For Better or For Worse

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For Better or For Worse
Author(s) Lynn Johnston
Current status Running
Syndicate(s) Universal Press Syndicate (1979-1997, 2004-present)
United Feature Syndicate (1997-2004)
Launch date September 9, 1979
Genre(s) Humour, Family, Drama

For Better or For Worse is a comic strip by Lynn Johnston that began in September 1979. The title is a reference to the marriage service in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer:

...to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health...

Set in the fictitious Toronto-area suburban town of Milborough, Ontario, the strip chronicles the lives of a Canadian family and their friends. [1] The strip is different from most other comic strips in the sense that the characters in FBorFW undergo aging in real time, but Johnston has announced that her character will stop aging in September of 2007. Although some other comic strips feature aging characters[2], they are usually not aged contemporaneously with the strip. Johnston has made some retroactive continuity changes to adjust a few characters' ages since the earliest years of the strip. [3]

The comic's main characters were initially based upon Lynn Johnston's real family, but Johnston has made significant changes.[4] [5] When her children were younger, she asked their permission before depicting events from their lives;[6] and she only once used a "serious" story from their lives. [7] When Johnston had the urge to have another child, she settled on creating a new daughter (April Patterson) for the strip.[8]

Contents

[edit] Characters

Main article: For Better or For Worse characters

[edit] Original Characters

The strip originally focused on four people:

  • John Patterson, dentist, father, and husband to protagonist Elly. Over time we see him develop interests in cars and model railroads.
  • Elly Patterson, a married stay-at-home mother of two. Restless, Elly tried night classes, writing columns for a small local paper, and periodically filling in as a dental assistant in John's office before landing a job in a library. Nearing menopause, Elly was surprised to learn she was pregnant with their daughter April. After the library job ended, Elly began working in a book store which she and John eventually bought and expanded to include toys and hobby supplies (such as model railroads).
  • Michael Patterson, a rambunctious and curious preschooler. Michael is now a freelance writer, married to his childhood crush Deanna and father to Meredith and Robin. Meredith and Robin's childhoods are now a feature in the strips.
  • Elizabeth Patterson began the strip as a toddler and is now a teacher.

As John and Elly's children grew older, the strip began to focus on neighbours and friends as well, creating an ever-changing roster of characters.

[edit] Key storylines

Main article: For Better or For Worse History

In the comic's quarter century, the strip has featured a variety of storylines, as the characters and their friends age. These include Elly's return to the paid work force, John's mid-life crisis, the birth of a friend's six-fingered daughter, friends' divorces, the coming out of Michael's best friend Lawrence Poirier, child abuse (perpetrated by Gordon's alcoholic parents), the death of Elly's mother Marian Richards, and Elizabeth's experience with sexual harassment and assault at the hands of a co-worker.

The strip has also strived to present a relatively diverse and culturally sensitive portrayal. Although the Pattersons themselves are a fairly typical middle class white anglophone family, there have been recurring characters of many different backgrounds, including Caribbean, Asian, Latin American, Franco-Ontarian and First Nations cultures. Elizabeth's favourite high school teacher, who inspired her to study education herself, was paraplegic.

Other issues are also addressed. During her second year at university, Elizabeth moved in with her boyfriend, Eric Chamberlain, insisting that she would maintain her own bedroom. Elizabeth later broke up with Eric when she found out he was cheating on her. Storylines sometimes concern the Pattersons dealing with difficult acquaintances such as Thérèse, the ex-wife of Elizabeth's friend Anthony, who resents Elizabeth's presence, or Deanna's squabbling parents, Wilfred and Mira Sobinski.

[edit] Farley's death

John tries to pull April and Farley in from the fast-moving creek.
John tries to pull April and Farley in from the fast-moving creek.

Since the comic happens in "real time," it eventually became apparent that the Patterson's first Old English Sheepdog, Farley, was starting to get fairly old. When he was fourteen years old, Farley saved April from drowning in a stream near the Patterson home. Farley could not take the shock of the cold water or the exertion of saving April, and died of a heart attack. Very few comics permit the death of main characters, but in FBorFW the realism demands it. "People's emotions were kind of raw," said Johnston of the time. "I received 2,500 letters, about one-third negative. I didn't expect the response to be so great. The letters were open and emotional and honest and personal, full of stories and love."[9] The story line was published at the same time as the Oklahoma City bombing[9] and these strips were used by some parents and church groups to try and explain the concept of death to children.[citation needed]

The official FBorFW website has a section dedicated to Farley [10] This includes the strips depicting his heroism and death, plus a selection of "Farley's Spirit" strips (See External links)

[edit] Lawrence comes out

Lawrence's mother Connie takes issue with her son coming out.
Lawrence's mother Connie takes issue with her son coming out.

In recent years, the strip has tackled other sensitive issues. In 1993, Lawrence Poirier's coming out generated controversy [11], with some readers threatening to cancel newspaper subscriptions. About 100[citation needed] newspapers ran replacement strips or cancelled the comic. Three years later Lawrence introduced his boyfriend, giving rise to another, though smaller, uproar. In 2001, when Michael chose Lawrence to be best man at his wedding to Deanna, Johnston ran two sets of comic strips– one for readers who had not been allowed to read the earlier coming-out story.

Explaining her decision to have Lawrence come out as gay, Johnston said that she had found the character, one of Michael's closest friends, gradually "harder and harder to bring... into the picture." Based on the fact the Pattersons were an average family in an average neighbourhood, she felt it only natural to introduce this element in Lawrence's character, and have the characters deal with the situation. After two years of development, Johnston contacted her editor, Lee Salem. Salem advised Johnston send the strips well ahead of time so that he could review the plot and suggest any necessary changes. So long as there was no offensive material, and Johnston was fully aware of what she was doing, Universal Press would support the action. Johnston's personal reflections on Lawrence, an excerpt from the comic collection "It's the Thought That Counts...", are included on the strip's official webpage. [12]

[edit] Milborough and Mtigwaki

The fictional town of Milborough is located near Barrie, Ontario. Deanna described the drive up to the Pattersons' house as a two-hour drive up Yonge Street. However on the For Better or For Worse website, Milborough is described as being about a 45 minute drive from Toronto and resembling Newmarket or Etobicoke. [5]

Mtigwaki is a fictional Ojibway community in Northern Ontario near Lake Nipigon, where Elizabeth Patterson taught from 2004 to 2006.[13]

[edit] Criticism

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For Better or For Worse has been criticized by some since its start in 1979. Originally, some readers complained that the strip was an idealized look at a typical suburban family and that the lack of different races and important issues harmed the comic.

In the past fifteen years, however, some readers have taken a totally different view of the situations addressed in For Better or For Worse and some have said that Lynn Johnston's inclusion of minorities and controversial issues has eroded the characters and story. Some also suggest that the introduction of a third child in the Patterson family after Johnston's own children were grown resulted in a loss of freshness and authenticity. Johnston herself has observed à propos of an increasing difficulty in keeping story lines germane to the experience of young families, "I have to admit that I'm not in a place where I can do this," Johnston says. "I'm past the point where I can remember what it's like to be a young mother."[14]

Another criticism is that the use of characters who are one-dimensional, obvious "bad guys" (Thérèse Caine, Kortney Krelbutz, Mira Sobinski, Mr. & Mrs. Kelpfroth) undermines the strip's realism. In response to this particular criticism, however, numerous readers identify with the negative behaviors displayed by these individual characters as being identical to those that they have to contend with regularly in some of their neighbors, co-workers, and acquaintances.

[edit] Johnston's comments on criticism

In an interview shortly after Lawrence came out, Johnston contrasted the reader response for it with the responses she'd received previously:

I have not slept, I have not eaten, I’ve lost 10 pounds, I’ve lost 19 papers, I’ve lost many readers. It was not something I did for joy, or something I did for publicity. I did not say, “Damn the detractors” and go ahead, intending to upset the editors. I did it because it was a story I really, fully believed in, and when you write a story that is perhaps a controversial one, you have to expect to take the heat....

I've had a pretty easy life as a cartoonist, and that's part of the problem for me. I get letters now and then that complain about the way I do things, and I generally think, "Get a life!" If you don't like the way I punctuate my sentences, tell me what else is interesting in your life. And most other people say, "I love your work, you're on my refrigerator, my dog is just like yours," and so on.

So I was bathed in this wonderful, warm glow of acceptance for so long [...] But then you get letters from people who say, "Do you realize that all serial killers are homosexual?" [15]

Johnston's irascibility was more extensively noted in a Lunch with Jan Wong column in the Globe and Mail[16]).

[edit] Distribution

The strip is now seen in over 2,000 newspapers throughout Canada, the United States and about 20 other countries, and is translated into eight languages from its native English. The strip is notable for attaining popularity in the United States notwithstanding its use of Canadian spelling (e.g. favourite vs. favorite) and, within limits, matter-of-fact references to things that are different in Canada from the U.S. (e.g. school grade numbers, metric measurements). For example, both Mike and Liz attended high school through grade 13 (a curriculum level which existed in Ontario at the time of publication, but has since been discontinued). Furthermore, Johnston had Michael study in London, Ontario, which she intended as a practical joke to confuse ignorant readers into thinking that Michael was studying in the United Kingdom until they learned of the Canadian city."[17]. Additional references include the characters talking about writing a "cheque" (instead of the American-usage "check") and attending "university" instead of "college." This is remarkable in that American syndicators have historically shunned foreign strips that did not make concessions to a U.S. audience. An American interviewer elaborated further: "In their nameless southern Ontario town, the leaves fall off the trees in October, the same month as Thanksgiving, and Nov. 11 is called Remembrance Day, not Veterans Day. There is always snow on the ground after Christmas."[18] On the other hand, in more recent years as the strip became more and more popular in the United States, references which U.S. readers might find obscure are avoided: during a story line involving litigation, for example, a witness gives "depositions" rather than attending "discoveries," and Johnston generally uses U.S. spelling.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Strip collections

These books, generally published once a year, contains reprints of the comic almost as it appeared in the daily newspapers. They are listed in chronological order; each book spans about a year in time. They lag approximately two years behind the strips' original publication. For example, "She's Turning Into One Of Them!" was published in 2006, containing strips dealing with April's 13th birthday in 2004. (publication date in parentheses)

  • I've Got the One-More-Washload Blues... (1981)
  • Is This "One of Those Days," Daddy? (1982)
  • "It Must Be Nice to Be Little" (1983)
  • Just One More Hug (1984)
  • The Last Straw (1985)
  • Keep the Home Fries Burning (1986)
  • It's All Downhill from Here (1987)
  • Pushing 40 (1988)
  • A Look Inside ... For Better or For Worse: The 10th Anniversary Collection (1989) *
  • If This is a Lecture, How Long Will It Be? (1990)
  • What, Me Pregnant? (1991)
  • Things Are Looking Up... (1992)
  • "There Goes My Baby!" (1993)
  • It's the Thoughts That Counts... Fifteenth Anniversary Collection (1994) *
  • Starting from Scratch (1995)
  • Love Just Screws Everything Up (1996)
  • Growing Like a Weed (1997)
  • Middle Age Spread (1998)
  • Sunshine and Shadow (1999)
  • The Big 5-0 (2000)
  • Graduation: A Time for Change (2001)
  • Family Business (2002)
  • With This Ring (2003a)
  • Reality Check (2003b)
  • Striking a Chord (2005)
  • Never Wink at a Worried Woman (2005)
  • She's Turning Into One of Them! (2006)

Titles with (*) also contain a 'retrospect' section, in addition to the year of most recently printed comic strips.

[edit] Retrospectives

These books include a 'retrospect' section, the year of most recently printed comic strips, and usually some autobiographical and/or "behind the scenes" information. In particular The Lives Behind the Lines has biographies of all the major and many minor characters, including information not otherwise explored in the strip.

  • A Look Inside ... For Better or For Worse: The 10th Anniversary Collection (1989)
  • It's the Thoughts That Counts... Fifteenth Anniversary Collection (1994)
  • Remembering Farley: A Tribute to the Life of Our Favorite Cartoon Dog (1996)
  • The Lives Behind the Lines: 20 Years of For Better or For Worse (1999)
  • All About April: Our Little Girl Grows Up! (2001)
  • Suddenly Silver: 25 Years of For Better or For Worse (2004)

[edit] Gift books

  • I Love My Grandpa
  • So You're Going to Be a Grandma!
  • Isn't He Beautiful?
  • Isn't She Beautiful?
  • Wags and Kisses
  • A Perfect Christmas
  • Graduation: Just the Beginning!

[edit] Other

  • David, We're Pregnant! (1972)
  • Hi Mom! Hi Dad! (1975)
  • Do They Ever Grow Up? (1980)
  • Leaving Home (With Andie Parton)
  • Am I Too Big To Hug? (1992)
  • Laugh 'n' Learn Spanish : Featuring the #1 Comic Strip "For Better or For Worse" (with Brenda Wegmann)

The first three books in this section collect cartoons by Johnston from before the strip began.

[edit] Animated series and specials

In the late 1980s, CTV produced an animated special starring the Patterson family, called A Christmas Angel. The special soon became a fairly long-running series of mini-movies. Also, the set designs (for instance, for the Pattersons' house) which these and subsequent TV programs required led Johnston to a much more sophisticated background style in the comic strips, with the layouts of homes and even towns consistent from story to story.

  • A Christmas Angel (1989)
  • The Bestest Christmas Present (1990)
  • The Babe Magnet (1991)
  • The Good-for-Nothing (1992)
  • The Last Camping Trip (1992)
  • For Better or For Worse: Home for the Holidays (1995)
  • For Better or For Worse: The Family Album (TV Series 1994-2000)

In 1994 and 1999 Teletoon, a cable-TV cartoon channel, had Ottawa's Funbag Animation create an animated series. Featuring introductions by Lynn Johnston herself, the show looked at three related storylines from three different eras of the strip--the 1980s, the 1990s, and the 2000s.

The series consisted of 2 Seasons comprised of 8 episodes per season. On March 23, 2004, Koch Vision released the complete series on DVD for the very first time.

[edit] Exhibits

In 2001, Visual Arts Brampton's Artway Gallery exhibited Johnston's work.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Johnston had announced she intended to end the series in fall 2007[1][2], but decided to continue the strip with a number of major changes; among them, the fact that "[n]obody will get older"[3][4]
  2. ^ Some examples of comic strips where characters age include Gasoline Alley, Doonesbury, Funky Winkerbean, and Baby Blues.
  3. ^ For example, Elizabeth was a baby when the strip started in 1979, but according to current continuity, she was born in 1981.
  4. ^ Aaron Johnston wrote: "[T]he strip, though based in part on our family and our personalities during the early years, mostly comes from Lynn's own imagination. ... I think that in the late '80s and early 90s there was a real split ... [i]nstead of being a reflection of our family, they truly became Lynn's own imaginary family with a life all their own." - Suddenly Silver: Celebrating 25 Years of For Better or For Worse
  5. ^ "Elizabeth is me at the age of two melting crayons on the radiator; Michael is me at the age of six feeling jealousy and rage at the coddling of a younger sibling." - from A Look Inside For Better or For Worse: The 10th Anniversary Collection by Lynn Johnston.
  6. ^ Aaron Johnston relates being asked for permission to use his experiences with wearing glasses in the strip in Suddenly Silver. Aaron "dreaded" Michael getting glasses, and suggested that Elizabeth get them instead.
  7. ^ Michael and Josef photographed an accident before Michael realized he knew the victim (Deanna). From a "Meet the Artist" online chat on the Washingon Post website.
  8. ^ Described by Johnston in All About April
  9. ^ a b Neutering Edgar, Gina Spadafori
  10. ^ Remembering Farley on the For Better or For Worse Official website.
  11. ^ Discussed in compilation books and the 1993 Slate interview
  12. ^ Official website
  13. ^ More information about Mtigwaki and how it was created is available on the official website.
  14. ^ http://www.lynnlake.ca/A_Place_to_Remember_13.html Retrieved 12 October 2006.
  15. ^ Slate / Hogan's Alley Interview
  16. ^ Reprinted in Jan Wong, Lunch With Jan Wong, Bantam, (June, 2001), trade paperback, ISBN 0-385-25982-4
  17. ^ Pg. 94, The Lives Behind the Lines: 20 Years of For Better or For Worse, Lynn Johnston, Andrews McMeel Publishing., 1.
  18. ^ http://www.lynnlake.ca/A_Place_to_Remember_13.html Retrieved 12 October 2006.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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