Just Wonderful
Today’s reprint of For Better or For Worse was originally published on Tuesday, February 3, 1981, now putting Lynn Johnston 17 days off from being able to synchronize her reprints with the strip being published today. The strip announces that Lawrence is staying for a whole week, even though the originally published storyline will run about 3 weeks to cover Connie in Montreal and Lawrence’s accident in Milborough.
In the strip Michael is very enthusiastic about Lawrence’s arrival to which Elly replies, “Just wonderful.” In the Comic Strip Catalog looking for the punch line “just wonderful” 3 different strips came up and in each case, the phrase “just wonderful” means a completely different thing.
In today’s strip, “just wonderful” is said by a weary-looking Elly, already tired out from having Lawrence over at her house for a few minutes. The strip has already established that Elly is not that excited about the daily care of children, so adding an extra one to the mix for a week is not something which will make her happy. In this case, “just wonderful” is sarcastic Elly saying one thing while mean the exact opposite. Considering what is coming up for Elly as a part of taking care of Lawrence, this sarcasm is justified.
I have some symphathy for Elly in this case. Last year, I took care of one of my son's friends for a week, which happened to be a week that my wife was also gone out-of-town for a few days. By the end of the week, I was quite ready to hand the kid back. He wasn't poorly-behaved, but his presence meant having to readjust doing a lot of things. I can't imagine handling someone else's kid, if he broke his leg, or could only go to the bathroom in his own house.
The next case of “just wonderful” is when Elly is appraising John’s newly-acquired dog-training skills with Farley. She pats John on the head as if he were a dog. In this case, “just wonderful” is done in a mocking tone, where Elly is making fun of John’s dog training.
The final case of “just wonderful” is a 2001 strip where Elly is watching April go snowboarding. Most of the panels are Elly’s silent expressions of shock and terror as she watches. We don’t see what Elly is seeing until the penultimate panel, where we can see that April is actually a fairly decent snowboarder. When Elly says, “just wonderful” in the final panel, it is with parental pride, and she means what she says. This strip is a pretty good one. Nicely drawn and well-written.
In the strip Michael is very enthusiastic about Lawrence’s arrival to which Elly replies, “Just wonderful.” In the Comic Strip Catalog looking for the punch line “just wonderful” 3 different strips came up and in each case, the phrase “just wonderful” means a completely different thing.
In today’s strip, “just wonderful” is said by a weary-looking Elly, already tired out from having Lawrence over at her house for a few minutes. The strip has already established that Elly is not that excited about the daily care of children, so adding an extra one to the mix for a week is not something which will make her happy. In this case, “just wonderful” is sarcastic Elly saying one thing while mean the exact opposite. Considering what is coming up for Elly as a part of taking care of Lawrence, this sarcasm is justified.
I have some symphathy for Elly in this case. Last year, I took care of one of my son's friends for a week, which happened to be a week that my wife was also gone out-of-town for a few days. By the end of the week, I was quite ready to hand the kid back. He wasn't poorly-behaved, but his presence meant having to readjust doing a lot of things. I can't imagine handling someone else's kid, if he broke his leg, or could only go to the bathroom in his own house.
The next case of “just wonderful” is when Elly is appraising John’s newly-acquired dog-training skills with Farley. She pats John on the head as if he were a dog. In this case, “just wonderful” is done in a mocking tone, where Elly is making fun of John’s dog training.
The final case of “just wonderful” is a 2001 strip where Elly is watching April go snowboarding. Most of the panels are Elly’s silent expressions of shock and terror as she watches. We don’t see what Elly is seeing until the penultimate panel, where we can see that April is actually a fairly decent snowboarder. When Elly says, “just wonderful” in the final panel, it is with parental pride, and she means what she says. This strip is a pretty good one. Nicely drawn and well-written.
posted by howard at 10:15 PM
10 Comments:
Ah, the snowboarding strip; the caption 'Elly has a hard time watching April snow board' is a masterwork of understatement. That's because, to judge from her expression, it looks like April is plummeting to an icy doom. Since we know that's not the case, one is left with the odd conclusion that watching people do things frightens and agitates her; it's as if she's the older sister from Phineas and Ferb who lives in terror of the prospect of her kid brothers moving around and talking.
That's because, to judge from her expression, it looks like April is plummeting to an icy doom.
I know that seems excessive, but this does actually match the reality of my wife the first time she watched our kids sledding. They were going down a hill with very little velocity and if you watched my wife watching them, you would think they were going down over a cliff to jagged rocks below. Even that expression was nothing compared to the terrified expression on my wife's when she went sledding on the same route. Considering that for most outdoors activities, Elly Patterson prefers observing them through the window of her house, I can't say her reactions in the strip are that surprising.
The strip announces that Lawrence is staying for a whole week, even though the originally published storyline will run about 3 weeks to cover Connie in Montreal and Lawrence’s accident in Milborough.
Actually, this morning I realized the arc ran for four weeks. The strip where she takes Lawrence home ran on March 2, 1981!
4 weeks. Egad! That's as long as April's infamous Grade 8 grad. We have a lot of reprints coming our way.
That's as long as April's infamous Grade 8 grad.
I know--I immediately thought of the four-week "grad" arc. Only that was even worse, since four weeks' worth of strips were devoted to the actions of one day, instead of one week. But both were gratuitously drawn out!
Looking over the strips to come, there are some that are very clearly gratuitously drawing it out. I wonder how many of them Lynn Johnston is going to keep or rewrite. We already know that the woman who answers Phil's apartment is going to be changed, and she is going to be explained. That will be new, but I am not sure what else.
She did mention that any reference to Connie's cousin would disappear so there are at least two reprints that aren't going to show up.
She did mention that any reference to Connie's cousin would disappear so there are at least two reprints that aren't going to show up.
Yes--I was about to mention the same thing. The strip where she shows up at the jazz club has her thinking about her cousin being unavailable that evening, and in one of the post-club strips, Phil refers to dropping her off at her cousin's place.
What she says is:
reference to Connie's cousin in Montreal was removed and the girl who answers the door to Uncle Phil's apartment will soon be explained
"Removed" to me means she redid the dialogue as she has done in a couple of strips. I expect to see those two "cousin" dialogue strips with rewritten words.
"Explained" to me means additional new-run.
"Removed" to me means she redid the dialogue as she has done in a couple of strips. I expect to see those two "cousin" dialogue strips with rewritten words.
Ah, you're probably right.
"Explained" to me means additional new-run.
An e-mail I received Stephanie has confirmed that this is the case. :)
Post a Comment
<< Home