For Better or For Worse
Encyclopedia
For Better or For Worse is a comic strip
by Lynn Johnston
that ran for 30 years, chronicling the lives of a Canadian
family, The Pattersons, and their friends. The story is set in the fictitious Toronto
-area suburb
an town of Milborough, Ontario
. Johnston's strip began in September 1979, and ended the main story on August 30, 2008, with a postscript epilogue the following day. Starting on September 1, 2008, the strip began re-telling its original story by means of a combination of newly drawn strips (set in the past) and reruns. This new format however, was dropped after less than two years and switched entirely to reruns, thus officially ending its run (of new material) by mid 2010. It is seen in over 2,000 newspapers throughout Canada
, the United States
and about 20 other countries, and is translated into eight languages from its native English.
The title is a reference to the marriage service found in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer
as well as in the wedding ceremonies of other faith traditions:
A signature element of For Better or For Worse during the first 28 years of the strip's existence was that, after the first two years, the characters began to age in real time. Beginning on September 3, 2007, For Better or For Worse changed to a format featuring a mixture of new, old and retouched work, which allowed Johnston to "keep alive her partly autobiographical comic while not having to devote as much time to it."
On September 1, 2008, Johnston began what she called "new-runs", restarting her storyline with new art and jokes. The time frame appears to be 26 years before the present day; the family is correspondingly younger. Michael looks to be about five or six years old, Elizabeth is a small child learning to talk, and the family is also raising a puppy. This new material was occasionally interspliced with strips from her original run. The strip subsequently went into straight reprints on July 12, 2010.
Johnston's work on the comic strip earned her a Reuben Award in 1985 and made her a nominated finalist for a Pulitzer Prize
in editorial cartooning in 1994. The strip led the Friends of Lulu
to add Johnston to the Women Cartoonists Hall of Fame in 2002. In the same year, Will Eisner
described For Better Or Worse as "the best strip around currently," saying "It's humane, human, it has humor to it, and good artwork."
In 1991, a third child was born:
As John's and Elly's children grew older, the strip began to focus on neighbours and friends as well, creating an ever-changing roster of characters.
The comic's main characters were initially based upon Lynn Johnston's real family, but Johnston has made significant changes. When her children were younger, she asked their permission before depicting events from their lives; and she only once used a "serious" story from their lives, when Michael and Josef photographed an accident before Michael realized he knew the victim. Johnston says that she dealt with the bad news that came with her barrenness, by creating a new child (April Patterson) for the strip.
. On the For Better or For Worse website, Milborough is described as being about a 45 minute to one hour drive from Toronto and resembling Newmarket
or Etobicoke
, and a location map places the town on Highway 12
near Cannington
and Beaverton
in the northernmost part of Durham Region. The family's house is located on Sharon Park Drive.
In the comic's quarter century, the strip has featured a variety of storylines, as the characters and their friends age. These include Elly's return to the paid work force, John's mid-life crisis
, the birth of a friend's six-fingered daughter, friends' divorce
s, the coming out
of Michael's best friend Lawrence Poirier, child abuse (perpetrated by Gordon's alcoholic parents), the death
of Elly's mother Marian Richards, and Elizabeth's experience with sexual harassment and assault at the hands of a co-worker.
The strip has also strived to present a relatively diverse
and culturally sensitive portrayal. Although the Pattersons themselves are a fairly typical middle class
white anglophone family, there have been recurring characters of many different backgrounds, including Caribbean
, Asian
, Latin America
n, Franco-Ontarian
and First Nations
cultures. Elizabeth's favourite high school teacher, who inspired her to study education herself, was paraplegic
.
Other issues are also addressed. During her second year at college, Elizabeth moved in with her boyfriend, Eric Chamberlain, insisting that she would maintain her own bedroom. Elizabeth later broke up with Eric when she found out he was cheating on her. Storylines sometimes concern the Pattersons dealing with difficult acquaintances such as Thérèse, the ex-wife of Elizabeth's friend Anthony, who resents Elizabeth's presence, or Deanna's squabbling parents, Wilfred and Mira Sobinski.
, Farley, was starting to get fairly old. When he was fourteen years old, Farley saved April from drowning in a stream near the Patterson home. Farley could not take the shock of the cold water or the exertion of saving April, and died of a heart attack. Farley's son Edgar later became the Patterson's new family dog.
The death provoked a lot of reaction from fans. "People's emotions were kind of raw," said Johnston of the time. "I received 2,500 letters, about one-third negative. I didn't expect the response to be so great. The letters were open and emotional and honest and personal, full of stories and love." The story line was published at the same time as the Oklahoma City bombing
(April, 1995) and these strips were used by some parents and church groups to try to explain the concept of death
to children.
When Johnston told fellow cartoonist Charles M. Schulz
that Farley was going to die, Schulz jokingly "threatened to have Snoopy
hit by a truck if Johnston went though with the plan". He thought Snoopy, being more famous, would take the spotlight off Farley. In the end, Johnston kept the timing of Farley's death a secret from Schulz.
The official For Better or For Worse website has a section dedicated to Farley; this includes the strips depicting his heroism and death, plus a selection of "Farley's Spirit" strips.
Johnston has allowed the Ontario Veterinary Medical Association (OVMA) to use Farley's name and likeness for the "Farley Foundation", a charity established by OVMA to subsidize the cost of veterinary care for pets of low income seniors and persons with disabilities in Ontario.
In 1993, Lawrence Poirier's coming out
generated controversy, with readers opposed to homosexuality threatening to cancel newspaper subscriptions. Subsequently, Johnston received hate mail and death threats towards herself and her family. Over 100 newspapers ran replacement strips or cancelled the comic. Three years later Lawrence introduced his boyfriend, giving rise to another, though smaller, uproar.
Explaining her decision to have Lawrence come out as gay, Johnston said that she had found the character, one of Michael's closest friends, gradually "harder and harder to bring... into the picture." Based on the fact the Pattersons were an average family in an average neighborhood, she felt it only natural to introduce this element in Lawrence's character, and have the characters deal with the situation. After two years of development, Johnston contacted her editor, Lee Salem. Salem advised Johnston to send the strips well ahead of time so that he could review the plot and suggest any necessary changes. So long as there was no offensive material, and Johnston was fully aware of what she was doing, Universal Press would support the action. Johnston's personal reflections on Lawrence, an excerpt from the comic collection It's the Thought That Counts..., are included on the strip's official webpage.
One result of the storyline was that Johnston was made a jury-selected "nominated finalist" for the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning
in 1994. The Pulitzer board said the strip "sensitively depicted a youth's disclosure of his homosexuality and its effect on his family and friends."
The story goes that Connie adopts a dog to deal with her pre-empty-nest syndrome, and as Michael and Lawrence are talking about her desire for grandchildren, Lawrence mentions that he probably won't be giving her any, and then confesses that he's in a relationship, but with another young man. Michael panics for a moment, then struggles to understand, later convincing him to tell his mother. Hearing the news, Connie reacts with desperate denial, then begs her (second) husband Greg to speak to him. The bigoted Greg has only two words for his stepson: "GET OUT!"
In the middle of the night, Michael is awoken by Elly. Connie and Greg fought for hours over what Greg has done, and now Connie simply wants Lawrence back. Michael locates his friend at an all-night coffee shop, where they talk until dawn, and Lawrence ultimately returns home, welcomed by Connie and an apologetic Greg, who address life afterward with "Que Sera Sera". From this, Connie decides to name the new dog "Sera". But this strip is not the last regarding this aspect of Lawrence's life, although at the time Johnston had stated she was going to mention the issue once then leave it alone.
In 2001, when Michael chose Lawrence to be best man at his wedding to Deanna, Johnston ran two sets of comic strips– one for readers who had not been allowed to read the earlier coming-out story. In the primary storyline, Deanna's mother Mira Sobinski objected to having a gay man in the wedding party, while in the alternate storyline, which used the same art but modified the dialogue, she instead objected to the flowers that Lawrence, by this time a professional landscape architect
, gave Michael and Deanna to decorate the church.
In 2007 when she was asked about why she did the storyline, Johnston said
community in Northern Ontario near Lake Nipigon
, where Elizabeth Patterson taught from 2004 to 2006. While in school, Elizabeth took a practice teaching job in Garden Village near North Bay.
The community was created with Baloney & Bannock comic creator Perry McLeod-Shabogesic, of the N'biising Nation
(Anishinabek Crane Clan). McLeod-Shabogesic collaborated with Johnston to create an authentic world for the characters to inhabit. His son, Falcon Skye McLeod-Shabogesic, created the Mtigwaki First Nation's logo, which is inspired in part by a dreamcatcher
, and his wife Laurie assisted Johnston with the Ojibwa language and was written directly into the strip as a teaching colleague of Elizabeth.
For the series of strips in Mtigwaki, Johnston was awarded the Debwewin Citation for excellence in Aboriginal
issues journalism by the Union of Ontario Indians
in 2004.
) she controls with medication.
In September 2007, Johnston said she and her husband, Rod, are separated and probably will divorce, telling the Kansas City Star,
But when asked if this would be a storyline for the strip, Johnston replied, "No, not a chance. I only want to live through this once." Johnston said in September 2007 that she would continue to produce new installments.
The changes in the strip over the next year were not major, although (as announced) the stories did focus more on Michael, Elizabeth and April than on their parents.
During the summer of 2008, Elizabeth and Anthony carried out their wedding plans, culminating in a ceremony that took place in late August. This joyous occasion was marred by a crisis: Grandpa Jim had another heart attack. Elizabeth hears about this after the ceremony, and visits her grandfather in the hospital who is being cared for by his second wife, Iris. Jim is hanging on, and responding with his post-stroke responses of "yes" and "no." In the final daily strip, Iris gives advice to Elizabeth and Anthony, who are both touched by her devotion to Jim. The strip concluded with Iris saying "It's a promise that should last a lifetime. It defines you as a person and describes your soul. It's a promise to be there, one for the other, no matter what happens, no matter who falls...For better or for worse, my dears...for better or for worse." This final daily strip had a message from Lynn Johnston saying, "This concludes my story...with grateful thanks to everyone who has made this all possible. ~Lynn Johnston"
The Sunday strip on August 31, 2008 revealed what each character would do in years to come. Elly and John retire to travel, volunteer in the community, and help raise grandchildren. Elizabeth continues to teach. She and Anthony have a child, James Allen, whom, it is assumed, she names after her grandfather Jim Richards. Grandpa Jim lives to welcome the child, then passes away at age 89 with Iris at his bedside. Anthony continues to manage Mayes Motors and its various related businesses, introduces Elizabeth to ballroom dancing, and hopes to eventually open a bed-and-breakfast. Michael has four books published before signing a film contract. Deanna opens a sewing school and teaches Robin how to cook. Meredith enters dance and theatre. April graduates from university with a degree in veterinary medicine. Due to her love of horses, she gets a job in Calgary
working with the Calgary Stampede
, continues to live in western Canada, and has an unnamed boyfriend there.
In the last panel, along with a caricature of herself at the drawing table, Lynn Johnston thanks everyone for supporting her and concludes with a reference to the story starting over with a mixture of old and new material beginning September 1, "If I could do it all over again... Would I do some things differently?... I've been given the chance to find out!! Please join me on Monday as the story begins again... With new insights and new smiles. Looking back looks wonderful!" The next day, Michael is once again a small boy, asking his young mother, Elly, to get him a puppy.
For the next twenty-two months, the strip ran a roughly 50/50 mixture of re-runs of early strips, and re-workings of 1980s strips that featured the original artwork (sometimes slightly retouched) with new dialogue. On July 12, 2010, without fanfare, the strip quietly switched to straight re-runs of material from the 1980s.
Cartoonist Stephan Pastis
poked fun at Johnston's decision in his comic strip Pearls Before Swine. In the strip, Pig referred to For Better or For Worse as "that great strip that was gonna retire, but then didn't, then started running repeats, then didn't, then ran new ones, but then fixed up the old ones, and now is gonna run new old un-new new ones".
, produced an animated special based on For Better or for Worse entitled The Bestest Present. In the United States, it was first broadcast on HBO, and in later years, on The Disney Channel
. Lynn's own children, Aaron and Katie, provided the voices of Michael and Elizabeth, and Rod Johnston made a cameo appearance as the voice of a mailman.
Beginning in 1992, another Ottawa-based studio, Lacewood Productions, produced six more specials, also for CTV. In the United States, these were seen on The Disney Channel. According to Lynn Johnston, the set designs (for instance, for the Patterson's house) which these and subsequent TV programs required led her to develop a much more sophisticated background style in the comic strips, with the layouts of homes and even towns consistent from story to story.
The six specials produced by Lacewood were:
In 2000, Ottawa's Funbag Animation produced a new animated series for cable TV network Teletoon. Featuring introductions by Lynn Johnston herself, the show looked at three related storylines from three different eras of the strip—the 1980s, the 1990s, and the 2000s.
The series consisted of two seasons with eight episodes each. On March 23, 2004, Koch Vision
released the complete series on DVD.
The rights to the 1980s/1990s specials are currently held by Lynn Johnston Productions, who were able to acquire the rights in 2008. All 7 of them are now on DVD, available exclusively through the For Better or For Worse online store.
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
by Lynn Johnston
Lynn Johnston
Lynn Johnston, CM, OM is a Canadian cartoonist, well known for her comic strip For Better or For Worse, and was the first woman and first Canadian to win the National Cartoonist Society's Reuben Award.-Early life:...
that ran for 30 years, chronicling the lives of a Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
family, The Pattersons, and their friends. The story is set in the fictitious Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
-area suburb
Suburb
The word suburb mostly refers to a residential area, either existing as part of a city or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city . Some suburbs have a degree of administrative autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods...
an town of Milborough, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
. Johnston's strip began in September 1979, and ended the main story on August 30, 2008, with a postscript epilogue the following day. Starting on September 1, 2008, the strip began re-telling its original story by means of a combination of newly drawn strips (set in the past) and reruns. This new format however, was dropped after less than two years and switched entirely to reruns, thus officially ending its run (of new material) by mid 2010. It is seen in over 2,000 newspapers throughout Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and about 20 other countries, and is translated into eight languages from its native English.
The title is a reference to the marriage service found in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer
Book of Common Prayer
The Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...
as well as in the wedding ceremonies of other faith traditions:
- ...to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health...
A signature element of For Better or For Worse during the first 28 years of the strip's existence was that, after the first two years, the characters began to age in real time. Beginning on September 3, 2007, For Better or For Worse changed to a format featuring a mixture of new, old and retouched work, which allowed Johnston to "keep alive her partly autobiographical comic while not having to devote as much time to it."
On September 1, 2008, Johnston began what she called "new-runs", restarting her storyline with new art and jokes. The time frame appears to be 26 years before the present day; the family is correspondingly younger. Michael looks to be about five or six years old, Elizabeth is a small child learning to talk, and the family is also raising a puppy. This new material was occasionally interspliced with strips from her original run. The strip subsequently went into straight reprints on July 12, 2010.
Johnston's work on the comic strip earned her a Reuben Award in 1985 and made her a nominated finalist for a Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
in editorial cartooning in 1994. The strip led the Friends of Lulu
Friends of Lulu
Friends of Lulu was a non-profit, national charitable organization in the United States, founded in 1994 to promote readership of comic books by women and the participation of women in the comic book industry...
to add Johnston to the Women Cartoonists Hall of Fame in 2002. In the same year, Will Eisner
Will Eisner
William Erwin "Will" Eisner was an American comics writer, artist and entrepreneur. He is considered one of the most important contributors to the development of the medium and is known for the cartooning studio he founded; for his highly influential series The Spirit; for his use of comics as an...
described For Better Or Worse as "the best strip around currently," saying "It's humane, human, it has humor to it, and good artwork."
Original characters
The strip focuses on a typical Canadian family, the Pattersons:- Elly Patterson, a married wife and mother of two. Restless, Elly tried night classes, writing columns for a small local paper, and periodically filling in as a dental assistant in John's office before landing a job in a library. Nearing menopauseMenopauseMenopause is a term used to describe the permanent cessation of the primary functions of the human ovaries: the ripening and release of ova and the release of hormones that cause both the creation of the uterine lining and the subsequent shedding of the uterine lining...
, Elly was surprised to learn she was pregnant with their daughter April. After the library job ended, Elly began working in a book store which she and John eventually bought and expanded to include toys and hobby supplies (such as model railroads). She then sold the store to her friend and began retirement.
- John Patterson, husband to protagonistProtagonistA protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
Elly, also a dentist and a father. Over time he develops interests in cars and model railroads.
- Michael Patterson, began the strip as a rambunctious and curious preschooler. Michael became a freelance writer, married to his childhood crush Deanna and father to Meredith and Robin.
- Elizabeth Patterson, began the strip as a toddler. When the original series of strips ended, she was a teacher who had just married her old friend Anthony Caine and became stepmother to his daughter, Françoise.
In 1991, a third child was born:
- April Patterson, so-called because she was born on April Fool's Day, 1991. She nearly drowned during a spring flood when she was four years old: the family sheepdog Farley lost his own life while saving her. She developed over the years into a bright young woman who was a talented musician. When the original series ended, she was about to go off to university to study veterinary medicineVeterinary medicineVeterinary Medicine is the branch of science that deals with the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease, disorder and injury in non-human animals...
.
As John's and Elly's children grew older, the strip began to focus on neighbours and friends as well, creating an ever-changing roster of characters.
The comic's main characters were initially based upon Lynn Johnston's real family, but Johnston has made significant changes. When her children were younger, she asked their permission before depicting events from their lives; and she only once used a "serious" story from their lives, when Michael and Josef photographed an accident before Michael realized he knew the victim. Johnston says that she dealt with the bad news that came with her barrenness, by creating a new child (April Patterson) for the strip.
Key storylines
The fictional suburban town of Milborough is located near Lake SimcoeLake Simcoe
Lake Simcoe is a lake in Southern Ontario, Canada, the fourth-largest lake wholly in the province, after Lake Nipigon, Lac Seul, and Lake Nipissing. At the time of the first European contact in the 17th century the lake was called Ouentironk by the Huron natives...
. On the For Better or For Worse website, Milborough is described as being about a 45 minute to one hour drive from Toronto and resembling Newmarket
Newmarket, Ontario
Newmarket is a town in Southern Ontario located approximately 50 km north of downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is part of the Greater Toronto Area and is connected to Toronto by freeway, and is served by three interchanges along Highway 404. It is also connected to Highway 400 via Highway 9...
or Etobicoke
Etobicoke, Ontario
Etobicoke is a dissolved municipality located within the current city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Comprising the western section of the current city, it had an official population of 338,117 as measured by the 2001 Census and 334,491 people as of the 2006 Census. While it only contains 13% of...
, and a location map places the town on Highway 12
Highway 12 (Ontario)
King's Highway 12, commonly referred to as Highway 12, is a provincially maintained highway in the Canadian province of Ontario. The highway connects the eastern end of the Greater Toronto Area with Kawartha Lakes , Orillia and Midland. It forms a part of the Trans-Canada Highway system from north...
near Cannington
Cannington, Ontario
Cannington is a community located in Brock Township, Durham Region, Ontario, Canada.-History:Originally part of the original Brock Township, Cannington was first settled in 1833. It was originally known as McCaskill's Mills after a local mill-owning family...
and Beaverton
Beaverton, Ontario
Beaverton is a community in Brock Township in the Regional Municipality of Durham, Ontario, Canada.Originally part of Thorah Township in Ontario County, Beaverton was first settled in 1822. The settlement is located on Lake Simcoe at the mouth of the Beaver River...
in the northernmost part of Durham Region. The family's house is located on Sharon Park Drive.
In the comic's quarter century, the strip has featured a variety of storylines, as the characters and their friends age. These include Elly's return to the paid work force, John's mid-life crisis
Mid-life crisis
Midlife crisis is a term coined in 1965 by Elliott Jaques and used in Western societies to describe a period of dramatic self-doubt that is felt by some individuals in the "middle years" or middle age of life, as a result of sensing the passing of their own youth and the imminence of their old age...
, the birth of a friend's six-fingered daughter, friends' divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
s, the coming out
Coming out
Coming out is a figure of speech for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people's disclosure of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity....
of Michael's best friend Lawrence Poirier, child abuse (perpetrated by Gordon's alcoholic parents), the death
Death
Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
of Elly's mother Marian Richards, and Elizabeth's experience with sexual harassment and assault at the hands of a co-worker.
The strip has also strived to present a relatively diverse
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...
and culturally sensitive portrayal. Although the Pattersons themselves are a fairly typical middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
white anglophone family, there have been recurring characters of many different backgrounds, including Caribbean
Black Canadian
'Black Canadians is a designation used for people of Black African descent, who are citizens or permanent residents of Canada. The term specifically refers to Canadians with Sub-Saharan African ancestry. The majority of Black Canadians are of Caribbean origin...
, Asian
Asian Canadian
This is a list of Canadians of Asian ancestry. Asian Canadians comprise the largest visible minority in Canada, at 11% of the Canadian population.- Ethnicity :List of Asian Canadian Demographies according to the 2006 Census- Notable Asian Canadians :...
, Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
n, Franco-Ontarian
Franco-Ontarian
Franco-Ontarians are French Canadian or francophone residents of the Canadian province of Ontario. They are sometimes known as "Ontarois"....
and First Nations
First Nations
First Nations is a term that collectively refers to various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 630 recognised First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The...
cultures. Elizabeth's favourite high school teacher, who inspired her to study education herself, was paraplegic
Paraplegia
Paraplegia is an impairment in motor or sensory function of the lower extremities. The word comes from Ionic Greek: παραπληγίη "half-striking". It is usually the result of spinal cord injury or a congenital condition such as spina bifida that affects the neural elements of the spinal canal...
.
Other issues are also addressed. During her second year at college, Elizabeth moved in with her boyfriend, Eric Chamberlain, insisting that she would maintain her own bedroom. Elizabeth later broke up with Eric when she found out he was cheating on her. Storylines sometimes concern the Pattersons dealing with difficult acquaintances such as Thérèse, the ex-wife of Elizabeth's friend Anthony, who resents Elizabeth's presence, or Deanna's squabbling parents, Wilfred and Mira Sobinski.
Farley's death
Since the comic happens in real time, it eventually became apparent that the Patterson's first Old English SheepdogOld English Sheepdog
The Old English Sheepdog is a large breed of dog which was developed in England from early herding types of dog. The Old English Sheepdog has very long fur covering the face and eyes...
, Farley, was starting to get fairly old. When he was fourteen years old, Farley saved April from drowning in a stream near the Patterson home. Farley could not take the shock of the cold water or the exertion of saving April, and died of a heart attack. Farley's son Edgar later became the Patterson's new family dog.
The death provoked a lot of reaction from fans. "People's emotions were kind of raw," said Johnston of the time. "I received 2,500 letters, about one-third negative. I didn't expect the response to be so great. The letters were open and emotional and honest and personal, full of stories and love." The story line was published at the same time as the Oklahoma City bombing
Oklahoma City bombing
The Oklahoma City bombing was a terrorist bomb attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. It was the most destructive act of terrorism on American soil until the September 11, 2001 attacks. The Oklahoma blast claimed 168 lives, including 19...
(April, 1995) and these strips were used by some parents and church groups to try to explain the concept of death
Death
Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
to children.
When Johnston told fellow cartoonist Charles M. Schulz
Charles M. Schulz
Charles Monroe "Sparky" Schulz was an American cartoonist, whose comic strip Peanuts proved one of the most popular and influential in the history of the medium, and is still widely reprinted on a daily basis.-Early life and education:Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Schulz grew up in Saint Paul...
that Farley was going to die, Schulz jokingly "threatened to have Snoopy
Snoopy
Snoopy is an fictional character in the long-running comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz. He is Charlie Brown's pet beagle. Snoopy began his life in the strip as a fairly conventional dog, but eventually evolved into perhaps the strip's most dynamic character—and among the most recognizable...
hit by a truck if Johnston went though with the plan". He thought Snoopy, being more famous, would take the spotlight off Farley. In the end, Johnston kept the timing of Farley's death a secret from Schulz.
The official For Better or For Worse website has a section dedicated to Farley; this includes the strips depicting his heroism and death, plus a selection of "Farley's Spirit" strips.
Johnston has allowed the Ontario Veterinary Medical Association (OVMA) to use Farley's name and likeness for the "Farley Foundation", a charity established by OVMA to subsidize the cost of veterinary care for pets of low income seniors and persons with disabilities in Ontario.
Lawrence comes out
Coming out
Coming out is a figure of speech for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people's disclosure of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity....
generated controversy, with readers opposed to homosexuality threatening to cancel newspaper subscriptions. Subsequently, Johnston received hate mail and death threats towards herself and her family. Over 100 newspapers ran replacement strips or cancelled the comic. Three years later Lawrence introduced his boyfriend, giving rise to another, though smaller, uproar.
Explaining her decision to have Lawrence come out as gay, Johnston said that she had found the character, one of Michael's closest friends, gradually "harder and harder to bring... into the picture." Based on the fact the Pattersons were an average family in an average neighborhood, she felt it only natural to introduce this element in Lawrence's character, and have the characters deal with the situation. After two years of development, Johnston contacted her editor, Lee Salem. Salem advised Johnston to send the strips well ahead of time so that he could review the plot and suggest any necessary changes. So long as there was no offensive material, and Johnston was fully aware of what she was doing, Universal Press would support the action. Johnston's personal reflections on Lawrence, an excerpt from the comic collection It's the Thought That Counts..., are included on the strip's official webpage.
One result of the storyline was that Johnston was made a jury-selected "nominated finalist" for the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning
Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning
The Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning has been awarded since 1922 for a distinguished cartoon or portfolio of cartoons published during the year, characterized by originality, editorial effectiveness, quality of drawing, and pictorial effect...
in 1994. The Pulitzer board said the strip "sensitively depicted a youth's disclosure of his homosexuality and its effect on his family and friends."
The story goes that Connie adopts a dog to deal with her pre-empty-nest syndrome, and as Michael and Lawrence are talking about her desire for grandchildren, Lawrence mentions that he probably won't be giving her any, and then confesses that he's in a relationship, but with another young man. Michael panics for a moment, then struggles to understand, later convincing him to tell his mother. Hearing the news, Connie reacts with desperate denial, then begs her (second) husband Greg to speak to him. The bigoted Greg has only two words for his stepson: "GET OUT!"
In the middle of the night, Michael is awoken by Elly. Connie and Greg fought for hours over what Greg has done, and now Connie simply wants Lawrence back. Michael locates his friend at an all-night coffee shop, where they talk until dawn, and Lawrence ultimately returns home, welcomed by Connie and an apologetic Greg, who address life afterward with "Que Sera Sera". From this, Connie decides to name the new dog "Sera". But this strip is not the last regarding this aspect of Lawrence's life, although at the time Johnston had stated she was going to mention the issue once then leave it alone.
In 2001, when Michael chose Lawrence to be best man at his wedding to Deanna, Johnston ran two sets of comic strips– one for readers who had not been allowed to read the earlier coming-out story. In the primary storyline, Deanna's mother Mira Sobinski objected to having a gay man in the wedding party, while in the alternate storyline, which used the same art but modified the dialogue, she instead objected to the flowers that Lawrence, by this time a professional landscape architect
Landscape architect
A landscape architect is a person involved in the planning, design and sometimes direction of a landscape, garden, or distinct space. The professional practice is known as landscape architecture....
, gave Michael and Deanna to decorate the church.
In 2007 when she was asked about why she did the storyline, Johnston said
Mtigwaki
Mtigwaki is a fictional OjibwaOjibwa
The Ojibwe or Chippewa are among the largest groups of Native Americans–First Nations north of Mexico. They are divided between Canada and the United States. In Canada, they are the third-largest population among First Nations, surpassed only by Cree and Inuit...
community in Northern Ontario near Lake Nipigon
Lake Nipigon
Lake Nipigon is the largest lake entirely within the boundaries of the Canadian province of Ontario . It is sometimes described as the sixth Great Lake. Lying 260 metres above sea level, the lake drains into the Nipigon River and thence into Nipigon Bay of Lake Superior...
, where Elizabeth Patterson taught from 2004 to 2006. While in school, Elizabeth took a practice teaching job in Garden Village near North Bay.
The community was created with Baloney & Bannock comic creator Perry McLeod-Shabogesic, of the N'biising Nation
Nipissing First Nation
The Nipissing First Nation consists of first nation people of Ojibwa and Algonquin descent who have lived in the area of Lake Nipissing in the Canadian province of Ontario for about 9,400 years. Though in history known by many names, they are generally considered part of the Anishinaabe peoples,...
(Anishinabek Crane Clan). McLeod-Shabogesic collaborated with Johnston to create an authentic world for the characters to inhabit. His son, Falcon Skye McLeod-Shabogesic, created the Mtigwaki First Nation's logo, which is inspired in part by a dreamcatcher
Dreamcatcher (Native American)
In Ojibwe culture, a dreamcatcher is a handmade object based on a willow hoop, on which is woven a loose net or web...
, and his wife Laurie assisted Johnston with the Ojibwa language and was written directly into the strip as a teaching colleague of Elizabeth.
For the series of strips in Mtigwaki, Johnston was awarded the Debwewin Citation for excellence in Aboriginal
First Nations
First Nations is a term that collectively refers to various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 630 recognised First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The...
issues journalism by the Union of Ontario Indians
Union of Ontario Indians
The Union of Ontario Indians is an Aboriginal political organization representing 42 member First Nations in the Canadian province of Ontario. It was formed in 1919 and incorporated in 1949, to serve as a political advocate and secretariat for the Anishinabek Nation...
in 2004.
2007 and 2008 changes
Johnston had planned to retire in the fall of 2007, but in January 2007, she announced that she instead would be tweaking her strip's format beginning September 2007. Storylines would now focus primarily on the second-generation family of one of the original children; scenes and artwork from older strips would be reused in new contexts; and the characters would stop aging. Johnston announced that the changes are to provide more time for travel and to help with health problems, including a neurological condition (dystoniaDystonia
Dystonia is a neurological movement disorder, in which sustained muscle contractions cause twisting and repetitive movements or abnormal postures. The disorder may be hereditary or caused by other factors such as birth-related or other physical trauma, infection, poisoning or reaction to...
) she controls with medication.
In September 2007, Johnston said she and her husband, Rod, are separated and probably will divorce, telling the Kansas City Star,
- [...] I have a new life. My husband and I have separated. I am now free to do just about anything I want to do. We still communicate. We still have children in common. It’s a positive thing for both of us. And I just see so many things in the future.
But when asked if this would be a storyline for the strip, Johnston replied, "No, not a chance. I only want to live through this once." Johnston said in September 2007 that she would continue to produce new installments.
The changes in the strip over the next year were not major, although (as announced) the stories did focus more on Michael, Elizabeth and April than on their parents.
During the summer of 2008, Elizabeth and Anthony carried out their wedding plans, culminating in a ceremony that took place in late August. This joyous occasion was marred by a crisis: Grandpa Jim had another heart attack. Elizabeth hears about this after the ceremony, and visits her grandfather in the hospital who is being cared for by his second wife, Iris. Jim is hanging on, and responding with his post-stroke responses of "yes" and "no." In the final daily strip, Iris gives advice to Elizabeth and Anthony, who are both touched by her devotion to Jim. The strip concluded with Iris saying "It's a promise that should last a lifetime. It defines you as a person and describes your soul. It's a promise to be there, one for the other, no matter what happens, no matter who falls...For better or for worse, my dears...for better or for worse." This final daily strip had a message from Lynn Johnston saying, "This concludes my story...with grateful thanks to everyone who has made this all possible. ~Lynn Johnston"
The Sunday strip on August 31, 2008 revealed what each character would do in years to come. Elly and John retire to travel, volunteer in the community, and help raise grandchildren. Elizabeth continues to teach. She and Anthony have a child, James Allen, whom, it is assumed, she names after her grandfather Jim Richards. Grandpa Jim lives to welcome the child, then passes away at age 89 with Iris at his bedside. Anthony continues to manage Mayes Motors and its various related businesses, introduces Elizabeth to ballroom dancing, and hopes to eventually open a bed-and-breakfast. Michael has four books published before signing a film contract. Deanna opens a sewing school and teaches Robin how to cook. Meredith enters dance and theatre. April graduates from university with a degree in veterinary medicine. Due to her love of horses, she gets a job in Calgary
Calgary
Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...
working with the Calgary Stampede
Calgary Stampede
The Calgary Stampede is an annual rodeo, exhibition and festival held every July in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The ten-day event, which bills itself as "The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth", attracts over one million visitors per year and features one of the world's largest rodeos, a parade, midway,...
, continues to live in western Canada, and has an unnamed boyfriend there.
In the last panel, along with a caricature of herself at the drawing table, Lynn Johnston thanks everyone for supporting her and concludes with a reference to the story starting over with a mixture of old and new material beginning September 1, "If I could do it all over again... Would I do some things differently?... I've been given the chance to find out!! Please join me on Monday as the story begins again... With new insights and new smiles. Looking back looks wonderful!" The next day, Michael is once again a small boy, asking his young mother, Elly, to get him a puppy.
For the next twenty-two months, the strip ran a roughly 50/50 mixture of re-runs of early strips, and re-workings of 1980s strips that featured the original artwork (sometimes slightly retouched) with new dialogue. On July 12, 2010, without fanfare, the strip quietly switched to straight re-runs of material from the 1980s.
Cartoonist Stephan Pastis
Stephan Pastis
Stephan Thomas Pastis is an American cartoonist and the creator of the comic strip Pearls Before Swine.-Background:...
poked fun at Johnston's decision in his comic strip Pearls Before Swine. In the strip, Pig referred to For Better or For Worse as "that great strip that was gonna retire, but then didn't, then started running repeats, then didn't, then ran new ones, but then fixed up the old ones, and now is gonna run new old un-new new ones".
Animated series and specials
In 1985, Atkinson Film-Arts of Ottawa, in association with the CTV Television NetworkCTV television network
CTV Television Network is a Canadian English language television network and is owned by Bell Media. It is Canada's largest privately-owned network, and has consistently placed as Canada's top-rated network in total viewers and in key demographics since 2002, after several years trailing the rival...
, produced an animated special based on For Better or for Worse entitled The Bestest Present. In the United States, it was first broadcast on HBO, and in later years, on The Disney Channel
Disney Channel
Disney Channel is an American basic cable and satellite television network, owned by the Disney-ABC Television Group division of The Walt Disney Company. It is under the direction of Disney-ABC Television Group President Anne Sweeney. The channel's headquarters is located on West Alameda Ave. in...
. Lynn's own children, Aaron and Katie, provided the voices of Michael and Elizabeth, and Rod Johnston made a cameo appearance as the voice of a mailman.
Beginning in 1992, another Ottawa-based studio, Lacewood Productions, produced six more specials, also for CTV. In the United States, these were seen on The Disney Channel. According to Lynn Johnston, the set designs (for instance, for the Patterson's house) which these and subsequent TV programs required led her to develop a much more sophisticated background style in the comic strips, with the layouts of homes and even towns consistent from story to story.
The six specials produced by Lacewood were:
- The Last Camping Trip
- A Christmas Angel
- The Good-for-Nothing
- A Valentine from the Heart
- The Babe Magnet (a.k.a. The Sweet Deal)
- A Storm in April
In 2000, Ottawa's Funbag Animation produced a new animated series for cable TV network Teletoon. Featuring introductions by Lynn Johnston herself, the show looked at three related storylines from three different eras of the strip—the 1980s, the 1990s, and the 2000s.
The series consisted of two seasons with eight episodes each. On March 23, 2004, Koch Vision
Koch Vision
eOne Home Video a division of Entertainment One, was founded in 1999 as part of Koch Entertainment's entry into the television programming and home video market as Koch's rental and sell-through home video division...
released the complete series on DVD.
The rights to the 1980s/1990s specials are currently held by Lynn Johnston Productions, who were able to acquire the rights in 2008. All 7 of them are now on DVD, available exclusively through the For Better or For Worse online store.
External links
- For Better or For Worse, official website
- Ned Tanner, official website
- Popular comic strip ignites controversy