Old Themes, New Themes
Today’s new-run of For Better or For Worse pulls out a lot of themes in the strip.
1. John can’t relax at home, which we see in this strip and this strip and this strip and this strip and (my favourite) this strip, where Elly has the same reaction as John after working at the office with John.
2. The kids like to fight as seen in these strips. There are a lot of these.
3. Farley makes a mess on the rug. Lynn Johnston loves excreted waste materials from animals.
4. John tracks in mud from the street as seen in these strips.
5. There is a list of chores. Actually this is a relatively recent trend with the chore list which can be seen in this strip and this strip. If you look through these strips, you can tell that in the pre-April days of the strip, Elly generally liked to tell people the chores and did not write them down.
6. Jokes about Monday as you can see in these strips. However, this is possibly the first positive joke about Monday. As you can see, Lynn generally went with the “Monday is a terrible day” theme.
7. Backwards musical notes for the second Sunday in a row. Like young Michael in last week’s strip, it appears that John thinks melodies that are out-of-tune, if we believe the answer given last Tuesday in Elly’s Coffee Talk of :
Sort of. Broken, bent, backwards or otherwise deformed music notes are common cartoonist code to signal a song sung or played (in this case, thought) out of tune.
After 2 weeks of this, I think Lynn Johnston has forgotten what musical notation looks like.
8. An outrageous list of things to be accomplished in a short period of time. This is another new theme, which we last saw in this recent strip. Looking down the list John has, I would be able to do one or two or those in a single weekend.
However, what I notice most particularly about today’s strip are the thought patterns themselves. At work and on the way home from work, John:
a. Thinks thoughts with words (and out-of-tune music), and
b. Hears and understands words from someone else.
Once he is home, John appears to:
a. No longer be able to think, and
b. No longer be able to hear anything from his wife and kids except lines spewing from their heads or a series of exclamation points and question marks.
I think the symbolism of those thought balloon comparisons works very well. John loses his ability to think at home and he can't understand what is going on there. Also, I congratulate Lynn Johnston for doing a strip which does not make John Patterson look like an idiot.
1. John can’t relax at home, which we see in this strip and this strip and this strip and this strip and (my favourite) this strip, where Elly has the same reaction as John after working at the office with John.
2. The kids like to fight as seen in these strips. There are a lot of these.
3. Farley makes a mess on the rug. Lynn Johnston loves excreted waste materials from animals.
4. John tracks in mud from the street as seen in these strips.
5. There is a list of chores. Actually this is a relatively recent trend with the chore list which can be seen in this strip and this strip. If you look through these strips, you can tell that in the pre-April days of the strip, Elly generally liked to tell people the chores and did not write them down.
6. Jokes about Monday as you can see in these strips. However, this is possibly the first positive joke about Monday. As you can see, Lynn generally went with the “Monday is a terrible day” theme.
7. Backwards musical notes for the second Sunday in a row. Like young Michael in last week’s strip, it appears that John thinks melodies that are out-of-tune, if we believe the answer given last Tuesday in Elly’s Coffee Talk of :
Sort of. Broken, bent, backwards or otherwise deformed music notes are common cartoonist code to signal a song sung or played (in this case, thought) out of tune.
After 2 weeks of this, I think Lynn Johnston has forgotten what musical notation looks like.
8. An outrageous list of things to be accomplished in a short period of time. This is another new theme, which we last saw in this recent strip. Looking down the list John has, I would be able to do one or two or those in a single weekend.
However, what I notice most particularly about today’s strip are the thought patterns themselves. At work and on the way home from work, John:
a. Thinks thoughts with words (and out-of-tune music), and
b. Hears and understands words from someone else.
Once he is home, John appears to:
a. No longer be able to think, and
b. No longer be able to hear anything from his wife and kids except lines spewing from their heads or a series of exclamation points and question marks.
I think the symbolism of those thought balloon comparisons works very well. John loses his ability to think at home and he can't understand what is going on there. Also, I congratulate Lynn Johnston for doing a strip which does not make John Patterson look like an idiot.
posted by howard at 4:29 PM
12 Comments:
So essentially, entering that house and being exposed to Elly causes severe but (apparently) reversible brain damage in John. Makes perfect sense to me. ;)
I was thinking that this was one of the few - perhaps the only - recent strips that didn't stretch the bounds of both credulity and common sense to make John look like Evil Incarnate.
The other casual Lynnisms - WTF, did John stop to dance in the flowerbeds before coming in the door? Did he "dunga-dunga" in the potted palm next to the welcome mat? How the hell do you get that much dirt on your shoes going from a dentist's office to a car and a car up a paved sidewalk to a suburban house? - are just a bagatelle compared to the pure shock of NOT seeing John as the Evil Dork of Pure Evil.
Maybe the hate of the divorce is growing cold?
aprilp_katje,
So essentially, entering that house and being exposed to Elly causes severe but (apparently) reversible brain damage in John. Makes perfect sense to me. ;)
We can only guess what such a flexible brain would have been like, if it had not had that exposure.
FDChief,
How the hell do you get that much dirt on your shoes going from a dentist's office to a car and a car up a paved sidewalk to a suburban house?
As you know, with the Pattersons it is always the shoes. This is the reason why the Pattersons always remove shoes upon entering the house. If it were dirt, then the tracks behind John would like some shoe-like in shape. I suspect the shoes shed some kind of material which would explain those dots.
Maybe the hate of the divorce is growing cold?
If so, it’s about time. They separated over 3 years ago. On the other hand, it hasn’t been that long ago since Lynn drew John dry-humping a Super Vac.
An outrageous list of things to be accomplished in a short period of time. This is another new theme, which we last saw in this recent strip. Looking down the list John has, I would be able to do one or two or those in a single weekend.
What I took away from that is that Lynn seems to be starting to forget how much work Rod did around the house back when they were married. I'm starting to think that she's beginning to remember him as being some sort of whirling dervish capable of taking on several tasks at once when, in fact, he was not the love child of the Tasmanian Devil and Red Green.
I think the symbolism of those thought balloon comparisons works very well. John loses his ability to think at home and he can't understand what is going on there.
It could also be said that he's so overwhelmed by the endless demands of the shrill harpy he married, his brain shuts down.
DreadedCandiru2,
What I took away from that is that Lynn seems to be starting to forget how much work Rod did around the house back when they were married.
I have no idea what this would be. I know that Lynn now has a cook and a housekeeper, whom she has mentioned in her annual staff Christmas photos, which implies that she has long stopped cooking and cleaning for herself. As to how long the Johnstons were in that situation, I have no idea. Certainly Lynn and Rod were well off enough so that quite a bit of the regular maintenance on their place could have been hired out.
It could also be said that he's so overwhelmed by the endless demands of the shrill harpy he married, his brain shuts down.
That could be the case, although the screaming kids seem to help too.
Certainly Lynn and Rod were well off enough so that quite a bit of the regular maintenance on their place could have been hired out.
Since Lynn seems to be the sort of person who can look at people working on a water main and assume that only one of them is doing all the work, I wouldn't put it past her to think that John can do the List from Hell with one hand tied behind his back.
DreadedCandiru2,
...I wouldn't put it past her to think that John can do the List from Hell with one hand tied behind his back.
Possibly, or she may simply be exaggerating for comic effect, since the comic strip seemed to be working towards the idea that the home life would be so horrible, John would want to return to work. The most difficult part about the strip is the concept that Lynn would want to show any sympathy to John's situation at all, especially if Elly was one of the major sources of his difficulty.
Also, I congratulate Lynn Johnston for doing a strip which does not make John Patterson look like an idiot.
Well, she might not make him look like an idiot, but I don't believe it's a complimentary strip. It shows that John hates his work so much that he can't wait for it to be Friday, but then when he's home, he hates his family and can barely wait for it to be Monday.
Jonas,
It shows that John hates his work so much that he can't wait for it to be Friday, but then when he's home, he hates his family and can barely wait for it to be Monday.
John's life is a misery seems to be the message. However, given what John was shown facing at home, his reaction seems like the reaction of a rational man. Unlike his wife, who is often miserable for self-inflicted reasons, John is not the source of his misery.
John's life is a misery seems to be the message. However, given what John was shown facing at home, his reaction seems like the reaction of a rational man. Unlike his wife, who is often miserable for self-inflicted reasons, John is not the source of his misery.
True, but a good husband and father (which obviously, Rod...er, John is not) would put up with his family no matter how they were behaving and would not be grateful to be away from them back at work on Monday morning.
Obviously, he is selfish (unlike paragon Elly) for wanting time for himself.
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