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A Look at Lynn Johnston

I posted this last night to

howtheduck 'sblog but thought it could go here as well. It's a 14 minute look at LJ broadcast way back on September 23, 1980, when she was still living in the ~~hotbed of adultery~~ northern Manitoba town of Lynn Lake. It's very timely to watch, as it shows that Rod's dental assistant looked like Cheryl Ladd.

A Look at Lynn Johnston (CBC Archives)

Monday, 13 October 2008
Thanks to aprilp_katje and fairest!, we know know what will greet us Monday: the reprint that has John making the stupid choice.

Panel 1: As Elly feeds Lizzie, Stupido tells her that he's narrowed the field of five candidates for Marie's replacement to two.

Panel 2: The first has great references, has tons of experience and is making a career of her work.

Panel 3: This piques Elly's curiosity. After all, if the first is perfect for the job, she knows that John must have an ulterior motive for keeping the inferior candidate in the running. She asks him what that motive is.

Panel 4: A sheepishly-grinning John tells a disbelieving Elly that Number Two's qualification is her looks. In the old days, he said Cheryl Ladd. Here in RetconLand, it'll probably be a more generic term like "bikini model."

Summary: We'll have a bunch of filler that shows us the John is a male chauvinist pig. Also, that Lynn spells chauvinist "chauvenist".

Sunday, 12 October 2008
It being Thanksgiving Weekend here in the Great Wiped-out North, I expect to see a holiday-themed chunk of insanity as a calm before next week's storm. Let's see how MikeClone ruins Turkey Day for everyone by his insistence on acting like he's five or something.

ETA: Actually, it's a pretty benign outing that's only slightly marred by John, who's groaning under the weight of an idiot ball the size of his hovercar, coming in at the end and being stupid.

Panel 1: It's a rainy, windy autumn day outside the Pattermanse. Given that it's in silhouette and drawn with a straight-edge, we're looking at new-run.

Panel 2: We see MikeClone and NeoLizic in silhouette.

Panel 3: And then we see their bored faces.

Panel 4: MikeClone reacts to his boredom by yelling at nothing in particular. I can think of something specific to yell about: his not being able to think of anything to do on his own. In any event, he catches RevElly's attention.

Panel 5: She hands him a paint set and some paper to fill his empty time.

Panel 6: They then have fun cooking muffins.

Panel 7: We see MikeClone and NeoLizic enjoying themselves. It strikes me as odd that while in real life, they'd have done this of their own accord they had to have RevElly tell them what to do.

Panel 8: In any event, RetJohn comes in and asks what happened.

Panel 9: As he surveys the awful prospect of a house that actually looks like small children live in it, RevElly tells him it was a rainy day.

Summary: This is Lynn nudging us in the ribcage and telling us "Look, look! RevElly does more than yell at her kids. She actually plays with them."

Saturday, 11 October 2008
It seems fairly clear that tomorrow's coda will be a new-run. It also seems clear that RevElly will take out her anger at RetJohn on a target of opprtunity: MikeClone. As we know, this is her pattern; she never addresses an issue openly when she can be disproportionately angry at someone who has the bad luck of getting in her way. She might even have Young Flapandhonk echo Monday's punchline by calling someone worthless.

Whaddaya know? He proves he is worthless!

Panel 1: We start off with Jean telling John that she has some bad news.

Panel 2: It seems that Marie, the dental hygienist that told Elly what a stickler for cleanliness he was, turned in her papers. It seems that her husband got a big promotion and has to leave town. John whines that she just got off maternity leave.

Panel 3: Jean informs him that it's a big promotion and they're leaving right away. Jackass whines that he needs a coffee.

Panel 4: John tells Ted women drive him crazy. Ted boasts that's why he's still single. Both men are loaded to the gills with shit. John is just sore because he found out he isn't in charge of Marie while Ted is under the thumb of a domineering old biddy who turns him against female contemporaries because of barely-suppressed incestuous impulses.

Summary: This sets up the irritating arc in which Doctor Jackass hires a less qualified woman because she looks like Cheryl Tiegs; it also adds fuel to Elly's paranoia owing to his witless and huffy refusal to take her fears seriously. See what I mean about his being worthless?

ETA: aprilp_katje will probably post the relevant material by Sunday at the latest.

Foob's Paradise

Did you know. . . ?

Foob's Paradise is still being updated!

I stopped checknig back about the time the intial storyline ended; I hadn't realized CanuckDownSouth was keepin' on keepin' on.

http://insertmonikerhere.blogspot.com/

The more recent story takes us a few years in the future--April is at college, and Liz has left Millborough. Jim and Iris seem very happy, and it looks like Mike and Dee will become bigger players.

Friday, 10 October 2008
Given that Lynn regards kicking Rod in the crotch as Priority One, aprilp_katje is right to regard the following as the most likely strip for today:

Panel 1: As John gets ready to leave for work, Elly reassures him by telling him not to be so sensitive. After all, when she married him, she was looking for love, not perfection.

Panel 2: His response, as he gets into his hovercar, is that he married her because he knew that, despite her many flaws, it would last the rest of their lives.

Panel 3: As Lizzie looks at us as if to say "How did I end up in this crazy house?", Elly screams "WHAT FLAWS??" to his rapidly-retreating vehicle a good twenty seconds after he left.

Summary: Have you got an hour or five to spend there, crazy lady? Listing them could take a while.

This tells me that Saturday's strip will have RevElly ask herself why she listens to RetConnie's nonsense about appreciating her ungrateful turd of a husband. The nerve of that man; doesn't he know that women in Foobland are allowed to criticize men but not vice versa? It doesn't matter how many flaws a Patterson woman has; they are to be told they are perfect.

Elly's Letter, October 2008
( Notes from the Nervous Breakdown Lane )

The Tomes of Destiny.......
In her answer in yesterday's Coffee Talk, Lynn reiterated her intention to have Beth write a book (or books) to show us the first decade or so of the Patterson's lives after the Settlepocalypse. Whether there's only one book of destiny or many, I expect to see the following themes expounded:

( My predictions )

Thursday, 9 October 2008
As you know, the next strip in sequence is the one wherein Elly lists all the qualifications she thought a second husband should have to which John responds "How the HELL did you end up with ME?" The absence of the strip wherein she reassures John, who doubtless had a bug put in his ear by an insurance salesman, that his worries, while real and coming from a desire to help, are affecting him adversely has robbed the sequence of the sweetness it originally possessed. The end result is that RetJohn looks like a jerk. Let's see if Lynn puts a spacer in between Wednesday's reprint and the one I described.

Okay. No spacer. Just John getting owned because, as trumanf said, Elly describes Paul Wright.

Panel 1: The Pattersons are getting dressed for another day of suburban ennui as Elly tells John that his replacement would be tall, dark, handsome....

Panel 2: ...witty, warm, self-assured, well-educated, financially secure, good with kids and so on and so forth.

Panel 3: Realizing that Elly thinks of him as none of those great things, John delivers the payoff question.

Summary: Because Chinnuts said marrying you would be the stupidest mistake she'd ever make is how the Hell, idiot!! We're about to spend two days being reminded of it, too.

Coffee Talk, 8 October 2008
I'm opening this thread for the first of several Coffee Talks. Let's see what gushy bullcrap Lynn deems worthy of answering.

Wednesday, 8 October 2008
It seems to me that there will most likely be a new-run inserted in between "BAAAAAWWWWWWW!!!!" and "Let's discuss wills." It will most likely be an explanation of Elly's tears. There is a rational reason for Elly's reaction. As we all know, his death would devastate her both financially and emotionally. What effect would her death have on him, though? It seems to me that there would be an asymmetry of sorts. I think that Elly's fear is that he'd have a bit of trouble adjusting but, after a few weeks at the latest, he'd be doing just fine in both departments. I just know we're going to be beaten over the head with the argument "You don't care about me because you can replace me" or some such thing.

Actually, it's the third strip in the sequence and John is the one that talks about being replaced.

Panel 1: It's late at night and John has decided that when he goes, Elly should remarry. That's almost big of him but I think she's already decided that for herself.

Panel 2: Just for curiosity's sake, though, what kind of guy would she choose if things came to that.

Panel 3: The kind that doesn't spring this sort of stuff on her at two in the blessed AM.

Summary: We'll probably get the third strip later in the week. Tomorrow's strip will be the "How the hell did you end up with me?" one, though.

ETA: Forget strip number two. Strip number two is like RetConnie's marriage to Pete Landry; it never happened. That's because it shows RetJohn in a positive, sympathetic light. Instead, we'll see strips that confirm RevElly's right to not appreciate him in the least.

Farley gets stuffed........
Lynn has just released photos of the plush Farley suitable for collecting or giving to the undiscerning. Finally, a gift for someone who has everything but good taste.

Tuesday, 7 October 2008
aprilp_katje pointed out that all three of these strips are likely to appear during the exciting "the Pattersons discuss insurance" arc. To get a little off topic, it should be noted that just as it took decades for Mike to voluntarily rake up leaves, it took an equally long time for Elly to contemplate the prospect of John's passing without giving way to the paralysis that descended upon her when she was younger. That being said, if it is one of the three, I'll indicate which one and give you my thoughts on it.

ETA: You may have noticed she handles herself a lot better in the later two. The paralysis I'm talking about occurred when he and Phil got lost in the woods a few years later. She sort of fell apart because she just couldn't handle thinking about life without him.

It's Strip number One.

Panel 1: JSF tells Elly that he has to deicde how much insurance he needs to get on his equipment; he switches from that to saying he has to protect against illness or accident.

Panel 2: He then asks her how much he should insure himself against death or dismemberment for considering their yearly expenses. He wants to make sure his family is provided for if he goes because he's too vain and chauvinistic to consider the option "Wife gets a job and supports family in case of his death or disability."

Panel 3: Her response is to weep openly and loudly. Is it because of his cold-blooded, matter-of-fact way of discussing his own passing and/or mutilation? His lack of faith in her? Who knows?

Summary: That's because the punchline is that he's a morbid jerk who doesn't care about her feelings. The notion that he's being a sensible person worried about something real is lost on Lynn. Figuring out why this might be will take all week.

Thérèse: The Unauthorised Biography
Apologies for the long delay - I've been crazy busy, and then my computer was stolen (grrrr). Here's a small section for now.

Part 4

Thérèse still hadn’t had time to meet the Pattersons by the time the autumn semester got underway. Between her studies, her social life, and occasional contract work with Mr. Caine’s firm, she simply didn’t have time.

But she had already learned more about this strange family than she cared to know. Ever since their first visit to Milborough, Anthony wouldn’t stop talking about them.

( Read more... )

Monday, 6 October 2008
As you know, we're inching ever closer to the Glorious Return of Farley, the Beloved Wonder (why they call the shaggy doofus that) Dog. The current format leads me to believe we'll get superfluous strips that show us John and Mrs Baird figuring out what lie to tell Elly.

That'll have to wait, though. Remember Saturday's strip and how Mike pwned John? History repeats itself.

Panel 1: We start off with Mike asking John what he's reading. When told 'a life insurance policy', he asks what that is.

Panel 2: He indirectly explains it by saying that if something happened to him and he couldn't work, he'd want the family to have something to live on for a while. You will note that his careful planning distinctly excludes the option "wife gets a job and takes care of the family." His repulsive vanity prevents him from taking that option (or her) seriously.

Panel 3: And if (we should be so lucky) he croaked, it would cover his funeral and lots of other expenses.

Panel 4: It's a difficult subject to discuss, despite his just having done that with a five-year-old, but money is a great thing to have in an emergency. This prompts the target of his wall of text to ask him something.

Panel 5: Namely "How much are you worth?" Given that he categorically rejects the idea that his wife is capable of taking care of the family in his absence, sweet dick all as we Canadians say. You'd say sweet Eff all but you get my point.

Summary: I'm not sure if this is new or old. All I know is that I hate it.

ETA: It's a new-run. It's also Lynn's way of asking herself how much her ex has stashed away that she can legally claim.

ETA2: It would seem that aprilp_katje is right to assume that this is a lead-in to a series of three strips wherein John discusses insurance with Elly. Suffice to say that it does not go well due to Elly's desperately not wanting to think about life without JSF.

Sunday, 5 October 2008
As I was coming home from a walk yesterday, I noticed something really interesting. You see, it had been an overcast day and as the clouds were breaking up, the sunlight hit one of them in such a way as to produce a faint but noticeable rainbow. I thought to myself that this sort of wonder would be lost on Elly. She'd just moan about how that meant that the night would be cold.

This puts me in the perfect mood to discuss today's reprint. As shoebox2 hoped yesterday, John and Michael rebel against Elly's tyranny by enjoying themselves.

Panel 1: We start off with Mike happily playing in a pile of leaves.

Panel 2: This causes John to yell at him to get outta the leaf pile.

Panel 3: He starts ranting about how he went to a lot of trouble to rake that pile of leaves at the behest of a joyless drip who can't stand to be idle and wants to fill everyone's lives with meaningless chores.

Panel 4: Then he comes along and wants to actually enjoy things.

Panel 5: Mike then flicks a leaf in his dad's face.

Panel 6: John stops ranting and remembers what it was like not to have his life filled with meaningless busywork.

Panel 7: John and Mike play happily in the leaf pile.

Summary: If he'd tried that with Elly, he'd have gotten yelled at. As it stands, they both got yelled at when Lady Buzzkill showed up. What's more, when Farley came along she ordered John to rake his poo in the pile so that Mike would learn that enjoying life is an evil impulse that must be conquered. Since she does not have it in her to be relaxed or carefree, she wants to make damned sure no one else is.

Saturday, 4 October 2008
Now that it looks as if we're alternating between old and new material, it's likely that we'll see an old strip based on the theme "John is stooopid and useless." My guess is that he'll say something insensitive and smile doing it.

Actually, he'll get owned by his own son.

Panel 1: We see him boast to his son about the virtues of raking leaves. He says it feels great but that a mere five year old couldn't handle it so as much as he'd let him try, he won't.

Panel 2: Yessir, he wishes that Mike was old enough to know the bliss of backbreaking manual labor forced on him by a workaholic.

Panel 3: He then says that if he's really good, he'll let him handle it. Mike's response: "Nah. I'll see ya, Dad."

Panel 4: A dejected JSF sits in the leaf pile and references Tom Sawyer as he thought-bubbles that he can't trick his son into doing his work for him.

Summary: This is where Mike learned to be conspicuous by his absence when it came time to do chores.

R. I. P. Coffee Talk.....
This just in from FBorFW.com:

There have been an impressive number of questions and comments regarding the transition and, as you can see, quite a bit of repetition to some of them. While Lynn appreciates the feedback that keeps her up to speed with what readers are thinking, Coffee Talk’s current format does not seem to be the best way to attend to these kinds of submissions. In light of this, we are going back to the grinder and giving Coffee Talk a makeover of its own for the next few months.

You can still spill your beans to us the same way you always have and the staff and Lynn will be able to read any and all submissions that come in. What’s new is that we won’t be publishing the submissions for all to see. Instead, we will take the best comment or question from each week and Lynn will reply to it. Every Wednesday we will put on a fresh pot of coffee and publish the best question or comment (from the previous week) along with Lynn’s response.

Translation: While we may be bored with her strip, Lynn may be equally bored with reading "Kudos, Ellie for writting such a graet column! It's like you have a camera in my house! Best of luck wiht your retirment!" This also means that the most entertaining thing to snark has been replaced by a letter of the week thing.

Friday, 3 October 2008
As promised, the era of mixed material is upon us now. The word from Corbeil is that half of the strips will be genuine re-runs and half new-runs. The different art styles should make it fairly easy to tell when a strip was produced so it might even become clear to the most loyal Kool-Aid drinker that they're not really getting a look back to the beginning of the story. They probably won't care but at least they'll know what's up.

Given the lettering style is more modern and that the backgrounds are loaded with silhouettes and straight lines, we're looking at a new-run.

Panel 1: We start off with RetJohn standing in the backyard sniffing the air and saying what a wonderful time of year it is.

Panel 2: He thought-bubbles about the crisp, cool air and colorful leaves as well as the chores he no longer has to do in the garden. He doesn't have to bake his brain planting, weeding, mowing or dealing with garden pests.

Panel 3: Just as he starts to list other things he doesn't have to do, RevElly hands him a rake so as to remind him that he can't slack off on the yardwork.

Panel 4: He expresses insincere thanks and she says no problem.

Summary: RetJohn is stupid and useless. Film at 11.

Fanfic: Maybe it'll grow...
A Lizthony wedding night fic, exactly as I think it'll happen.
( Rated R. )