When I was a girl I adored reading The Family Circus comic strip. Each Sunday I would run outside to get the newspaper and eagerly flip to the comic section to see what Billy, Dolly, Jeffy and PJ were up to (my favorite was when creator Bil Keane would use thick dotted lines showing the characters’ paths through the neighborhood or house).
The Family Circus family was much like my own. I could relate to Dolly being the only girl in a family with three pesky brothers. And like the cartoon clan my brothers and I would pile into our station wagon (in 1985 The Family Circus upgraded to a minivan) on our way to Church, school or grandma and grandpa’s house, but not without arguing about who got a window seat and wondering aloud: “Are we there yet?”
As I got older I became more interested in other strips, including Blondie, Cathy, Pickles, and “For Better or for Worse.” I don’t read the Sunday comics nearly as often as I did when I was younger, still I was saddened when I learned earlier this week that after 29 years on the job cartoonist Lynn Johnston, who created the Patterson family in the comic strip “For Better or for Worse,” is calling it quits.
Only she’s not going out in the conventional way. Johnston has reportedly been mulling over retirement for years, but instead of going cold turkey like some cartoonists, the 60-year-old mother of two is trying something no mainstream cartoonist has done before—tell the same story twice.
Beginning with Monday’s strip Johnston will lighten her workload by creating flashbacks that take readers back nearly 30 years to see how the cartoon family has developed. Johnston says her goal is to juxtapose parenting skills from 1979 to today. The Canadian cartoonist says she will create new artwork and some dialogue, but the crux of the strip will be a retelling of the Patterson family’s saga, including births, deaths, weddings and dealing with homosexuality.
“For Better or for Worse” was loosely based on Johnston’s own life as a wife and mother. She willing admits that many story lines were taken from her family’s real-life experiences. In tomorrow’s strip Johnston says fans will be able to read the heartfelt salute she has prepared as she comes to the endpoint of her characters’ storylines.
For nearly 30 years real life parents have been able to escape temporarily from their own chaotic lives and keep up with the Patterson’s—-mom Elly went from being a stay-at-home mom to the owner of a bookstore; dad John was a dentist; son Michael went through the pangs of puberty with his mom wondering if she was coddling him too much; older daughter Elizabeth nearly suffered a nervous breakdown organizing her wedding (with mom acting as life support); and little sister April practically sent her parents to the grave when she announced she was forming her own band (this, years after the family sheepdog Farley died saving a young April from certain death).
Parenting is no picnic, but having comic relief in the form of strips such as The Family Circus and “For Better or for Worse” makes the job a bit more tolerable.
Are you a fan of Lynn Johnston’s work?
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