I mean, Howard assaulted her. He would have done something even nastier if he’d been able to. So of course Liz hates him. Why would she feel that she should try to not look like she hates him? Her feelings seem pretty justified to me, and there’s no lack of accuracy, honesty, or fairness if those feelings come through in the courtroom. If Howard spends some time in prison, well, he gets what he deserves.
I want to take Liz by the shoulders and shake her. She has absolutely no reason to worry about the terrible plight of little old Howard. She knows the bastard’s guilty. Howard attacked her. Why would Liz worry about making sure that she plays nice with him? Why is the fairness of his trial somehow a real concern for her? What is Liz’s issue, here?
I can’t imagine having her attitude, in her circumstances. At all. Ever. Do Liz’s feelings about testifying against Howard make any sense to anyone else here at all?
I dont’ know. Unless it is the pressure most women feel to be nice, even in a situation like the one depicted. Rape victims sometimes apologize for being a bother to nurses in ER, or so I’m told. I dont’ understand it, but it does happen.
Irrelevant note: this strip used to be mildly funny and cute, but in the past few years, it’s gotten dark and soap opera-ish, so I no longer read it often. Perhaps there is some backstory to Liz and Harold-did they date? I don’t know-but that might explain it.
“I don’t want to sound as though I hate you” sounds very accurate, as does the rest. In a case that like, it’s one person’s word against another’s, and a woman feels very self-conscious of looking too hysterical or wildly reactionary, to where she might lose credibility with the jury. They may think she’s blowing something out of proportion, or overreacting to what he did, if she gets too “emotional”.
It’s a double-edged sword, though. If she doesn’t look upset enough, they may think no damage was done or that it didn’t happen, or didn’t happen that way.
NB: I’m not a regular reader of the strip, so I am going on my opinion otherwise.
No, Liz only knew Howard from work. As she explains in the August 8 strip on this page, she resisted his attempts to ask her out.
I am a regular reader of the strip, but I saw today’s installment much as gigi did – Liz doesn’t want to get all emotional and give Howard’s attorney an opening to demand her testimony be stricken from the record, let alone request a mistrial.
I saw it the same way–she doesn’t want to come off as hysterical and pathetic (nor does she want to make Howard think that he managed to have so much effect on her!)–she wants to look calm, collected and rational.
I’d also add, she wants her testimony to be heard as somebody there to tell the truth and that she is making clear, truthful, unembellished, rational statements, not as someone there to get even or exact revenge, or engage in a he-said/she-said thing.
Also, the lead-up to this strip has been pretty heavy on the seriousness of the charges and the stress that she is under to testify in court.
I think this is in character for Liz. This the first person that I can recall that ever presented such a great danger to her and that made her hate another person. In the rest of her life, she is this sweet young woman just beginning her career as a teacher. She looks for the positive in other people and this is the first time she did not only fail to find the positive, but found the exact opposite.
Lynn Johnston has always tended to use Liz as the epitome of niceness, even to a fault at times. That Liz feels awkward about hating someone, and not wanting to show it seems completely believable to me.
I do think this strip has become a soap opera though, as** eleanorigby** pointed out. It use to be a funny strip similar to Foxtrot or Arlo and Janis, but Johnston decided to go for the ultra-realistic route ala Funky Winkerbean, but that strip still knows how to show straight humor sometimes - I love the strips with the Band Leader. It’s like she decided to become a novelist along the way, but didnt want to change mediums. I’ll still read it since I grew up on it, but I dont love it the way I used to and make it a must read.
Yet still, Harold better wind up in prison, and Liz better marry Mr. Wright, and not Mr. Wrong (Anthony.)
I thought of that when reading this thread as well. When she checks the box for the look-alike guy in the line-up, but then does such a good job testifying It’s very disturbing in parts but a valuable read.
The curse of 7-days-a-week comics is Running Out of Juice. I don’t care who you are – Schulz, Caniff, Hart – if you run longer than 25 years or so, you will exhaust your lifetime supply of fresh ideas and be forced to start coasting to some degree to keep your franchise going.
Johnston, Batuik and others went from serio-comic to serial-serious.
Schulz, MacNelly, Davis and a lot of others just slowly turned down teh funni dial till the needle hit the tame, then the lame.
Trudeau kept doing what he was doing, being a classic liberal, but he too had to turn down teh funni dial.
Johnny Hart went Christian-right.
Milton Caniff went slightly senile and introduced graphic violence into Steve Canyon at least once in the late '70s. At least one paper dropped him as a result.