strip featuring Connie Poirier typing on typewriter, so that it appeared that Connie was typing her personal ad on a generic keyboard. Lynn had specifically mentioned typewriters as one of those items she knew were not associated with modern times in her Maclean’s interview in August, 2008:
Q: You talk about reaching a new generation with the strip but it’s a very different generation than existed in the ’70s, pre-Internet, pre-YouTube. How are you adjusting to that?
A: Well, I’ve just gone past a couple of strips that were really funny — they were both about a typewriter, and those are both gone. Not because I didn’t think they were good. I just didn’t think it would go. So it’s not as if I’ll change things. I just won’t include them if they don’t have any relationship to today.
In the Q&Eh section of the website, it specifically says that the strip is taking place in the modern day:
Q: Hi, now that FBOFW has had a reboot, what year is it supposed to be taking place?
A: It's taking place in the modern day.
In today’s strip, we actually see Elly loading standing paper into what appears to be a typewriter. You don’t do that with modern computers, so there can be no mistake – Elly is using a typewriter. When Lynn Johnston failed to correct the prices in the 8-31 and 10-2 strips, I had a feeling she was done with doing the strip in the modern day. On the other hand, there was always a possibility that she had just grown too lazy to do those kinds of corrections. With the drawing of the typewriter in a new-run, it is no longer a case of a correction. Lynn Johnston had to intentionally draw that typewriter.
In many respects this makes sense. Lynn plans to go to straight reprints in Early Spring, and in order for that to appear like it was set in modern times, there are many strips which would require correction. If Lynn admits the strips are set in 1980s, then there is no problem with straight reprints starting from a time period of Early Spring, 1981. There was always a significant problem with Lynn’s decision to set the strip in the modern day, i.e. Lynn is too removed from society to know what modern day is like. She was just asking for trouble when she made that proclamation.
Q: You talk about reaching a new generation with the strip but it’s a very different generation than existed in the ’70s, pre-Internet, pre-YouTube. How are you adjusting to that?
A: Well, I’ve just gone past a couple of strips that were really funny — they were both about a typewriter, and those are both gone. Not because I didn’t think they were good. I just didn’t think it would go. So it’s not as if I’ll change things. I just won’t include them if they don’t have any relationship to today.
In the Q&Eh section of the website, it specifically says that the strip is taking place in the modern day:
Q: Hi, now that FBOFW has had a reboot, what year is it supposed to be taking place?
A: It's taking place in the modern day.
In today’s strip, we actually see Elly loading standing paper into what appears to be a typewriter. You don’t do that with modern computers, so there can be no mistake – Elly is using a typewriter. When Lynn Johnston failed to correct the prices in the 8-31 and 10-2 strips, I had a feeling she was done with doing the strip in the modern day. On the other hand, there was always a possibility that she had just grown too lazy to do those kinds of corrections. With the drawing of the typewriter in a new-run, it is no longer a case of a correction. Lynn Johnston had to intentionally draw that typewriter.
In many respects this makes sense. Lynn plans to go to straight reprints in Early Spring, and in order for that to appear like it was set in modern times, there are many strips which would require correction. If Lynn admits the strips are set in 1980s, then there is no problem with straight reprints starting from a time period of Early Spring, 1981. There was always a significant problem with Lynn’s decision to set the strip in the modern day, i.e. Lynn is too removed from society to know what modern day is like. She was just asking for trouble when she made that proclamation.
posted by howard at 9:43 PM
6 Comments:
It's like I said once; she should have said that this is a director's cut of the past and had done with it instead of making trouble for herself. Ah, well; at least I know what my next blog entry will be about.
Elly loading standing paper into what appears to be a typewriter. You don’t do that with modern computers
Most people don't, but Elly does. That's part of the reason she has so much trouble using a computer in the first place. Don't even get me started on the correction tape.
Well, I’ve just gone past a couple of strips that were really funny — they were both about a typewriter, and those are both gone
Uh-oh. I am guessing one of the two she was referring to is the redrawn "Connie" strip with the personal ad. The other she considers "really funny"? I suspect she was lamenting the loss of John finding that one of the kids has jammed an oreo into the typewriter hard-dee-har. Lynn found that scenario sooooo hilarious that not only did she repeat it with April and a banana, but she described coming up with the idea [in its latter iteration] in her "Essay on Ideas":
One idea-generator is the matching together of random things, let's say: a sock, a banana, and a typewriter, for example. I can then see April, one sock off, one sock on, kneeling on a chair, mashing a banana into her mother's typewriter. Aha - a daily!
Since LJ seems to be patching in every daily she hasn't used yet, I'd be surprised if we didn't end up seeing John and the Oreo-typewriter. ::rolleyes::
DreadedCandiru2,
It's like I said once; she should have said that this is a director's cut of the past and had done with it instead of making trouble for herself.
A director’s cut would have been a lot smarter. I think the main issue is her internal comparison of her work to Charles Schulz’s Classic Peanuts, a strip that is considered by-and-large to be timeless, even though it too has its moments where it refers to pop culture of the time it was originally published. Lynn may have thought that if she corrected a few prices and eliminated typewriters, that would be all that was required. She was not far off on the mark, if that was her thought. The male chauvinist pig strips needed to be reworked, but not much else. The main problem Lynn Johnston had in the last year was not taking the time to remember her own continuity. Even if she did a director’s cut, she would have had this problem.
forworse,
Most people don't, but Elly does. That's part of the reason she has so much trouble using a computer in the first place. Don't even get me started on the correction tape.
I suddenly have an image of Elly covering a computer screen with correction tape, and complaining because every time she types something, she has to move the tape.
aprilp_katje,
Since LJ seems to be patching in every daily she hasn't used yet, I'd be surprised if we didn't end up seeing John and the Oreo-typewriter. ::rolleyes::
Oh dear, I think you must be right and this must be the reason she introduced the typewriter. Now that we have seen Elly using one, this allows the typewriter to get its Oreo in reprint. It wouldn’t be the first time we have seen Lynn Johnston introduce a series of new-runs in order to use one semi-related reprint.
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