Deep Thoughts re: For Better or for Worse (Comic Strip)

This is a spin-off of Rilchiam’s interesting pit thread about the comic strip For Better or for Worse. (Note to Mods: I started to respond there, but since my questions are more informational rather than related closely to the OP, I figured I’d post here. Hope it’s okay!)

Quickie recap: Rilchiam pitted FBOFW artist/writer Lynn Johnston for a) dragging out a storyline where heroine Elly mistakenly trusts her bookstore employee, even when her own daughter is threatened, and b) doing a poor job at characterization by making Elly seem like a big ol’ idiot. The developing Pit discusison includes references to other arcs in which Elizabeth got involved with a scuzzy boyfriend, a gay friend came out of the closet, etc.

My reaction to this description of FBOFW was … holy cow! And then, three general comments/questions sprang to mind:

  1. When I used to read FBOFW during my teens and into my early twenties (mid-'80s/early '90s), the strip was never this soapy, or rather, serialized! Sure, there were some storyline arcs, but they weren’t so … heeeeeavy! Certainly most individual strips had a requisite gag at the end panel.

True, I vaguely remember when Farley died, and that was pretty damn traumatic. (Yeah, I was an adult at the time! But Farley was a sweetie, and in any event I have major issues dealing with sick, hurt or dying animals.) However, I don’t remember this type of serious plot being typical of the strip.

So when did FBOFW turn into a veritable Apartment 3G? Not sure if Lynn J. has done interviews about it, but does anyone know if there was a reason for the development from “genially humorous slices of real life” to what appears to be “fairly realistic issue-oriented continuing drama with some touches of humor”? Are there even still jokes at the end of these strips, or does each day end with a cliffhanger?

  1. Slight variation on that question: I also recall a few years ago glancing at the strip (after a long absence) and being surprised to see that Elizabeth and the baby had actually grown up. The idea of comic characters not being stuck in an ‘age limbo’ seemed innovative to me. I mean, Dennis was perpetually a youthful menace, never a teen gang member; Archie, Betty and Veronica remain in high school (“Little Archie” notwithstanding); Charlie Brown and crew basically stayed the same age (except for characters who were intro’ed as babies, like Schroeder, Lucy, Linus, Sally and Rerun); and Calvin never outgrew Hobbes, thank Goodness.

So is FBOFW relatively unusual in this aspect? Are there other strips – famous, not obscure – that have pulled off the aging thing?

  1. Why the hell am I so interested in a comic strip I don’t even read anymore? :slight_smile: (Well, I know the answer to that one, I think … I’m a writer of serialized fiction, so I am curious about the format.) No, the real question is: if I wanted to start reading it, is the strip archived via books or the web?

Thanks! And thanks to Rilchiam for bringing this up. I hope you have a reason to return to the strip! :slight_smile:

In answer to (2), the kids in FBOFW have not only grown up, they pretty much did so in real time. Elizabeth is the same age as my oldest son; she was in a high chair when I started reading the strip and so was he, and they started kindergarten at the same time. However, I believe my son got out of high school and into college before Liz did–not sure about that because I switched newspapers and only read the comic on Sundays.

Compare this to other comic strips where either the kids don’t age at all or they age glacially (Baby Blues–she was pregnant for, like, three years . . . those kids are NEVER gonna get to college . . . or Zits, where the kid is perpetually 15). Of course, you age the kids, you lose a lot of gags, and apparently for parents of preschoolers (or teenagers) they’re unlimited. I always thought that was why Lynn Johnson decided to get Elly pregnant with April, and in fact she did rehash some of the same gags.

I’m pretty sure Gasoline Alley’s characters aged in real, or almost real time. The show has gone through a number of generations, and Skeezix, who started the strip in 1921 as an abandoned baby left on a doorstep is now a grandfather. I think at one point they stopped aging. Uncle Walt is still around, and if he aged in real time, he’d be over 100 right now, but it did for quite sometime.

The characters in Funky Winkerbean also aged, but not exactly in real time: Four years of college for the main characters was skipped over in a few weeks. Other than that, though, I think that it’s been normal rate (kids go through high school at one year per year, and there’s a baby in the strip now who’s aging normally). Presumably, the characters in Crankshaft (set in the same world as Funky) are aging as well, but since the title character is already well into his seniors and most of the rest are adults, a few extra years don’t show too much.

And For Better or For Worse has been much the way it is now for many years. I think it works, personally. It’s not like a soap opera, where everything is exaggerated to extremes. It’s just realistic. Sometimes reality is funny, and sometimes it’s dramatic.

I don’t know where you live (but I assume the US somewhere), but FBOFW is set in Ontario which, until recently, had a 13’th grade level (OAC) for students on a university track.

Well not exactly. After they zipped through college (and as I recall they were in high school in the spring, and then out of college by fall the same year) one of them made reference to the fact that it seemed like they spent 20 years in high school. Which was humorous because they did spend 20 years in high school–the first 20 years of the strip’s existence. NOW it’s moving along in real time (or approximately so).

Tengu, yeah, I’m in the states, and that would explain it.

Well, thank you for saying that my Pit thread was interesting!

This might have to do with the fact that the characters don’t all live in the same house any more. Mike has his own family; Liz is at uni; even Grandpa Jim moved out for good, and is now married. Consequently, the storylines are more likely to be focused on one person, as opposed to the old days when a character could be brought in just by having them walk into the kitchen, and it takes more time to establish a situation. “When we last saw Liz…” So that’s where the soap-opera factor comes in: some characters have to be “back burner”, and current storylines are more intense, because they’re not natural outgrowths of day-to-day situations.

Another one to add to characters that age… Luann. I don’t think they do anywhere near real time, but are getting older in a somewhat steadier fashion. Maybe someone else can confirm or deny how fast exactly.

And as to the OP, I haven’t read FBOFW in years because of the very qualities of which have been spoken. I’m not so good with serial comics.

“Blondie” was another strip where at least the young characters aged, albeit at an inconsistent pace (Dagwood and Blondie – a former flapper! – are both about 95).

At one time the Bumstead’s son Alexander was a little kid, but he eventually grew to his current 19 or so and stopped, as did the daugher, Cookie.

Elmo, the kid from next door who keeps bothering Dagwood in the bathtub, was brought in to replace Alexander in the “little kid” role.

“I’m pretty sure Gasoline Alley’s characters aged in real, or almost real time.”

The gradual transition from gag-a-day strip to soap is another way that For Better or Worse’s development resembles Gasoline Alley…

I don’t know the answers to your other questions, but I know that the characters age b/c they are based on her real family, whom I presume, have aged. :slight_smile: The husband and at least the two older kids (I don’t know about the character of April) are even named for her family–their middle names, anyway. (IIRF her son is Aaron Michael, older daughter is Katie Elizabeth). I wonder if the kids really did have a gay friend, if Aaron is really now married, etc? When I read this interview with her (10 years ago?) basically she said that she did pretty much chronicle their lives with her characters (which can’t possibly have been that great for the kids!) so perhaps this soap-operay element is in fact based upon real incidents?

There is no real life equivelant to April.

Elly had April when Johnson started wanting another child but couldn’t (or felt it was a bad idea, I can’t quite remember.), so she wrote a new one into the story.

Another well-known comic strip where the characters have aged is Doonesbury. However, like others already mentioned, it hasn’t been on a steady basis. Michael Doonesbury, who was a college student around 1970, is now apparently somewhere around fifty and met his first wife, JJ (who recently mentioned being 40), in college. BD is a veteran of Vietnam and both Iraq wars. Honey Huan was first introduced as a translator for Mao (who died in 1976).

Dykes to Watch Out For also has made some attempt to reflect the passage of the years with its characters. However it’s a newer strip and most of the characters are around the same age, so the aging is subtle.

The complaint thread would make you think this is all the strip does, but in fact FBOFW is still comprised of many single-joke strips, especially the colour Sunday strips.

The strip probably makes me laugh with a solid joke once or twice a week, which is pretty good for a newspaper strip. There are probably only three or four comic strips that can consistently make me laugh one or two times every week - For Better or For Worse, Dilbert, Mother Goose and Grimm, and Sherman’s Lagoon are about the only ones I can count on.

Hi - to answer your 3rd (I think) question - this strip has been made into many books available in libraries, and is archived on the web thru several comics sites (sorry I don’t have the links right now)

Hee, this is only the second thread I’ve started, so it’s great to see lots of responses. :slight_smile:

I didn’t realize Doonesbury had aged – I don’t really follow it often, just when someone sends me a copy that’s relevant to some current political issue we’ve been talking about. I forgot about Gasoline Alley as well.

You guys interested me enough to search for a site and archives, and sure enough the official site has archives going back to 12/2000! Plus, there are biographies of the characters, including friends & acquaintances for each family member, a “remembering Farley” section (including the run of strips up to his death), Q/A about the strip, a Flash retrospective of Michael/Deanna’s courtship, a look at the “Lawrence comes out” strips, and even “monthly letters” from the characters. Whew! All this stuff gives me a lot of ideas for my own series website.

I’m now catching up with the old strips from January 2001. Just what I need, yet another web addiction! :smiley: I’m surprised at how intense some of the backgrounds are for the ancillary characters (such as Gordon being physically abused and Candance having her mom’s boyfriend coming on to her).

I’ve actually liked Lynn Johnston since I read her Foreword to the Peanuts compilation, “Around the World in 40 Years.” Anyone who reveres Charles Schulz gets my nod of approval!

I stopped reading the comics on a regular basis when I was in college. Once I got back into a situation where a daily paper was available each morning, I resumed the habit, but didn’t really read much of FBOFW for the exact reasons others have noted – it seemed too much of a soap opera, and I didn’t have the patience to try and catch up with all of the various plotlines.

One day when I was at my mother-in-law’s apartment, I picked up one of the compilation books sitting on the shelf. I think it was the 20 year retrospect. I started paging through it, then started reading. In no time at all I had read it cover-to-cover and was looking for the next one. I guess you could say I rediscovered the strip, and was impressed all over again with the sensitive (but daring) way that Lynn Johnson tackles social issues without getting preachy. Once again, I’m a daily reader.

I have to mention sluggy freelance sluggy.com. Just because I’m so impressed a strip can have a daily punchline AND running story arcs. Though they don’t age… OK, returning you to your regularly scheduled discussion…

The Doonesbury gang aged overnight, sort of. The main characters remained the same age from the beginning until Gary Trudeau took a sabatical around 1982 or 83. When he re-started the strip about a year and a half later, the characters had caught up to real time. They’ve been aging ever since. Recently Rick was having trouble believing Joanie was 66 or so.
As far as “For Better or for Worse” the end is near, I think :frowning: . I read an interview with Lynn Johnston somewhere where she said that she would not renew her contract. Her original syndication contract was for 25(!) years and it ends soon.

I think the answer is no. She wrote a brief section about this in either the 15th or the 20th anniversary book. Her explanation was that for some time she had found it difficult to write stories involving Lawrence because he was drifting away from the other kids, but she didn’t know why. Then one day it suddenly clicked with her that it was because Lawrence was gay.