Theory Destroyed. Humble Again.
Lynn Johnston had announced that in Early Spring she would go to straight reprints. Looking through all the strips reprinted so far, I determined that the last daily strips from 1981 which Lynn had already reprinted were the “Elly wants to cook gourmet" sequence from 3/25/1981 to 3/30/1981. From this I concluded that Early Spring = end of March. This was working on the presumption that Lynn Johnston would want to synchronize the current strip with the daily strip, so all the holiday strips would fall in the right places.
Flying in the face of that theory were the Sunday colour strips which Lynn had chosen to reprint from 1981. Lynn has already reprinted all the 1981 Sunday strips through the end of March, plus she also reprinted the Sunday strips from 4/12/1981, 5/3/1981, 5/10/1981, 5/17/1981, 6/7/1981, 6/14/1981, 6/21/1981, and 7/19/1981. I thought this meant that Lynn would have to do new-run strips on Sunday until the end of March in order to synchronize the Sunday strips by the end of March also. I theorized that Lynn might reprint 1980s Sunday strips she had not already reprinted on those Sundays which corresponded to days where she had already reprinted after March, 1981.
Well, with today’s reprint of For Better or For Worse, Lynn gave my theory a good kick in the pants. Today’s reprint comes from 04/26/1981. In other words, it is another Sunday colour strip from after March. Because of this strip I have to propose a new theory. That new theory is that in Early Spring, when Lynn Johnston goes to straight reprints, she will not care if the reprints synchronize in time with the original publication dates in 1981. Or at least she won’t care if the Sunday colour strips synchronize with 1981. She’ll just reprint whatever she has, and if it doesn’t mesh with the current time, then so be it.
As for the strip, it’s a slice-of-life from someone who obviously doesn’t want to empty the trash. The best part of the strip is the absolutely forlorn look on Elly’s face in the last panel, as if she knows she is going to have to empty that waste basket herself, thanks to her lazy husband.
Flying in the face of that theory were the Sunday colour strips which Lynn had chosen to reprint from 1981. Lynn has already reprinted all the 1981 Sunday strips through the end of March, plus she also reprinted the Sunday strips from 4/12/1981, 5/3/1981, 5/10/1981, 5/17/1981, 6/7/1981, 6/14/1981, 6/21/1981, and 7/19/1981. I thought this meant that Lynn would have to do new-run strips on Sunday until the end of March in order to synchronize the Sunday strips by the end of March also. I theorized that Lynn might reprint 1980s Sunday strips she had not already reprinted on those Sundays which corresponded to days where she had already reprinted after March, 1981.
Well, with today’s reprint of For Better or For Worse, Lynn gave my theory a good kick in the pants. Today’s reprint comes from 04/26/1981. In other words, it is another Sunday colour strip from after March. Because of this strip I have to propose a new theory. That new theory is that in Early Spring, when Lynn Johnston goes to straight reprints, she will not care if the reprints synchronize in time with the original publication dates in 1981. Or at least she won’t care if the Sunday colour strips synchronize with 1981. She’ll just reprint whatever she has, and if it doesn’t mesh with the current time, then so be it.
As for the strip, it’s a slice-of-life from someone who obviously doesn’t want to empty the trash. The best part of the strip is the absolutely forlorn look on Elly’s face in the last panel, as if she knows she is going to have to empty that waste basket herself, thanks to her lazy husband.
posted by howard at 9:56 PM
3 Comments:
The best part of the strip is the absolutely forlorn look on Elly’s face in the last panel, as if she knows she is going to have to empty that waste basket herself, thanks to her lazy husband.
It sort of annoys me that these two idiots would end up being so smug about how great they were; why the Hell would they want to do THIS all over again??
Well, with today’s reprint of For Better or For Worse, Lynn gave my theory a good kick in the pants.
That's because your theory lacked one key component of FOOB in all its guises over the past couple of years: wherever possible, the strips have to make John look bad.
Yeesh, the easy thing for Elly to do would be to say to John, "Well the trash is full now, could you take it out?"
If John actually refuses, then well, Elly shouldn't have married him.
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