Tuesday, February 16, 2010

“Special” Friend

Today’s reprint of For Better or For Worse jumps 2 days in the daily reprint cycle from the reprint published yesterday. Yesterday’s reprint was originally published on
February 28, 1981. Today’s reprint was originally published on March 4, 1981. We skipped this strip, showing Connie and Lawrence’s departure; and we skipped this strip showing John making mental notes. I can only speculate why they were excluded, which I shall.

The March 2 strip has a joke which is essentially Connie thanks Elly a lot and Michael makes a comment on how she thanked Elly enough. Aside from not being funny, I can’t see modern Elly ever turning down a compliment about anything.

The March 3 strip makes a joke about John making mental notes because he can’t read his written ones. In other words, it’s a variation of the old “doctors must have terrible handwriting” joke. More importantly though, it shows John actively supporting his family and this we simply cannot have in the new-run version of the universe.

I think the joke in today’s reprint is supposed to fall into the “Kids Say the Darnedest Things” category; but it doesn’t quite pull that off. Michael talks about being Lawrence’s “special friend” and how he thought things like broken legs only happened to people you don’t know. It’s hard to say if the point is:

a. Michael is a selfish kid who doesn’t want to have to help out Lawrence and wishes it was some other unknown kid with the broken leg.
b. This is the first moment Michael begins to think of himself as a “special friend” culminating in his similar, not-just-friends relationship with Josef Weeder years later.
c. Michael has not known anyone else who got injured before, but he has heard about them.
d. Michael enjoys posing unusual questions to his mom.

The only correction I can see today is in the print of Panel 3. It appears that “Howcome” was turned into “How come”.

9 Comments:

Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

It’s hard to say if the point is:

a. Michael is a selfish kid who doesn’t want to have to help out Lawrence and wishes it was some other unknown kid with the broken leg.
b. This is the first moment Michael begins to think of himself as a “special friend” culminating in his similar, not-just-friends relationship with Josef Weeder years later.
c. Michael has not known anyone else who got injured before, but he has heard about them.
d. Michael enjoys posing unusual questions to his mom.

Since he's a jerk with entitlement issues, I'm leaning heavily towards Option A.

3:06 AM  
Blogger April Patterson said...

I'm surprised that Lynn skipped the "can't thank you enough" strip, since she has no flexibility about running it later. She can drop in the "mental note" strip anywhere, should the strain of doing new-runs prove to be unbearable to her. At this rate, she needs 22.

::grumble, grumble:: Lynn messing up my Foobar synchronicity.

3:42 AM  
Blogger April Patterson said...

Oh, and the "howcome" ---> "how come" correction. For some reason, Lynn apparently believed this was one word, and wrote "howcome" in the early strips on a regular basis. What's curious is that she's allowed this error through in reprints before, but now suddenly decides to correct it.

3:49 AM  
Blogger howard said...

DreadedCandiru2,

Since he's a jerk with entitlement issues, I'm leaning heavily towards Option A.

Certainly with Mike (more concerned about his bike than Lawrence) Patterson, option A is probably the right choice.

4:59 AM  
Blogger howard said...

aprilp_katje,

I'm surprised that Lynn skipped the "can't thank you enough" strip, since she has no flexibility about running it later.

::grumble, grumble:: Lynn messing up my Foobar synchronicity.


Except of course that you inadvertently provided via Foobar, the reason Lynn skipped the "can't thank you enough" strip. Elly / Lynn really can't be thanked enough. We've seen enough of Coffee Talk over the years to know that's true.

What's curious is that she's allowed this error through in reprints before, but now suddenly decides to correct it.

I think the elimination of references to Connie’s cousin has suddenly caused her to be alert to her dialogue. She corrected “terriffic” yesterday and now “howcome” today.

5:01 AM  
Blogger April Patterson said...

Elly / Lynn really can't be thanked enough. We've seen enough of Coffee Talk over the years to know that's true.

I guess I had a camera in Lynn's brain again. What scary footage, let me tell you.

I think the elimination of references to Connie’s cousin has suddenly caused her to be alert to her dialogue. She corrected “terriffic” yesterday and now “howcome” today.

That's probably it. Whereas before she must have been thinking, "Well, it was good enough to run the first time; it's good enough to run now. I don't have to even look (or think about it--TM Liz)."

5:05 AM  
Blogger howard said...

aprilp_katje,

That's probably it. Whereas before she must have been thinking, "Well, it was good enough to run the first time; it's good enough to run now. I don't have to even look (or think about it--TM Liz)."

This was the first post-"Connie in Montreal" strip, so we can see if Lynn reverts back to her old non-correcting ways in the upcoming strips.

8:41 AM  
Blogger April Patterson said...

This was the first post-"Connie in Montreal" strip, so we can see if Lynn reverts back to her old non-correcting ways in the upcoming strips.

True--this might be as short-lived as Mike's various "the people I write about are human beings" lessons.

8:48 AM  
Blogger howard said...

I would expect shorter, since we are talking about Lynn and not Mike.

12:47 PM  

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