For Better or for Worse

I normally don’t read the comics. Something just seemed to deflate the cartoon balloon when Gary Larson stopped doing The Far Side and when we saw the last of Calvin and Hobbes, well, it wasn’t just the same reading the comics at all, at all. But there is still one daily comic I still enjoy a great deal and that one is For Better or for Worse by Lynn Johnston. Now I don’t know if this gets published in US newspapers as she is a cartoonist here in Canada.

The premise of the comic is a family, the Pattersons– the husband/father John is a dentist, the wife/mother is Elly - well I’m not quite sure what she is. She did own a bookstore and then sold it and I think she has gone back to school. The oldest son Michael is a writer who is married with two young children of his own, the oldest daughter Elizabeth is a teacher and the youngest daughter April is still in high school.

What really sets this comic strip apart and for me makes it hands above so many out there, is it is so true to life. I feel like I really know this family. They age just like we do. When I first started reading this strip way back when – Michael was just finishing up high school and on this way to University. I thought it was kind of cool because the cartoonist sent him to the University of Western Ontario here in London.

Over the years she has tackled many relevant topics. I winced with Elly when she found out ‘Surprise!’ she was pregnant with April much later in life. I have watched sadly as a few beloved pets of the Pattersons have died. One of Michaels best friends is gay and I read along as he slowly began coming out and telling people. Lynn Johnston’s Elly has also tackled the death of her mother and the sudden remarriage of her older father. Some storylines I kind of skim over and some hold my attention.

I don’t get the city paper anymore. I didn’t really see the point as they halved the editorial section, my favourite part and got rid of a couple of very good advice columns. I kind of lost track of the Pattersons until I started working again and they get the paper at work. I’ve become very caught up in the latest story line. Elizabeth, the older sister, taught way up north for a couple of years. She loved teaching there, the close knit community, and the children she had come to love, but became homesick and wanted to come home again. But while she was up there she met this young native police officer and they fell in love. It’s been a long distance relationship as she moved back home and he was still up north, but planning on putting in for a transfer so they could be together.

The latest had Elizabeth visiting Paul up north and when she ran into another friend who’s a pilot and he was flying up there, she hitched a ride with him so she could surprise Paul a day early.

I noticed how much this story line has hooked me in when the first thing I thought about when I woke up this morning was I could hardly wait to get to work and read For Better or For Worse and see what was going to happen between Elizabeth and Paul because I just had a bad feelings about this. You see, just before she left for home, Elizabeth met her replacement who just happened to be a young woman that Paul knew from when he was growing up.

And then I got to thinking what was I going to do on Saturday since I don’t get the paper. I HAD to find out what happened next.

And then I thought – “Kristie – this is a COMIC STRIP here. A comic strip. How many people rush to work so that they can read a COMIC STRIP?

But thank goodness for the power of Google because I found a few web sites where I could read it without having to go out in the cold winter (although not as cold here as in Ames' neck of the woods - now there weather is NASTY!) to find out what happens next.

*edited*

And I was right. Poor Elizabeth is getting her heart broken.

*sigh*

It really is a good comic strip though and almost makes up for the loss of my dear Calvin and his favourite stuffed tiger Hobbes

'til later