No Longer Childlike and Innocent, but Young and Sweet
Today’s new-run of For Better or For Worse is one of the rare re-do strips. It is very close to the originally published strip. Lynn Johnston mentioned correcting seat belts recently, and this strip could very well fall into that category. The last time Lynn Johnston did that though, she just added seatbelts with this strip where they had not been in this strip. Otherwise the two strips were identical.
There a variety of reasons why Lynn chose to completely rewrite this strip, especially if you compare the dialogue.
First re-do Connie starts off with “I can’t believe I’m driving all the way to Montreal to see Phil Richards.” This seems to be for the purpose of indicating that Connie is acting on a whim, as opposed to being a well thought-out stalker. That panel doesn’t exist in the original.
In the second panel, Lynn added “He’s so happy to see me. He smiles, we touch and …embrace. The re-do Connie is adding in Phil’s perspective from the original which did not. Phil is happy and embraces Connie in re-do version. This changes the perspective where Connie has a specific expectation of Phil’s behaviour, whereas the original concentrated on Connie entering her fantasy.
The biggest change is the next one. Connie goes from looking “childlike, innocent, helpless, weak and femine” to “young and so sweet. He gazes into my eyes. Then…my lips taste the salt on his moustache…” “Childlike, innocent, helpless, weak and feminine” is hardly the thinking of a 1980s feminist, is it? However, the switch in dialogue favours youth and niceness. Plus it touches on the idea that Connie and Phil have already been intimate, since she knows his moustache tastes salty.
However, in the dialogue following the HONK!, the original Connie is talking about herself being helpless, weak, and feminine and then she turns around and yells out the window to the other motorist, “Shaddup you *!!@* moron!” The joke was that the real-life Connie was not helpless, weak, or especially feminine judging from her reaction to the HONK!
With the re-do, Connie’s dialogue changes to “Humph! Some drivers should pay more attention to their driving!” which is essentially Connie snarking her own lack of attention, while fantasizing about Phil. In both the original and the re-do, we see a contradiction. In the original the contradiction was in the character of real-life Connie from the actions of fantasy Connie. In the re-do, the contradiction is between what Connie says to do vs. what Connie actually does. In the original, Connie is aggressive, when she wants to be passive. In the re-do, Connie is a hypocrite. Frankly, the original Connie fits the storyline better, because only a very aggressive woman would be pursuing Phil with the fervor Connie has during this story.
One common element in the strip is the reference to the Rue des Fèves, which is Phil’s address mentioned by Elly in this strip that Lynn Johnston chose not to reprint. I understand the reason for not reprinting that one, because it was when Connie was trying to sneak Phil’s address out of Elly. In this new-run version of things, Connie and Phil have corresponded over a year, so Connie is well-aware of Phil’s address. Reprinting the strip makes no sense given the new situation, but without it you don’t get the connection between Rue des Fèves and Phil’s address.
As for the street, it translates to “street of the broad beans” or “street of the fava beans.” Of course it’s difficult for me to think of fava beans anymore without going to Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal Lecter saying, “A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.”
According to my on-line mapping websites, this street does not actually exist in Montreal. We have two pieces of art imaged here and here, by the artist Adolphe ThÈodore Jules Martial Potemont, a French etcher who did these two etchings of the Rue Aux Fèves, which was located in l’île de la Cité, one of two natural islands in the Seine within the city of Paris. My guess is that this is what Lynn Johnston is referencing with this street name.
There a variety of reasons why Lynn chose to completely rewrite this strip, especially if you compare the dialogue.
First re-do Connie starts off with “I can’t believe I’m driving all the way to Montreal to see Phil Richards.” This seems to be for the purpose of indicating that Connie is acting on a whim, as opposed to being a well thought-out stalker. That panel doesn’t exist in the original.
In the second panel, Lynn added “He’s so happy to see me. He smiles, we touch and …embrace. The re-do Connie is adding in Phil’s perspective from the original which did not. Phil is happy and embraces Connie in re-do version. This changes the perspective where Connie has a specific expectation of Phil’s behaviour, whereas the original concentrated on Connie entering her fantasy.
The biggest change is the next one. Connie goes from looking “childlike, innocent, helpless, weak and femine” to “young and so sweet. He gazes into my eyes. Then…my lips taste the salt on his moustache…” “Childlike, innocent, helpless, weak and feminine” is hardly the thinking of a 1980s feminist, is it? However, the switch in dialogue favours youth and niceness. Plus it touches on the idea that Connie and Phil have already been intimate, since she knows his moustache tastes salty.
However, in the dialogue following the HONK!, the original Connie is talking about herself being helpless, weak, and feminine and then she turns around and yells out the window to the other motorist, “Shaddup you *!!@* moron!” The joke was that the real-life Connie was not helpless, weak, or especially feminine judging from her reaction to the HONK!
With the re-do, Connie’s dialogue changes to “Humph! Some drivers should pay more attention to their driving!” which is essentially Connie snarking her own lack of attention, while fantasizing about Phil. In both the original and the re-do, we see a contradiction. In the original the contradiction was in the character of real-life Connie from the actions of fantasy Connie. In the re-do, the contradiction is between what Connie says to do vs. what Connie actually does. In the original, Connie is aggressive, when she wants to be passive. In the re-do, Connie is a hypocrite. Frankly, the original Connie fits the storyline better, because only a very aggressive woman would be pursuing Phil with the fervor Connie has during this story.
One common element in the strip is the reference to the Rue des Fèves, which is Phil’s address mentioned by Elly in this strip that Lynn Johnston chose not to reprint. I understand the reason for not reprinting that one, because it was when Connie was trying to sneak Phil’s address out of Elly. In this new-run version of things, Connie and Phil have corresponded over a year, so Connie is well-aware of Phil’s address. Reprinting the strip makes no sense given the new situation, but without it you don’t get the connection between Rue des Fèves and Phil’s address.
As for the street, it translates to “street of the broad beans” or “street of the fava beans.” Of course it’s difficult for me to think of fava beans anymore without going to Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal Lecter saying, “A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.”
According to my on-line mapping websites, this street does not actually exist in Montreal. We have two pieces of art imaged here and here, by the artist Adolphe ThÈodore Jules Martial Potemont, a French etcher who did these two etchings of the Rue Aux Fèves, which was located in l’île de la Cité, one of two natural islands in the Seine within the city of Paris. My guess is that this is what Lynn Johnston is referencing with this street name.
posted by howard at 9:12 AM
15 Comments:
On the original strip: childlike? CHILDLIKE?!
That's it, I'm off sex for the rest of my life. I'll tell my boyfriend the person he'll want to sue is Lynn Johnston.
Both the original and the re-do seem to require you to believe that Connie has never actually performed anything as carnal as kissing a man, let along what was required to become pregnant with Lawrence. The overheated glurge she burbles to herself is right out of the pages of Harlequin Romance pulp fiction. Understandable in a fourteen-year-old dreaming about her boy-band fantasy? Sure. From a thirty-year-old single mother looking for a mate? Not so much...
And the whole ghastly arc of this story makes less sense now that Lynn has screwed with it. In the original the couple barely knew each other, They'd had a hot Nre Year's Eve...and that was pretty much it. You could understand - not excuse, but understand - the woman fooling herself with some sort of Playgirl fantasy about Phil.
But in Lynn's Redoiverse they've been corresponding for some time. By this point you'd expect that either the Hot Passion would have boiled over...or not. But the notion that Connie would be having this sort of adolescent pash is pretty unlikely.
As you point out, in the original Connie is a bit of a dope and Phil is a bit of a cad. But here, Connie looks like a full-blown, bull-goose looney and Phil looks lucky to have escaped this maniac who's thinking with her crotch.
And...
What
The
Hell
Is
The
Disgusting
"Salt on His Mustache"
Thing about?
Eewwwwwww!!!
FDChief,
As you point out, in the original Connie is a bit of a dope and Phil is a bit of a cad. But here, Connie looks like a full-blown, bull-goose looney and Phil looks lucky to have escaped this maniac who's thinking with her crotch.
Too bad for us, Ms SaltyMoustache wants us to believe Cheating Cheater who Cheats Phil is taking advantage of Poor, Helpless Connie; it's the same slight of hand trick she pulled when she wanted us to despise Paul because he got sick of being jerked around by that hypocritical moron Liz.
howard,
In the original the contradiction was in the character of real-life Connie from the actions of fantasy Connie. In the re-do, the contradiction is between what Connie says to do vs. what Connie actually does. In the original, Connie is aggressive, when she wants to be passive. In the re-do, Connie is a hypocrite. Frankly, the original Connie fits the storyline better, because only a very aggressive woman would be pursuing Phil with the fervor Connie has during this story.
As I said upthread, it doesn't meet Lynn's needs; we know that in real life Connie would have to be an aggressive loon who won't take 'No' for an answer to be doing this but Lynn doesn't see it that way.
The overheated glurge she burbles to herself is right out of the pages of Harlequin Romance pulp fiction.
Nah, Harlequin romances are way better than that. For one thing, they seem to have been written by women who have at least held hands with a boy. For another, they don't dwell on salty mustaches. (So gross!) They're often silly, but they're meant to turn on women, whereas Lynn Johnston's prose seems designed to make everyone decide that celibacy is the only option.
FDChief,
Understandable in a fourteen-year-old dreaming about her boy-band fantasy? Sure. From a thirty-year-old single mother looking for a mate? Not so much...
According to the strip at this point, 35-year-old single mom, who has a son with one man, been married and divorced with another, and has had enough men going in and out of her house that Lawrence told Elly that when he comes over to play with Michael, a lot of times it’s because Connie has a man over and has kicked him out.
As you point out, in the original Connie is a bit of a dope and Phil is a bit of a cad. But here, Connie looks like a full-blown, bull-goose looney and Phil looks lucky to have escaped this maniac who's thinking with her crotch.
Especially when Lynn added in the story about Connie and Pablo being the source of Lawrence to Connie’s storyline. Connie came off as a woman using an “unexpected” pregnancy to try to convince her Brazilian lover to come to Canada and marry her. It makes a lot more sense now that Pablo da Silva stayed far away from Connie, if she acted the way she did with him, the way she is about to do with Phil.
DreadedCandiru2
As I said upthread, it doesn't meet Lynn's needs; we know that in real life Connie would have to be an aggressive loon who won't take 'No' for an answer to be doing this but Lynn doesn't see it that way.
It’s nice that once again, by trying to make a character look better than she did originally, Lynn Johnston has made the character look worse. Her talent knows no bounds that way.
Clio,
Nah, Harlequin romances are way better than that. For one thing, they seem to have been written by women who have at least held hands with a boy.
True enough. This seems more like the old teenaged romance comics where the titles of some of the stories might be “Never Been Kissed” or “My Very First Boyfriend”.
For another, they don't dwell on salty mustaches. (So gross!)
When I think about, you know those old seafaring men might have had salt in their moustache from working on the open sea, where the spray gets into their facial hair. Perhaps Connie thinks of Phil is a man sort of like the Gorton’s fisherman.
This seems to be for the purpose of indicating that Connie is acting on a whim, as opposed to being a well thought-out stalker. That panel doesn’t exist in the original.
I think it is also to establish that she is driving to Montreal, as opposed to just randomly driving. As you mention, the strip where Elly gives Connie Phil's address is no longer a cue. And frankly, even with the Rue des Feves connection, I initially encountered this strip as a one-off when I first read it in the collection. The description at the strip catalog includes "driving in Montreal." When I first saw that description when searching on "Montreal," I thought, "wait a minute, what?" Then I went back to the collection, found the street-name connection, and realized she was daydreaming about Phil instead of some random romantic-fantasy guy. Originally, I thought the strip was just a gag to show the contrast between Connie's fantasy version of herself and her swearing-at-other-drivers real self.
So I think the addition of the new first panel was a rare recognition of a shortcoming in an original strip. However, who on earth would think the full name of the person she is driving to see. "Phil Richards"? Really?
Fact: The majority of romance comics from the heyday of the genre in the US were written by older, middle-aged men. Many of them who had no daughters, wives, or sisters.
Explains a lot about why they often seemed so...odd.
A good collection to seek out is "Romance Without Tears", a 2006 compilation of the earlier, un-weepy, un-purple romance comics. These are notable for featuring sensible, strong female leads who have -fun- with love and won't be bullied by the stereotypical man of the period. The stories showed love at first sight as a destructive myth, one girls should avoid.
This sort of story, unfortunately, all but vanished by the mid-50s.
Another good collection is "Truer Than True Romance", JeAnne Martinet's wickedly vicious deconstruction of the stories seen during the waning years of the genre.
From the 'salt in his moustache' bit I'd pictured them by a sea wall, somehow,strolling down rues des feves, salty ocean spray... and had only just seen the original strip before the redo one .
Ewww
aprilp_katje,
So I think the addition of the new first panel was a rare recognition of a shortcoming in an original strip. However, who on earth would think the full name of the person she is driving to see. "Phil Richards"? Really?
Even in the originally published story, there was a significant gap between Connie getting the address from Elly and then strip showing her on the road. I agree with you about the shortcoming. It is odd to see this coming from Lynn Johnston. In the latter years of the modern strip, she was notorious for stringing out stories over 18-month time periods, and expecting the reader to jump right back into the story each time it reappeared. As for using the full name, that is what I refer to as “soap opera speak”, which is the tendency in soap operas for the names of the characters to be repeated in speeches, so that someone joining or rejoining a soap opera in progress can figure who the characters are.
Anonymous,
Fact: The majority of romance comics from the heyday of the genre in the US were written by older, middle-aged men. Many of them who had no daughters, wives, or sisters.
Explains a lot about why they often seemed so...odd.
And yet it doesn’t explain why Lynn Johnston’s romance stories seem so odd.
From the 'salt in his moustache' bit I'd pictured them by a sea wall, somehow,strolling down rues des feves, salty ocean spray... and had only just seen the original strip before the redo one
The Rue Aux Fèves, which was located in l’île de la Cité, one of two natural islands in the Seine, which is a fresh water river. I think the St. Lawrence River, is freshwater by the time it gets to Montreal. I am not sure where Lynn could possibly get the salty ocean spray idea from the location of the strip.
Even in the originally published story, there was a significant gap between Connie getting the address from Elly and then strip showing her on the road.
Yup. Elly giving the address was on a Monday, and the original version of today's new-run was on Friday of that same week. It's asking a lot of readers to recall the drop of a street name from four days earlier, not to mention the casual readers who might have missed the strip on Monday--something daily strips usually try to take into account.
Post a Comment
<< Home