Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Skip Over Where Michael Gets the Pipe from Lizzie

Yesterday we had the reprint from Friday, January 9, 1981. Today we have the reprint from Monday, January 12, 1981 – a 3 day jump. The sequence from January 12 to January 15, 1981 covered Michael, Lawrence, Connie dealing with Phil’s pipe. If Lynn Johnston reprints it, then she will have Wednesday to Saturday for this week. However, she will not have synchronized her strip with her reprints. In order for this to work, Lynn Johnston has to have the reprints for a week in a month line up with the same week in the month for 2010. We are in the first week of January, 2010; but with the reprint from today, Lynn has launched into the second week of January, 1981. Lynn will need some new-runs to fix it. And I suspect I know what they will be about.

The storyline Lynn has greatly expanded since the last time is Elly as an adult student. Lynn Johnston clearly has an agenda in making Elly seem like a more enthusiastic student than she was in her early days. If there are going to be more new-runs to line up the “Connie goes to Montreal” story with its original publication date, then this story seems the likely choice. This would actually make sense because that would give Lynn Johnston a good week to explain to everyone how Elly’s lack of success in going back to school is not her fault.

Not only that, but the Monday, January 19, 1981 strip is the one where Elly is back in school talking about sleeping with her eyes open in class. The strip right after that launches back into Connie and Phil. That is barely any coverage for the adult Elly back in school. The story practically is begging for Lynn to do new-runs to expand it.

4 Comments:

Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

howard,

Lynn Johnston clearly has an agenda in making Elly seem like a more enthusiastic student than she was in her early days. If there are going to be more new-runs to line up the “Connie goes to Montreal” story with its original publication date, then this story seems the likely choice. This would actually make sense because that would give Lynn Johnston a good week to explain to everyone how Elly’s lack of success in going back to school is not her fault.

I'd point out that to do so, she'd probably end up making Elly look like a pretty crappy mother as well as the woman who put the dumb in martyrdom but that would be superfluous.

2:41 AM  
Blogger howard said...

As I have said many times in the past and I think it is still true today, whenever Lynn Johnston tries to make a character look good in her strip, she invariably makes them look worse. I have no doubt that whatever method she uses to make Elly look good in her education endeavours, it will make Elly look much, much worse than she did the first time around. I for one, am looking forward to seeing what she will do.

4:48 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Likewise, Lynn's attempts to make a character seem -worse- than they actually are also backfire. I've felt a lot more sympathy for John, Ted, and Phil recently. Are they a bit sexist and insensitive? Yes. But that's ALL they are. Lynn's attempts to make them into the epitome of TheEvilThatIsNamedMale have just made me think Elly is a frivolous hyper-sensitive bitch.

8:33 AM  
Blogger howard said...

Are they a bit sexist and insensitive? Yes. But that's ALL they are.

Not exactly. Each is represented as an impediment to something a woman wants. John opposes Elly’s efforts to educate herself and find employment. Phil opposes Connie’s efforts to him to be her husband and a father for Lawrence. Ted opposes (name the single woman)’s efforts to marry him, so he can settle down and have children.

8:54 AM  

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