Posted by Sean C on Aug 28th, 2008
Here’s an unusual way for a newspaper strip to end - rather than simply ending its run when it’s finished, Lynn Johnston has decided to completely retell her comic strip, For Better or Worse, from the beginning, with new art and some new dialogue. It’s not a popular move, and newspapers across the country are facing the dilemma of either paying for rehashed material they’ve already printed, or facing the ire of the fans of the strip. The Washington Post, which broke the news about Johnston’s plan, has opted not to run it again, which is a move I applaud.
Lynn Johnston is simply making a money move by doing this, much like how George Lucas put out a special edition trilogy; it isn’t necessary, and it taints the originality and tarnishes the memory of the original material that endeared itself to the fans. It also takes away a spot from a young cartoonist desperate to break into the papers. For Better or Worse has become just another legacy strip, except that instead of the original creator begin dead, it’s the actual strip that’s dead. It’s a prolonged, self-eulogy that essentially scams newspapers into buying comic strips twice. It’s just self-indulgent, and it’s just a shame that a good strip like this, which had been building to a great, satisfying finish, has to end by never ending.
Posted in comics, opinon
| email this article
If you liked that, try...
- An Analysis of Comic Strip Humor - The Need for a New Funny
- A Humble Request…
- Sean’s “I’m Not Dead” Update and a Quick Review
- The Big Debut Webcomic Review - Horribleville by KC Green
- It Ain’t a Webcomic, but that Funky Winkerbean…
Podcast RSS
Devin de Gruyl
August 28, 2008 at 12:10 pm
I thought something was up with today’s strip, which ends (almost) on the line “That sounds like a nice way to end a story!” I’ve been picking up a sense of things drawing to their conclusion lately; now I know why.
Honestly, I don’t think even Lynn knows what she wants to do anymore. Remember, two years ago she was firm on retiring and ending the strip altogether. Then she decided, no, I’m going to stop time in the strip’s world and continue it. Then it was reprints of FBoFW’s first year or so, with new framing material paralleling life then with life now. Then even that disappeared and things looked like they were “back to normal”… and now this.
We’ll see how long this lasts. For myself, I think Lynn might be too concerned with giving her characters that “happy ending” that she herself did not have (don’t forget, she just got through a divorce - and since the Pattersons were always the analog for her own family, with Elly being more or less her own avatar, she probably didn’t want to run any risk of having to deal with those issues in a forum quite so public as the newspaper comics page).
[Reply]
Tess F
August 29, 2008 at 12:17 am
I was pretty surprised and saddened to learn today that as of this Sunday, that will pretty much be it for FBoFW.
Following this comic through out my life (since I started reading), I had knew Lynn Johnston wanted to slow her pace down a bit since 2006 through some interviews (Ms. Johnston is a little younger than my own mom who had retired two years ago), however I was not aware of Ms. Johnston’s personal problems (my sympathies to Ms. Johnston). Given Ms. Johnston’s personal circumstances in that it may be very difficult for her to continue writing about her characters involved in solid marriages, I respect where she is coming from in wanting to end FBoFW. Also given the fact after creating and crafting something for nearly 30 years, it would be wise to go out on a high note.
However for Ms. Johnston to pull a Berkeley Breathed (ending Bloom County only to reintroduce the Bloom County characters in “Outland”), that’s just going backwards in my opinion. While I would have prefered Ms. Johnston continuing to write about Elizabeth’s new marriage, April moving onto college, etc., I would much rather have one of my all time fave comics just end gracefully than become a re-run and just another spot in the comics section. I think Ms. Johnston should find a new muse to help heal herself. Besides, I can’t see re-hashing old storylines could be fulfilling, let alone satisfying FBoFW fans. I do know that some newspapers have opted to stop running FBoFW when the strip’s current storyline ends this Sunday.
[Reply]
August 29th, 2008 at 2:17 am
In fairness, Breathed has said he didn’t intend for Outland to become Bloom County in Sunday-only clothes, it just sort of worked out that way. Bringing Opus back into Outland on just its third week, no matter how much it may have helped commercially (or how much Breathed may have loved the character, which make no mistake he does), was in hindsight a mistake, as once his sizable schnozz got in the tent bringing back the rest of the Bloom County crew was far too easy.
[Reply]