I’m amused at several posters who are deriding FBOFW as “morality crap”
I may be, as I said before, disappointed in how this story is shaping, but I also remember other times, twice at least, when Johnston’s strip was removed, either temporarily or permanently, from many newspapers, when she dared to have the character Lawrence “come out” and treated him sympathetically, as if, get this, he was just another normal human being. Remember how foolish Deanna’s mother was made to seem, before the wedding? At least my paper carried that storyline, although when, a couple of years before, Lawrence told Mike he was gay, my paper didn’t carry it.
And not all her stories are given closure. I like that, it’s more like “real” life. One example was the assault on the shopkeeper, Candace’s landlady. We didn’t find out who did it, they got away with it.
And as for morality, what about when Elizabeth was “roommates” with whats his name? The jerk, who had her duped so badly. Asshats like that really do exist.
I agree with matt_mcl. “Since when do we only read comics whose main characters are paragons of assertiveness?”
It’s not that FBOFW is ‘morality crap’, it’s that Johnston’s treatment of the moral issues she raises is shallow and uncomplex. Lawrence comes out, Mike is upset at first, but comes around. Characters in wheelchairs make jokes about their handicaps to show that they’re “real people”. Clever children in Liz’s class make wry observations about life on a reservation. It’s just all so 12-13 year old appropriate.
Perhaps what’s so awful is the missed opportunity. Johnston does a good job raising real issues, and then dismisses them with bromides and pat solutions, right down to the occasional “that’s life” unsatisfactory ending. Notice the problems the characters have: Mike is shocked that a friend is gay; Elly is a pushover for someone taking advantage of her; Liz lets an asshole treat her badly in a relationship; April visits her bully in the hospital. All of these situations have easy moral solutions that the characters are brought to. There’s no ambiguity; there’s no tough choices.
I do applaud her for being a more interesting cartoonist than, say, B.C. or Beetle Bailey. But next to Doonesbury or Boondocks, it’s just mayonaisse.
Whew! Sorry I didn’t reply earlier, y’all; Mr. Rilch was defragging the computer.
Really? I remember way back when I started working, my sister gave me all kinds of advice about getting and keeping a good job, and one thing she said was “Stay away from family businesses. If you’re not blood to them, or at least an in-law, you’re expendable. The minute one of their own needs a job, poof! You’re history.”
Well, no, I haven’t. So I’ll take your word on that.
Good point. My mom, who is older than Elly, has a history of planning confrontations with people who, at least if you believe her side of it, really need a smack with the ol’ clue-by-four…and then, at the last minute, deciding not to “make a scene”.
Oh, matt, that’s not it! What’s frustrating me is the way this storyline has built to about three climaxes so far, but each time, crested and fallen back with no payoff. I’m just sick of having my chain yanked. And I’m doing what people are always suggesting in media-related Pit threads: since it bothers me so much, I’m not going to read it any more.
The love-child revelation and the connection with the thieves have both been discussed on r.a.c.s. Kortney is the wrong age to be Elly’s daughter without John knowing about it (younger than Elizabeth), but it’s entirely possible that she was indeed the inside person in the model-train heist.
As far as her looks, that’s another thing that bothers me. When first introduced, Kortney was an average-looking teenager with a cute, round face and big eyes. Caricaturing her this way to underscore her evilness—she looks like Richard Nixon, fergossakes!—is something Greg Evans (Luann) would do. I would have expected better from Johnston.
But it’s not necessarily true that homely = bad in the Lynnverse: besides Mrs. Dingle, Mike and Weed’s former landlady, there’s also Lovey, Mike and Deanna’s current landlady, and Ruby, Candace’s aunt (not landlady), all good-hearted, honest people who may simply have aged beyond their looks.
blasphmer and kaylasdad: Edgar is the son of the late Farley.
Baker and hansel: I don’t want to get into all that right now. Suffice to say, again, that whether or not everyone was satisfied with the way those other storylines were resolved, or even not resolved, at least they only happened once. Lawrence’s stepdad didn’t banish him from the house a second time. Ruby wasn’t mugged again. Liz didn’t move back in with Eric after he was unmasked. This is different, because even if some people are frustrated with how easily the FBOFW characters usually “learn something”, in this case, Elly isn’t learning anything. I’m not sticking around to watch her grab the same bare wires over and over.
Yeah, i’m only an occasional (former) reader. Still it stinks of artistic lazyness that you kill off one dog and bring in another identical looking dog to replace it. at least make him brown instead of black or a different breed.
I think that this was reasonable. The younger dog was the son of the older dog, and most people who have dogs WILL get another dog to replace one that dies. If I’d had the option, I certainly would have adopted one of my dog’s pups when she died. As it is, all of our animals are spayed or neutered, so they don’t have offspring. But I think that it would be reasonable. Also note that when the old bunny dies, they adopt another rabbit fairly quickly. In my own family, we mourned our old cat for several months, and then we visited the Humane Society for another cat. The Bodoni family NEEDS two cats in it to feel complete.
And so it’s no surprise that it would look so much like its daddy. Plus, it seems to me that it’s not uncommon for people tend to stick to their preferences: if you’ve owned, say, a collie, you’re more likely to adopt another collie rather than a different breed.*
Just wondering: If you’d had only the one cat, when it died would you have waited as long to adopt a new cat? Or would the feline-need have compelled you to adopt earlier? Once you’ve lived with the critters, it’s really hard to be catless.
When I lost two cats (York and Tribble) within a month of each other, I had to mourn for several months, too, before I could adopt again. But I had Sophie and Sylvia to ease the pain.
As to the point raised earlier by hansel:
True, but IMO she never set out to do what they do. She’s telling a story of one family’s life, and political or moral points are made in that context. They’re not the essence of the strip, as they are in the two you cited. I read both of those, and appreciate them for what they are. I read FBOFW with other expectations of the author’s intent. Kind of like reading, say, Al Franken and Jane Austen – you can enjoy them both, but for different reasons.
That’s a good question, but I don’t know the answer to it. I just know that we all acknowledged that we needed another cat around the house. Even the other cat missed the grouchy old lady kitty, although she would never play with him and usually just slapped him upside the head when he tried to wash her ears. Now that he’s used to Sapphire, the two of them are bestest buddies.
To get back to the OP, though, I do think that Lynn Johnston has milked this storyline a little too long. She needs to give us a clean ending to it.
