If it helps, I hear the gentleman Jim is based on, died.
Serious question: Do people really take that storyline that seriously, twelve years on? He was a dog, you know, not a person.
he was a hero. he saved april. he was more than a person.
Is there that much of a difference between taking a story about a fictional dog that seriously, versus taking a story about a fictional person that seriously? They are both products of their creator’s imagination, and can be equally embued with memorable traits and actions.
Right: Farley was a fictional dog who saved a fictional person. It was a touching act of heroism within a fictional universe. Which is why I don’t understand why so many people regard the death as a tragedy. No one’s said “April killed Farley” in this thread, but there are a great many readers who still see his death as some kind of miscarriage of justice. There was a person who could have died that day, who did not, because of Farley. Doesn’t anyone think that was worth the sacrifice?
Farley lived for many years in the Foobiverse. During that time, he was affectionate, loyal, and comforting, but he was not innocent of the many small annoyances dogs can cause, and he was specifically said to be useless as a watchdog. So saving April was the first, last and only thing he did to give back to the family who’d given him a long, happy, healthy life. Yet people never seem to see it that way. No one ever says, “Thank Og Farley saved April.” They just focus on the fact that Farley died.
Johnston announced it on her website but I can’t find the link right now. For a post-hoc analysis by a FBofW blogger, here’s a good post showing an estimated timeline. Not only did they divorce, he apparently cheated with one of her employees/good friends. :eek:
April didn’t kill Farley. John and Elly did. They saw April open the back gate, and didn’t even bother to buy a padlock; they just told Toddler April to not do that. Yeah, that’s gonna work. :rolleyes:
Johnston had promised no more deaths in her strip, but Mr. Bun didn’t count. We’ll see if Jim counts as a significant enough person in her book. Personally, I’d rather see him die than have him live out the neverending “hybrid” as a vegetable, like another stroke would suggest.
To draw an analogy, if I may: I never hear anyone describe Wrath of Khan as the one where Spock saves the ship. It’s always as the one whereSpock dies.
That’s normal, because that’s the dramatic element. Of course Spock saves the ship. Spock (or Kirk, or Scott, or Commodore Decker, or someone) always saves the ship (until Search for Spock, when it is simplified to saving the crew). There’s no drama in saving the ship any more. The drama of that situation is in how he does it.
Likewise, of course April didn’t die. She was an innocent child in a daily newspaper comic strip. Killing her off would have gotten Johnston f&cking burned in effigy; she could sooner have gotten away with giving Charlie Brown Tourette’s. Killing Farley on the other hand, was the right way to bring that particular storyline to a respectful, dramatic close. That was the first time I ever thought of Johnston as a good writer.
Now, to the fact that I haven’t gotten over it. I can’t speak for anyone else, but trapped inside this smug, sarcastic, flabby adult is the heart of a small boy who has a fondness for dogs, and who’s
I’m sorry, I’ll finish this later.
Sorry. What I was trying to say, and should know better than to try to say at this hour is that I’m still very much grieving the loss of my beloved Eskie, Puzzle, but that Farley’s death, in part because he was at the time just about the only “real” dog in the comics, in part because of his heroism in saving Ay-po (as I still sometimes call her), and in part because of Johnston, damn her, writing it all so well, hit me at the time like the death of a real pet, which my momentary breakdown a few minutes ago suggests that I never really get over.
And I’m sorry for this monumental hijack. I stopped reading FBFW regularly some time ago and altogether about 4 months ago when I stopped getting a paper, so I’m just not emotionally attached to any of the characters any more.
Somethin’ bad happens to Satchel, Rob, or Jebus help me, even Bucky Katt, and I’ll be in a goddamn rubber room, though, I can tell you that. 
The worst thing that can happen to Satchel and Rob IS Bucky…
Zeeba Neighba over at Pearls Before Swine, on the other hand…if those crocs ever get their act together…
Thank you! I needed that!
He’s not dead yet.
snicker
I’m so sorry, but when I read this, all I could thing was “he’s only MOSTLY dead. See, Mostly dead, he’s partly alive.”
Knead: Okay, I see what you mean. Still, I wish there weren’t so many readers who hold it against April. Don’t ask; they’re out there, that’s all.
Jim strives desperately to will himself out of a crappy comic strip. Will the Bitch Goddess Lynn allow him his eternal peace, or will she use her fiendish powers to force him to remain miserably, hellishly alive?
Meanwhile, in other news,
Lisa’s gone.
Awww.
And on Broderick Crawford Day, too.
Explanation upon request.
You piqued my curiosity, so I looked it up. I’m old enough that I should have gotten the reference without cheating. :smack:
I remember when little strips like this made at least some attempt at humor (but usually failed). When did they change the format to 3-to-5 panel soap opera installments?
How long’s it been since you read For Better or For Worse?