dreadedcandiru2 (dreadedcandiru2) wrote in binky_betsy,
2013-01-27 01:34:00

Monday, 28 January 2013

We begin the Elly gets a job arc with John whining about the terrible sacrifice of having to wait to use the bathroom because Elly has to get ready. When it turns out that he's whining because he stupidly keeps all his stuff in the upstairs bedroom, you can see why an angry loudmouth from Saint John wants to make an acidic comment about how the lazy jackass can just get up earlier like an adult.

(Strip Number 4409, Original Publication Date, 30 January 1984)

Panel 1: We start the week off with John standing outside the bathroom door asking Elly if she's done using the bathroom yet. Elly tells him to use the one downstairs.

Panel 2: He loses my sympathy right here by whining that he can't do that because all his stuff is up here. This is because it hit me that the jackass either didn't realize that he'd have to adapt to change or thought he could whine or bully his way into having to not adapt.

Panel 3: As Elly puts her face on, she tells him that now that she's got a day job, they're just going to have share the bathroom in the morning.

Panel 4: Petulant Man-Child John whines that this isn't sharing, this is SACRIFICE.

Summary: Caustic and embittered blowhard Paul J of Saint John, NB says that this is actually piss-poor planning on their part. A sane person would either get up earlier, share the bathroom with his wife or make some sort of arrangement in which he can take his shaving kit downstairs. A sane person would also have worked this out long before this. Since John didn't do any of that and he's also a whiny little boy throwing a fit because people don't scurry around to do what he wants, I have no sympathy for him.
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  • 21 comments

hoppytoad79

January 26 2013, 20:40:07 UTC 4 months ago

*rolls eyes* And we're supposed to care and feel sorry for you, why, exactly? Cry me a river of alligator tears, Johnboy.

dreadedcandiru2

January 26 2013, 22:33:58 UTC 4 months ago

Too bad he isn't the only one who doesn't know what a sacrifice is. Elly considers a butter tart without raisins in it a sacrifice too.

hoppytoad79

January 27 2013, 01:23:19 UTC 4 months ago

We all have our crosses to bear

kefkaownsall

January 27 2013, 17:11:50 UTC 4 months ago

Move the batthroom downstairs or work something out

Anonymous

January 27 2013, 17:37:30 UTC 4 months ago

It isn't stupid for John to keep his razor, shaving cream, etc. in the upstairs bathroom.

However, it is stupid for Elly not to let him come in and get his shaving kit to take downstairs, and for John not to ask to come in and get his shaving kit to take downstairs.

dreadedcandiru2

January 27 2013, 17:56:14 UTC 4 months ago

These are very stupid people so neither thing should astonish us.

babsbybend

January 27 2013, 21:43:39 UTC 4 months ago Edited:  January 27 2013, 21:46:45 UTC

A married couple can't use the bathroom at the same time? Elly couldn't use the downstairs one? She can't even open the door for him to get his stuff?

As for the library, in every town I've been in, it doesn't open until 10. As Lynn made it quite clear that Elly wasn't going to be a routine book shelver (they start at 8 here), but would be doing programs, why does Elly have to get ready RIGHT NOW, when her husband probably has to be at work at 7?

(Can't believe I'm defending John, but I did get a chewing out by my first set of roommates for acting like Elly and locking everyone out of the bathroom while I was in it.)

dreadedcandiru2

January 27 2013, 22:39:57 UTC 4 months ago

A married couple can't use the bathroom at the same time?

Apparently not. At no point do we ever see a married couple share a washroom of a morning.

howtheduck

January 28 2013, 16:12:24 UTC 4 months ago

Apparently not. At no point do we ever see a married couple share a washroom of a morning.

Later on we do. As Lynn has said, her understanding of the house's construction was due to having to figure it out for the animated specials coming up in 1985. Plus there was a sequence in the comic strip where they had the house redone to improve the master bedroom and connecting bathroom, as I recollect.

forworse

January 29 2013, 06:17:57 UTC 4 months ago

Although we proved repeatedly that her drawings for the house's actual layout made no sense (like the absence of stairs to the upper floor, or a living room sofa the width of 2-3 cars), #3787 seemed to show a leaking toilet in a small bathroom at the top of a four-step staircase. At least we never saw that again.

howtheduck

January 29 2013, 06:32:03 UTC 4 months ago

At one point there was a map of the interior of the Patterson house used in the Ned Search game, and that was quite a valuable source in determining what the house was supposed to look like. Back in the days of April's Real Blog, I used to regularly comment any time Lynn's drawing deviated from that floor plan and it was pretty often. The running joke we had was that any character entering the Patterson house would get hopelessly lost unless being guided by a Patterson, thanks to all the moving walls, disappearing doors and stairs.

forworse

January 30 2013, 05:48:33 UTC 4 months ago

Yes, like Hogwarts or like the Goblin King's castle in Labyrinth, but without the charm or magic.

howtheduck

January 30 2013, 23:40:39 UTC 4 months ago

I don't know. People with turnip-noses running around in sock feet have a certainly degree of charm compared to goblins.

karisu_sama

January 28 2013, 02:41:47 UTC 4 months ago

A married couple can't use the bathroom at the same time?

Not THAT married couple, apparently.

.....Weirdos. :p

chucique

January 28 2013, 23:27:52 UTC 4 months ago

Well, they might see each other naked, or disheveled: un-madeup or unshaven, and at that point it would all be over. Might as well move out and start over.

dreadedcandiru2

January 28 2013, 08:05:52 UTC 4 months ago

Grammar ain't here neither....

Today's Lynnsight:

When this strip was first published in 1984 the second panel read, "I can't - all my stuff is in THAT one!!" The other day I received a call from Sue, my long-suffering editor, who asked me if it was better grammatically to say, "All my stuff is in THIS one" - considering that John was referring to the bathroom directly in front of him and not the one downstairs. I agreed, and we changed the dialogue. I guess this proves that it's never too late to be caught by an editor!

is an extended whine about having a teacher-analogue humiliate Lynn by telling her that she isn't making any sense.

aprilp_katje

January 28 2013, 11:38:34 UTC 4 months ago

I guess Sue was asleep at the wheel when she could have been suggesting to Lynn that having Elly think the wadded Kleenex in her pockets were hip bones would make more sense than thinking they were hips.

Plus she is resorting to this little meta-story because this is a strip not inspired by real life. She worked from home, so there wouldn't have been a morning bathroom conflict in the Johnston house.

dreadedcandiru2

January 28 2013, 12:08:15 UTC 4 months ago

This is why she studiously avoids talking about her children all that much. It would no more do to say "I don't have very many memories of what my children did because I was too busy being LYNN FREAKING JOHNSTON!!!" than it would "Since I work out of the home, I had to make this one up."

howtheduck

January 28 2013, 16:06:14 UTC 4 months ago

When this strip was first published in 1984 the second panel read, "I can't - all my stuff is in THAT one!!" The other day I received a call from Sue, my long-suffering editor, who asked me if it was better grammatically to say, "All my stuff is in THIS one" - considering that John was referring to the bathroom directly in front of him and not the one downstairs.

Lynn's long-suffering editor, Lee Salem, is on the verge of retiring after 40 years in the business. The press announcement said he was going to take a leave of absence at the beginning of 2013, so I guess the result of that is "Sue" is now looking over Lynn's stuff.

I agreed, and we changed the dialogue.

Lynn has never seemed to mind dialogue changes in her reprints, so this probably was not a big argument.

I guess this proves that it's never too late to be caught by an editor!

Ever since Lynn's fight with the editors over at HarperCollinsChildren's over her artwork on the Farley Follows His Nose book, I have wondered how much editing Lynn actually got from Lee Salem. She has talked about getting "Ni-PISSING" past her editor (which I never found in an actual comic strip) and getting naked Ned Tanner past her editor and leaving in spelling errors for her editor to catch. The main impression I got was that Lee Salem did not spend a lot of time editing Lynn, and mainly spent his time managing Universal Press Syndicate after Jim Andrews died in 1980. Given the grammar and spelling errors we have seen in the Lynn's Notes, I suspect that Lynn left in a fair number of errors unintentionally instead of intentionally. Nevertheless, the presence of "Sue" in the editor's chair and a change to a 29-year-old comic strip may spell a new beginning for Lynn, i.e. she may have someone actually looking at and reading her comic strip for a change.

Speaking of Lee Salem, while looking for his retirement notice, I found this interview with him I had not seen before and he expresses a different view of why they picked up Lynn Johnston than is normally present in Lynn's biographies.

http://www.mrmedia.com/2007/02/fridays-with-mr-media-lee-salem-html/

lectrice

January 31 2013, 02:29:59 UTC 4 months ago

Really interesting...he was holding his cards close to the best when it came to Lynn...being very carefully neutral...

howtheduck

January 31 2013, 15:27:39 UTC 4 months ago

Indeed. Particularly when is discussing Lynn's temporary separation from his syndicate, there is an underlying tone showing a little of Lynn's bull-headness:

"Yeah, looking back, I am sure that there are things we could have done in our relationship with Lynn that would have encouraged her to renew with us."

That's a nice way of saying, "Looking back, I have no regrets. Lynn got it in her head to leave and nothing was going to change her mind."