Phil’s Pipe Appears
In today’s new-run of For Better or For Worse we have the introduction of Uncle Phil’s pipe. Phil’s pipe is there to set up a sequence of strips before Connie Poirier goes to Montreal, where Connie finds Michael and Lawrence trying out Phil’s pipe which he forgot and left behind. Looking at these strips again, it reminds me a lot of the sequence where Constable Paul Wright used Elly’s glasses as an excuse to visit Elizabeth Patterson in Mtigwaki. Paul Wright was instantaneously successful with Elizabeth because she consistently fell for good-looking men on sight. Since we know that’s not what’s going to happen with Phil and Connie in Montreal, I can only presume that he has a higher moral standard than Elizabeth.
I think this is the only time Phil’s pipe appears in the strip. After this, Phil spends most of his time trying to quit smoking cigarettes. I remember in my youth, pipe smoking was considered to be the smoking method of academics and intellectuals or at least persons who wanted to appear that way. Cigarette smoking was a device of the common man. It’s interesting to me that we don’t see Elly criticize Phil’s pipe-smoking, unless that is in a strip coming up. Once Phil switches to cigarettes, that all changes. Elly will eventually reach a point where she no longer allows Phil to smoke in the house. As you can tell from looking through these strips on smoking, it takes her awhile to get to that point.
As for the strip itself, this makes 2 in a row where no one was being judged and no one was playing the martyr, and the characters seem to enjoy being with each other and being nice to each other. What a difference that makes. The strip is shockingly pleasant for a change.
On a personal note: Tomorrow we are driving to Dallas, Texas to visit relatives for the Christmas holidays. This means the Howard Bunt Blog will be on hiatus for about a week. I hate to take a week off when Lynn Johnston is doing new strips, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. See you when I get back.
I think this is the only time Phil’s pipe appears in the strip. After this, Phil spends most of his time trying to quit smoking cigarettes. I remember in my youth, pipe smoking was considered to be the smoking method of academics and intellectuals or at least persons who wanted to appear that way. Cigarette smoking was a device of the common man. It’s interesting to me that we don’t see Elly criticize Phil’s pipe-smoking, unless that is in a strip coming up. Once Phil switches to cigarettes, that all changes. Elly will eventually reach a point where she no longer allows Phil to smoke in the house. As you can tell from looking through these strips on smoking, it takes her awhile to get to that point.
As for the strip itself, this makes 2 in a row where no one was being judged and no one was playing the martyr, and the characters seem to enjoy being with each other and being nice to each other. What a difference that makes. The strip is shockingly pleasant for a change.
On a personal note: Tomorrow we are driving to Dallas, Texas to visit relatives for the Christmas holidays. This means the Howard Bunt Blog will be on hiatus for about a week. I hate to take a week off when Lynn Johnston is doing new strips, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. See you when I get back.
posted by howard at 11:26 PM
8 Comments:
I notice that it does take her a while to preach the "Take it outside" gospel but one of the things she does seem to know about this world is that smoking is an addiction. Why else does Phil look, act and talk like a damned junkie going cold turkey every time he quits?
As for the real world, have a safe trip and Happy Holidays.
Curiously, that entire sequence about Phil's pipe being left behind and tried out was left out of the second collection.
Phil's pipe appears here.
I think that the "Good Smoking Evil Smoking" trope from TVTropes explains a bit about pipes being considered not evil: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoodSmokingEvilSmoking
April
Curiously, that entire sequence about Phil's pipe being left behind and tried out was left out of the second collection.
That's what I thought, too. I couldn't remember seeing it before, but there were quite a number of strips about it. One might reasonably assume that Phil had discovered his pipe missing shortly after returning to Montreal and getting a replacement immediately, rather than expecting that someone from Milborough might turn up with it at his jazz club one evening.
I wonder if this didn't make the cut for the collections because Lynn / the syndicate faced a lot of flack about six-year-old Mike being able to get matches from somewhere. They'll probably get re-run now: Lynn's not that bothered anymore about showing sloppy parenting.
In the real world: have a wonderful Christmas, Howard & family!
I wonder if this didn't make the cut for the collections because Lynn / the syndicate faced a lot of flack about six-year-old Mike being able to get matches from somewhere.
That sounds likely.
They'll probably get re-run now: Lynn's not that bothered anymore about showing sloppy parenting.
It will be interesting to see whether the strips appear. I agree with you that Lynn doesn't care, but it could be that the syndicate does. If they received enough criticism in the early 1980s to preclude printing the strips in a collection, I can only imagine that the criticism they'd get now would represent a huge, exponential increase.
HA.
I think Lynn Johnston dimly remembered "Phil smoking", but forgot it was supposed to be cigarettes, and gave him a pipe because she's confused by Santa / night before Christmas imagery these days.
I don't think my parents were sloppy, but I knew where to get matches when I was 6. From my grandmother's purse (chain smoker), from out near the grill, from the second drawer up in the galley on the boat, or on the highest shelf in the pantry with the birthday candles (they were in the same tin).
I think Lynn Johnston dimly remembered "Phil smoking", but forgot it was supposed to be cigarettes, and gave him a pipe because she's confused by Santa / night before Christmas imagery these days.
Phil's first arc in the strip was in December 1980/January of 1981--and he did have the pipe then. Maybe when she started to show him smoking the cigarettes a bit later into the 1980s, she'd forgotten about the pipe.
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