For Better or For Worse - 2007...and Beyond?

Fans of For Better or For Worse, Lynn Johnston's semi-autobiographical family strip, have been waiting with bated breath to find out if the rumors that the strip would end in 2007 were true. Well, we've received word from Lynn Johnston, and the news is good!

Although Johnston will begin to lighten her workload in September (around the time the strip turns 28), she will continue to produce FBOFW on a daily basis as an old/new hybrid. The focus of the strip will shift from Elly and John Patterson, the stars of the comic strip since it began in 1979, to their son, Mike, and his family. After the transition, FBOFW will be a unique mix: new strips featuring Mike and family, with guest appearances by the rest of the FBOFW cast, plus previously published strips/scenes with new lead-in panels, and in some cases, retouched art.

The hybrid strip offers the best of both worlds; it will enable Johnston to cut back on the daily grind (who wouldn't need some rest after producing nearly three decades-worth of daily comics?), but will still give fans their Patterson family fix.

There will be one more difference, and it's a big one if you're a fan of FBOFW's realistic treatment of time: The characters will no longer age. Johnston says the gradual aging of the characters was not planned when the strip began, and after 30 years, she's ready to freeze the Pattersons at their current ages.

With all of these changes on the horizon, it will be a different FBOFW that ends 2007. But knowing that Lynn Johnston will still be treating us to daily doses of FBOFW in 2008 and beyond is cause for celebration.

Click here to read the full FBOFW press release.

Comments

[Kid Z]

They still make this strip? Last storyline I remember was when Farley died, but then, I don't read the papers much anymore. Lyn Johnston's been putting this thing out for 30 years... not everyone's a Charles Schultz who can work and work until death... Lyn deserves some time off. At least she's going to still be doing some original material. As for the aging controversy, well it seems like it would just be too difficult to do anymore. Would you rather this strip end up like Gasoline Alley?

[kozad]

I have enjoyed this strip, especially as it ages the characters, unlike most strips. (Not that I would have endorsed Watterson's aging of Calvin!!!)

But the abrupt denigration of the quality of the artistry took me by surprise. I guess I missed something, looking back on these comments: the fact that we were somehow expected to be viewing these lives throught different spectacles now...

Altogether, a rather clumsy semi-ending to the kind of soap-opera strip that had sucked me in, despite my preference for hipper strips (Bizzaro, Zippy, Monty, Doonesbury, etc.).

[jlt]

Why bother any longer? The realistic aging and relatively realistic treatment of real world problems were the only things that kept this strip interesting, as it was never particularly funny (nor do I think it needed to be to be successful).

I think this is a bad choice and will make the strip completely irrelevant. If you can't keep it good, why do it at all? Nobody would fault you for leaving it at a good time; driving it into the ground only squanders the good will the strip's readers had for it.

[christine]

Lynn Johnston is very talented artistically and has an ear for dialogue. Her series FBorFW has been a joy throughout the years. Watching the character s grow and change, suffer setbacks, prosper, and now finally, come to their logical conclusion with Elizabeth's wedding in August 2008. Here is the problem with trying to re-run the whole thing from the get-go, it makes the characters seem irrelevant and ageless (agelessness is not that interesting). To freeze-frame them in time is NOT what made the original so special. They were nearly like living people who aged and grew as they did. Michael's family is the most boring and to focus on him in the repeats (at least starting out) is really not the way to go. I think Ms. Johnston should have just ended it with Elizabeth's wedding and the storyline that told what all the characters did in the coming years. To repeat it all now is pointless. It ruins the wonderful memory of it like they did with the "Peanuts" strip. I don't bother with that and haven't for years. Ageless characters (like the "Family Circus" group) are just boring and dreary. Anyway, Ms. Johnston and her characters had a great run of it. Will miss them. But so nice if she's have left well enough alone and we could merely imagine how they all would have ended up a couple of decades from now when Michael's children are grown and perhaps getting married; Elizabeth's too; and April eventually getting married but perhaps choosing NOT to have kids and concentrating on career. And finally, the aging and senior-hood of she and John (way their beyond retirement), and perhaps them becoming great-grandparents.

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