Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow (or That Dog-Gone Hair)
We are on well-worn ground with today’s new-run of For Better or For Worse, but as in many of these cases, Lynn Johnston is doing variations on things which are not exactly the same as what she has done before, but takes parts of them and put them together. In this case we go from trimming a bush to trimming Farley’s hair. Both items have been in the strip before, but never together in one strip. Oooh! Aaah! Lynn’s originality!
This strip goes from trimming a bush to trimming John’s hair and is the closest connection to today’s strip.
This strip shows Michael trimming his own hair and Elly’s severe reaction.
This strip shows April trimming her own hair and Elly’s severe reaction. Before she trimmed her own hair, first Aypo trimmed her dolly’s hair and trimmed the hair off Farley’s ear. If only Aypo had seen Elly trimming a bush, we could have gone full circle. Of course, one of the problems with today's strip is that there is not a mental connection between trimming a bush and trimming your hair. You would think Michael would have trimmed another plant in imitation. That would make more sense. However, when you are combining elements from similar, yet different old comic strips, you are not really thinking that having Elly get John's hair trimmed after he trimmed a bush involves a different thought process than a child imitating something the parent did.
Elizabeth did something about the same as Aypo, although she prefers to use the electric devices. She used a curling iron on her doll’s hair in this strip. She used an electric razor on Farley in this strip.
Not to be outdone, April eats Farley’s hair off his body in this strip. Frankly I think this beats Robin eating dirt. However, Elly eating the phone book is still the all time best. The scary part is that my Anonymous poster once wrote in that the phone book incident was based on something Lynn Johnston did in real life. But I digress.
Cutting Farley's hair is not the only thing the Patterson kids did with his hair. Elizabeth likes Farley in a Mohawk in this strip. Michael was new-runned to have the same idea in this strip.
Don’t worry about Farley though. He has plenty of hair. As you can see in this strip and this strip and this strip, he loses more hair during a brushing than he does from anything Michael might do to him with scissors.
My first thought on seeing the strip, was that it was unusual for Elly Patterson to be trimming bushes. However, looking at this strip from 1981, I see there was another time when she did trim a bush. By the time it rolled around to this strip from 1989, it appears that John has taken over the job or it just won't get done. Michael does it once for Mother's Day in 1990 and I notice the sound effects are "Snip" and "Clip". The sound effects are also "Snip" and "Clip" when John trims the bushes in 2003. Today's strip has "Clip" and "Cut". "Cut" has replaced "Snip" for the first time. I guess Lynn Johnston wanted to make sure her readers got the joke. "Cut" is there so we know that Michael got the idea of cutting Farley's hair from snipping and clipping, I mean, cutting the bushes. That crafty Lynn has realized that since she has gone to new-runs and reprints, the intelligence of her audience has diminished and needs all the help it can get.
This strip goes from trimming a bush to trimming John’s hair and is the closest connection to today’s strip.
This strip shows Michael trimming his own hair and Elly’s severe reaction.
This strip shows April trimming her own hair and Elly’s severe reaction. Before she trimmed her own hair, first Aypo trimmed her dolly’s hair and trimmed the hair off Farley’s ear. If only Aypo had seen Elly trimming a bush, we could have gone full circle. Of course, one of the problems with today's strip is that there is not a mental connection between trimming a bush and trimming your hair. You would think Michael would have trimmed another plant in imitation. That would make more sense. However, when you are combining elements from similar, yet different old comic strips, you are not really thinking that having Elly get John's hair trimmed after he trimmed a bush involves a different thought process than a child imitating something the parent did.
Elizabeth did something about the same as Aypo, although she prefers to use the electric devices. She used a curling iron on her doll’s hair in this strip. She used an electric razor on Farley in this strip.
Not to be outdone, April eats Farley’s hair off his body in this strip. Frankly I think this beats Robin eating dirt. However, Elly eating the phone book is still the all time best. The scary part is that my Anonymous poster once wrote in that the phone book incident was based on something Lynn Johnston did in real life. But I digress.
Cutting Farley's hair is not the only thing the Patterson kids did with his hair. Elizabeth likes Farley in a Mohawk in this strip. Michael was new-runned to have the same idea in this strip.
Don’t worry about Farley though. He has plenty of hair. As you can see in this strip and this strip and this strip, he loses more hair during a brushing than he does from anything Michael might do to him with scissors.
My first thought on seeing the strip, was that it was unusual for Elly Patterson to be trimming bushes. However, looking at this strip from 1981, I see there was another time when she did trim a bush. By the time it rolled around to this strip from 1989, it appears that John has taken over the job or it just won't get done. Michael does it once for Mother's Day in 1990 and I notice the sound effects are "Snip" and "Clip". The sound effects are also "Snip" and "Clip" when John trims the bushes in 2003. Today's strip has "Clip" and "Cut". "Cut" has replaced "Snip" for the first time. I guess Lynn Johnston wanted to make sure her readers got the joke. "Cut" is there so we know that Michael got the idea of cutting Farley's hair from snipping and clipping, I mean, cutting the bushes. That crafty Lynn has realized that since she has gone to new-runs and reprints, the intelligence of her audience has diminished and needs all the help it can get.
posted by howard at 8:08 AM
16 Comments:
The question that occurs to me is how Mike ever reached the drawer where the sharp scissors are kept, as his proportions have dwindled to "Deformed Dainty Dollboy" size again, as they so often have in the New-Runs.
Hell, in a couple of panels his hands look too misshapen to wield his sucker, much less manipulate scissors.
And, yeah, Lynn has no real memory or understanding of how a 7 year old boy's mind works. When my Mom was busy with pointless chores at that age, my plans for mischief did NOT go towards "I know! I'll do what Mom's doing, only ON THE DOG! BECAUSE I'M STUPID AND EVIL, BECAUSE I'M a BOY!"
In the first strip you linked, where John gets a haircut, the barber looks so similar to Dr. Ted that I wonder why a physician feels the need to moonlight as a barber.
one thing I notice in the first slew of strips was that LJ used to have more creativity when portraying shock / surprise / upset. The earlier ones have facing-forward gaping, but also side-view gaping and a facepalm. By the time of Aypo, it's the upside-down triangle of horror or nothing. I expected it in the run down to the settlepocalypse and the do-it-quick new-run era, but I think it may have started that far back
Anonymous,
And, yeah, Lynn has no real memory or understanding of how a 7 year old boy's mind works.
That is definitely true in today’s strip. When you look back over the strips I linked, she used to be better at it. The moments when Mike was cutting his own hair or doing something to Farley’s hair made more sense. I think the big difference is that in the old days, she actually had a boy in her house, and although she may not have understood why he did what he did, at least if she translated the real-life story faithfully, then you have a cause-and-effect to which those of us who understand the thinking of young children better can relate.
aprilp_katje,
In the first strip you linked, where John gets a haircut, the barber looks so similar to Dr. Ted that I wonder why a physician feels the need to moonlight as a barber.
Chicks dig barbers
InsertMonikerHere,
one thing I notice in the first slew of strips was that LJ used to have more creativity when portraying shock / surprise / upset.
Going through these first few years of the strip has shown me that much of the humour of the early strips was derived from Elly’s overblown reaction to things and there was quite a bit of variation. Later on, Lynn relied much less on facial expressions to tell her stories. She started doing long shots and full-figured appearances of her characters. The tendency to not draw the characters’ eyes and the use of silhouettes blackening in the face became much more prevalent. I don’t know why she made this change, but when you see a new-run back-to-back with a reprint, it startles me how much you lose in a comic strip without those facial expressions.
When my Mom was busy with pointless chores at that age, my plans for mischief did NOT go towards "I know! I'll do what Mom's doing, only ON THE DOG! BECAUSE I'M STUPID AND EVIL, BECAUSE I'M a BOY!"
Unfortunately, this is how Lynn imagined that Aaron thought. She thinks that children are trying to steal her brain and make her a babbling idiot who's only fit to darn socks and bake cookies.
I think the big difference is that in the old days, she actually had a boy in her house, and although she may not have understood why he did what he did, at least if she translated the real-life story faithfully, then you have a cause-and-effect to which those of us who understand the thinking of young children better can relate.
Exactly; Lynn doesn't understand how things work but she can be relied on to show us what she sees.
That young Lizzie + curling iron strip is SCARY. She has her hand right above the hot part of the curling iron in the 4th panel! D: D: D:
DreadedCandiru2,
Exactly; Lynn doesn't understand how things work but she can be relied on to show us what she sees.
That was one of the reasons for her success in the early days. These days, the only type of strip she could do would be a woman, who went through an ugly divorce. That would make for a more interesting strip than these rehashes and redos of her early days.
sonneta,
That young Lizzie + curling iron strip is SCARY. She has her hand right above the hot part of the curling iron in the 4th panel! D: D: D:
Yeesh! You are right. It looks really painful from that perspective.
My thought is that so many of these Farley strips reflect the reality of Lynn's dog ownership (brief, unremarkable, quickly forgotten) with the fantasy-dog she created in Farley (small person in hairy suit). Having both been a child with a dog and having children with a dog, I can tell you that no ordinary housepet dog would have held still long enough for a small boy with hand scissors to cut off that much fur. In the perfect world the dog would have lost a pathc or two before bolting. In the real world Elly's Triangle Mouth of Horror would have been in response to a bloodied child bitten by a frightened dog frantic to get away from the pinching and tugging of the scissoring.
Other than that, yeah, this just revisits places that Lynn has been many, many times. You have to wonder if these Sunday strips are nothing more than a desperate plea for the syndicate and the papers not to drop the strip - "See! I so AM still doing original material! I'm here! I matter! Please continue to pay me!"
OK, actually, TWO other thoughts;
1. I wonder if Lynn ever thinks about trying these as "silent movies". I tried to imagine this strip without the ridiculous "clip" and "cut" sound-effects text filling every panel and it actually seemed to work better for me. But maybe that's just me.
2. I must have a filthy mind, but when I read "trimming a bush" my first thought was "I SO don't want to see Elly's Brazilian..."
FDChief,
Having both been a child with a dog and having children with a dog, I can tell you that no ordinary housepet dog would have held still long enough for a small boy with hand scissors to cut off that much fur.
That is very true. To Lynn’s credit she has never shown Farley getting that much hair removed before by any other means than a brushing, always done by an adult. Sunday’s strip is just another indication of how far the woman has fallen from where she was before.
You have to wonder if these Sunday strips are nothing more than a desperate plea for the syndicate and the papers not to drop the strip - "See! I so AM still doing original material! I'm here! I matter! Please continue to pay me!"
In my opinion, that is the whole motivation for the hybrid and then the new-runs. She wants the vacation time the reprints provide, but also the money the “new material” designation provides.
1. I wonder if Lynn ever thinks about trying these as "silent movies". I tried to imagine this strip without the ridiculous "clip" and "cut" sound-effects text filling every panel and it actually seemed to work better for me. But maybe that's just me.
She’s done several new-run strips now which were filled with panels and panels of sound effects. I suspect she thinks of them more as amusing space fillers. One panel of it is more than enough, as far as I am concerned.
2. I must have a filthy mind, but when I read "trimming a bush" my first thought was "I SO don't want to see Elly's Brazilian..."
You have a good point. Judging from Elly’s tremendous camel toe in this upcoming strip, I would probably want that bush to be untrimmed and as much to be hidden as possible.
Scout-trip weekend? :)
[verification word: "fearsi"; the scary version of Farsi.]
Scout trip weekend.
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