Three Fingers and a Thumb
Cartoon characters starting from the days of Mickey Mouse have been sporting 3 fingers and a thumb. Supposedly this was because it eased the efforts of animation and made the characters appear more cartoony.
In today’s reprint of For Better or For Worse, it appears that Lynn Johnston has decided to do the same thing. In every hand picture in every panel, you will not see more than 3 fingers and a thumb. In fact, little Michael in the first panel has one of his fingers going in the wrong direction. He may be complaining about his little sister; but we know the real reason he is upset is because of how poorly Lynn drew his hand. Something you can only tell with the black-and-white version of the strip is that in Panel 2, little Michael also has 2 right ears. It was not a good art day for Lynn Johnston when she drew this strip originally published on February 7, 1981. That being said, I do like the third panel drawing of Mike wiping his nose with his sleeve and slinging away 3 drops and a SNIVEL. It is important to get those SNIVELs out of your nose.
As for Michael’s concern, I can actually understand Elly’s perspective this time. Normally if my kids have a friend over, I try to let them have time alone with their friend without interference from their sibling. However, when my kids have a friend over for a week like Lawrence is doing (or really just more than one day), that rule goes away. Eventually the sibling has to be included.
The most interesting part of the strip is where Michael responds to Elly’s statement he plays well with his sister by saying, “Yeah, but that’s when I haven’t got a choice!” This could mean:
a. Michael doesn’t like playing with his sister, but since she’s the only one around most of the time, he has no choice but to play with her.
b. Michael does like playing with his sister, but he prefers to play with Lawrence.
c. Michael is telling Elly that the only reason he played with his sister in the past was because someone made him do it.
d. It was fate that Michael and Elizabeth would play together.
The one of these closest to my kids is (b). I think Michael could be any or all of those.
In today’s reprint of For Better or For Worse, it appears that Lynn Johnston has decided to do the same thing. In every hand picture in every panel, you will not see more than 3 fingers and a thumb. In fact, little Michael in the first panel has one of his fingers going in the wrong direction. He may be complaining about his little sister; but we know the real reason he is upset is because of how poorly Lynn drew his hand. Something you can only tell with the black-and-white version of the strip is that in Panel 2, little Michael also has 2 right ears. It was not a good art day for Lynn Johnston when she drew this strip originally published on February 7, 1981. That being said, I do like the third panel drawing of Mike wiping his nose with his sleeve and slinging away 3 drops and a SNIVEL. It is important to get those SNIVELs out of your nose.
As for Michael’s concern, I can actually understand Elly’s perspective this time. Normally if my kids have a friend over, I try to let them have time alone with their friend without interference from their sibling. However, when my kids have a friend over for a week like Lawrence is doing (or really just more than one day), that rule goes away. Eventually the sibling has to be included.
The most interesting part of the strip is where Michael responds to Elly’s statement he plays well with his sister by saying, “Yeah, but that’s when I haven’t got a choice!” This could mean:
a. Michael doesn’t like playing with his sister, but since she’s the only one around most of the time, he has no choice but to play with her.
b. Michael does like playing with his sister, but he prefers to play with Lawrence.
c. Michael is telling Elly that the only reason he played with his sister in the past was because someone made him do it.
d. It was fate that Michael and Elizabeth would play together.
The one of these closest to my kids is (b). I think Michael could be any or all of those.
posted by howard at 10:19 PM
8 Comments:
However, when my kids have a friend over for a week like Lawrence is doing (or really just more than one day), that rule goes away. Eventually the sibling has to be included.
Since Elly isn't good at raising her children, we can assume that she didn't set any ground rules beforehand; since Mike doesn't know what to expect, we'll have to spend the rest of the strip watching him get punished for not reading Elly's mind.
If Lynn does the reprints we are expecting, the one getting punished is going to be Lawrence with the broken leg. Not only will his leg be broken, but he will learn just how little his mother cares for him.
I hadn't noticed the three fingers and a thumb before reading your entry. This is odd, considering Lynn had been doing the strip for well over a year and established herself doing a quasi-realistic hand for her characters. I've been interested in doing comics forever, and my dad and I had a recurring argument about cartoon hands. He insisted that in cartoons you have to to the three-fingered hands. This he based on what his one cartoonist friend told him/did. I would argue that this was not [any longer] a hard-and-fast rule and that many comics featured characters with four fingers and a thumb.
One good thing is that my dad hasn't "corrected" me even though he follows my webcomics. :)
aprilp_katje,
This is odd, considering Lynn had been doing the strip for well over a year and established herself doing a quasi-realistic hand for her characters.
Even though I noticed it and made fun of it, what it really showed me was that Lynn’s tendency towards not looking over her work and correcting obvious errors was a tendency she had from even her earliest days. Michael’s backward finger really sticks out to me, and I can’t imagine the artist missing that.
He insisted that in cartoons you have to to the three-fingered hands. This he based on what his one cartoonist friend told him/did. I would argue that this was not [any longer] a hard-and-fast rule and that many comics featured characters with four fingers and a thumb.
It’s like the old joke where the mom cuts off the end of the ham she is cooking because her mother did it, and she tells her daughter to do it the same way out of tradition, as she has always done. Then the daughter asks her grandmother why she did that the grandmother says it was because her pan was too short for the ham.
It’s like the old joke where the mom cuts off the end of the ham she is cooking because her mother did it, and she tells her daughter to do it the same way out of tradition, as she has always done. Then the daughter asks her grandmother why she did that the grandmother says it was because her pan was too short for the ham.
This sort of reasoning is why John and Elly insist on doing things in the 'traditional' way; rather than realize that their parents were making virtues of necessities, those two dolts confuse the things their parents were forced to do with The Way Things Work.
Are you referring to this strip? It's the only one which comes up when I look for keyword = traditional.
It’s like the old joke where the mom cuts off the end of the ham she is cooking because her mother did it, and she tells her daughter to do it the same way out of tradition, as she has always done. Then the daughter asks her grandmother why she did that the grandmother says it was because her pan was too short for the ham.
Heh--yes, that's a good analogy. :)
It's the only one which comes up when I look for keyword = traditional.
I suspect that dreadandiru2 was not thinking of a particular strip in which John and/or Elly espouses a traditional approach, but rather their disposition through the entire run of the strip.
April_Patterson,
That's exactly what I mean; we have on the one hand Pinhead John thinking that Elly should be happy to bake cookies and wash socks because his mother bowed to an inevitability and, on the other, Moron Elly who thinks that the way Marian cleans house was mandated by Heaven as The Only Way To Do Anything because she doesn't realize that her mother grew up having to make do without much. In both cases, you have a knuckle-headed yuppie who doesn't know what thinking is jumping to an inane and destructive conclusion.
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