zoethe says everyone's doing it, so here's mine

[scarfman]

Everyone in the online comics commentary community has an opinion on recent developments in For Better or For Worse, and it looks from here that they're mostly the same opinion. In short, Johnstone is ending the strip going to convert the strip to a framing story for its own reruns. One report says she feels she's lost touch with today's generation, which may be why the commentators I know and respect best are all despising the way she's wrapping up her story. Middle(?) daughter Liz seems to be being aimed at her ex-childhood sweetie Anthony, described by more attentive readers than I with terms that amount to "stalker". One of two long-distance potential relationships (long-distance, now that she's quit her teaching job and moved back home, with her parents) has just imploded for the guy being discovered in another relationship of which none of Liz's other friends there told her (for which zoethe provides a perfectly in-character explanation for the subculture). The other long-distance potential relationship is the helicopter pilot who's transporting Liz back and forth for the trip, and those who anticipate Anthony winning Liz in the end no doubt expect that'll go wrong before Liz gets home. There's been thousands of words all over the web on how creepy Anthony's behavior would be if he existed in real life while he still continues meet Johnstone's criteria for every other successful Patterson mate in the strip, and I just want to say I don't care.

I understand, mind. The people who object to what's in the wind are people who've been following the strip all their lives, love these characters almost as if they were family, and feel betrayed by what they see as Johnstone's blindness to real-world-style concerns and developments in favor of her own preferences in How Life Ought To Turn Out For Everyone. I imagine there are readers who are rooting for Anthony, too, but they're not as loud. I wouldn't mind if AKOTAS generated this kind of there's-no-such-thing-as-bad publicity when it starts wrapping up, though of course I doubt it.

But I only added FBOFW to my daily trawl about a year ago because there was a rape storyline going on and, for some reason, women's issues have imprinted on me as something I particularly want to get right in my own work. And I expect to keep on reading as an academic observation of the wrapup of a popular pop serial fiction. But so far I think all I've really learned is that even someone who's been at it professionally for decades can draw an action-scene panel which leaves what's happening unclear to more than one reader.

Edit 1-4-08 In the intervening time since this entry was posted, I've read an article about Johnstone in which she quoted that the reason she's reunited Liz and Anthony is because Charles Schulz told her that she had too many characters. I know that if I made an unpopular decision about the direction of my characters on the basis of personal advice from Sparky, I'd stick to my guns.

Comments

[empyress.livejournal.com]

I took it off my tabs this week. I grew up with the strip - literally (I am about the age of the Michael character), and I just can't deal with it anymore. It's awful. (I hate the Anthony storyline, so that's a big part of why I can't watch Liz heading towards him.)

Plus, the winking that they added to the online version (which I haven't noticed recently, but I'm not going to check on) is CREEPY.

These are all things you've heard before. But just thought I'd chime in with more agreement.

I think it would be fantastic for you if there were camps of fans hoping for different things from AKOTAS (although I'm not sure how different endings would be possible... unless some new scholarship emerges in the next 20-25 years!).

[billfl.livejournal.com]

This is what confuses me - why are so many people down on Anthony? Granted, I'm missing a lot of the context here - I was a long time fan of the strip, but I kind of stopped keeping up with it a couple of years ago when our local paper switched from evening publication to morning, thus giving me less time or inclination to read it (the paper, not just FBoFW). I've just picked it up again recently, but I'm obviously missing something.

[scarfman]

As stated above I'm not an expert, or even particularly invested, in the issue. But people's problem with Anthony as I grok it is on one or both of two grounds:

1. The way he's carried a torch for Liz (i.e., didn't he chat her up while he was still married? I think even I recall that) is extreme to the point of being creepy, and unhealthy for both of them.
2. To match Liz with Anthony would be just another manifestation in the Patterson family of Johnstone's personal belief that there's no better, or even other, path to true happiness for a woman than to marry your childhood sweetheart and raise his family, without an outside-the-home job to keep you away from them; just because that's what happened to her.

[zoethe.livejournal.com]

Not to mention that he has admitted to pressuring his (now ex-)wife into having a baby when she really didn't want one, that he begged Liz to "wait for him" literally half an hour after rescuing her from being raped (and while he was still married) and that he's now being written to be about as interesting as Wonderbread - he's Gordie's accountant, has no discernible hobbies or interests, and does nothing, it seems, but moon after Liz.

And he has a mustache that makes him look about 57 years old.

I wrote a second entry about why I originally wanted Liz to end up with Anthony. But that version of FBoFW and the one Lynn Johnston are writing have nothing in common.