6-year-olds Are Easily Distracted
Lynn continues down the unreprinted March, 1981 strip list with today’s reprint of For Better or For Worse. She skipped the unreprinted March 17 and 23 strips, did the March 24 strip yesterday and with today’s strip has reprinted March 26. That leaves March 31 as the remaining March, 1981 strip unreprinted, unless Lynn decides to go back in time and pick up the 2 skipped strips.
My prediction:
We will have some new-runs to complete this week and to fulfill Lynn’s promise of new material briefly mentioning the “’Allo?” girl. Then on Monday, March 15, the reprints will synchronize with the Monday, April 6, 1981 strips and we will be into straight reprints for the dailies. My proof is that when I go to the Comic Strip Catalog and use the Date category to pull the year 1981, the strips from April 6, 1981 to October 5, 1981 are not there. It skips from April 5, 1981 directly to October 6, 1981. That blocking tells me strips from that period are the next up to be reprinted. Lynn said she would be in straight reprints by Early Spring and technically March 15, 2010 is not Early Spring, since it is still considered to be Winter. I doubt Lynn will care about that distinction, especially considering she will probably still be doing new-run Sunday strips for awhile.
As for today’s strip, this is one that is close to being lifted directly from my life with my kids. I will tell them we have to leave and at what time we have to leave. I will give them a 15-minute warning of when we have to leave. And then of course, when the time comes, getting them out of the house is like a giant tug-of-war. They will actually say to me that I did not tell them. I kind of miss the days when they were young, when I would be allowed to dress them to get ready.
In Elly’s case, she is not as direct as I am. “Hurry and get dressed” and “Eat your breakfast” don’t say the reason why Elly is concerned about such things. Probably Michael should know, but I remember when my kids were in First Grade, they didn’t. When Michael complains, “Why didn’t you tell me!” he actually has a legitimate point, even though he isn't really asking a question with that exclamation point. Elly never told him he was going to be late if he didn’t hurry and get dressed or eat his breakfast. When I am dealing with my kids that “if” comes up every time I speak about meeting a departure deadline. “Get dressed or you will be late.” “If don’t eat your breakfast now, you will be going to school hungry.” Based on my experience, it wouldn’t help Elly if she told Michael why she wanted him to hurry, other than being able to say, “I told you so.”
Finally, Michael’s exclamation implies that he is concerned about being late. My kids only care about that when they realize that because they were late, they missed something they wanted to do.
The final panel art does the standard Charles Schulz open mouth and nose in the air. However for some reason, the picture reminds me more of something from Beetle Bailey. I can’t quite put my finger on the reason for that though.
My prediction:
We will have some new-runs to complete this week and to fulfill Lynn’s promise of new material briefly mentioning the “’Allo?” girl. Then on Monday, March 15, the reprints will synchronize with the Monday, April 6, 1981 strips and we will be into straight reprints for the dailies. My proof is that when I go to the Comic Strip Catalog and use the Date category to pull the year 1981, the strips from April 6, 1981 to October 5, 1981 are not there. It skips from April 5, 1981 directly to October 6, 1981. That blocking tells me strips from that period are the next up to be reprinted. Lynn said she would be in straight reprints by Early Spring and technically March 15, 2010 is not Early Spring, since it is still considered to be Winter. I doubt Lynn will care about that distinction, especially considering she will probably still be doing new-run Sunday strips for awhile.
As for today’s strip, this is one that is close to being lifted directly from my life with my kids. I will tell them we have to leave and at what time we have to leave. I will give them a 15-minute warning of when we have to leave. And then of course, when the time comes, getting them out of the house is like a giant tug-of-war. They will actually say to me that I did not tell them. I kind of miss the days when they were young, when I would be allowed to dress them to get ready.
In Elly’s case, she is not as direct as I am. “Hurry and get dressed” and “Eat your breakfast” don’t say the reason why Elly is concerned about such things. Probably Michael should know, but I remember when my kids were in First Grade, they didn’t. When Michael complains, “Why didn’t you tell me!” he actually has a legitimate point, even though he isn't really asking a question with that exclamation point. Elly never told him he was going to be late if he didn’t hurry and get dressed or eat his breakfast. When I am dealing with my kids that “if” comes up every time I speak about meeting a departure deadline. “Get dressed or you will be late.” “If don’t eat your breakfast now, you will be going to school hungry.” Based on my experience, it wouldn’t help Elly if she told Michael why she wanted him to hurry, other than being able to say, “I told you so.”
Finally, Michael’s exclamation implies that he is concerned about being late. My kids only care about that when they realize that because they were late, they missed something they wanted to do.
The final panel art does the standard Charles Schulz open mouth and nose in the air. However for some reason, the picture reminds me more of something from Beetle Bailey. I can’t quite put my finger on the reason for that though.
posted by howard at 3:53 PM
5 Comments:
to fulfill Lynn’s promise of new material briefly mentioning the “’Allo?” girl.
The longer we go between newruins, the more I'm convinced that she thinks that one-off strip where Connie met Allo Girl is the brief mention to which Lynn is referring. In Lynn's mind, she has already filled in the gap in that storyline by drawing that strip and she is baffled to discover that people still aren't satisfied. What she doesn't seem to follow is that the new strip adds even more confusion: why did Connie go to the wrong address even though she'd been writing to Phil for a year? Did Connie speak to Allo Girl or just run screaming down the street? What happened to Phil's pipe? Has Connie kept it because it might taste of moustache sweat? (Yes, I know Mike and Lawrence have used the mouthpiece more recently than Phil.)
forworse,
The longer we go between newruins, the more I'm convinced that she thinks that one-off strip where Connie met Allo Girl is the brief mention to which Lynn is referring. In Lynn's mind, she has already filled in the gap in that storyline by drawing that strip and she is baffled to discover that people still aren't satisfied.
This does make a lot of sense; we are dealing with the same woman who didn't realize that people couldn't see Liz being homesick when it was clear to her that it was the case. I should think that she still doesn't see why we don't.
howard,
As you said on the Foobiverse, Lynn might have tried to show us a conversation she had with 9 year old Aaron without realizing how odd it would look to show a six year old doing that; this might also have been one of the first examples of scrambled communication wherein a child doesn't understand what the adult wants because the adult doesn't say it in a manner that the child can understand. The premise that animates that is that the adult is inconvenienced by having to remember that children cannot understand as poor, put-upon she does.
forworse,
The longer we go between newruins, the more I'm convinced that she thinks that one-off strip where Connie met Allo Girl is the brief mention to which Lynn is referring.
This could be, but aprilp_katje specifically mentioned that strip when asking for more explanation which Lynn promised. Of course, knowing how lightly Lynn reads things, that may well have been her thinking. Only time will tell.
What she doesn't seem to follow is that the new strip adds even more confusion: why did Connie go to the wrong address even though she'd been writing to Phil for a year?
We only know she went to the wrong address because of the strip where Elly told Connie the address which Lynn did not reprint. The other possibility is that Connie went to the right address and Lynn was simply too lazy to look up her 1981 strip with the address in it to see what it was.
Did Connie speak to Allo Girl or just run screaming down the street?
Considering how little information Connie had in her conversation with Elly on the subject my guess would be that she turned around and walked silently away.
What happened to Phil's pipe? Has Connie kept it because it might taste of moustache sweat? (Yes, I know Mike and Lawrence have used the mouthpiece more recently than Phil.)
Moustache sweat seems very likely to me. I would prefer that to other alternatives which might be possible between a woman and a pipe.
DreadedCandiru2,
As you said on the Foobiverse, Lynn might have tried to show us a conversation she had with 9 year old Aaron without realizing how odd it would look to show a six year old doing that; this might also have been one of the first examples of scrambled communication wherein a child doesn't understand what the adult wants because the adult doesn't say it in a manner that the child can understand.
There have been a number of these reprinted over the last year, where Elly has expectations of her children and often doesn’t even say as much about it as she did in today’s strip.
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