A Collection of Light Reading OR 148/365

I have loved the comic strip For Better or for Worse (FBorFW) for as long as I've known how to read. While I enjoyed reading the daily strip in the Calgary Herald that my parents subscribed to for years, I also thoroughly enjoyed reading (and re-reading) the collections we owned on the coffee table*.

Lynn Johnston, the cartoonist, drew characters of a family that I could relate to--the Pattersons. This family contained a brother and sister pair that made the sibling rivalry between my own brother and I look friendly. The family was Canadian, and no cartoonist quite depicts winter the way Lynn does. Also, one of the main characters, Elizabeth Patterson, was my age. Not just when I started reading the strip, but always--FBorFW was one of the few comic strips that ran in real time, with characters that aged. And I loved it all the more for that reason. Garfield, Adam, Charlie Brown--these were all funny. But FBorFW was funny and had that element of being true-to-life.

Various Christmases and birthdays landed collections of Lynn's work; this year included. Over the last twenty-four hours, I have been quite engrossed in The Lives Behind the Lines... which celebrates twenty years of FBorFW.

Now, I already own the 25th anniversary addition; clearly, this is not Lynn's newest work. But to that I would respond:

1. None of Lynn's books are new. Lynn retired from writing the strip in 2009. So while there are several volumes I don't own yet, any that I acquire down from here on in will not really be "new."
2. I could receive one of her earliest works and it would be just as great, because it's a volume I don't own yet. :)

The anniversary collections are especially interesting to read, because Lynn offers insight into the Patterson's lives in more detail than what we might glean from the strip alone, as well as insight into her own life as a cartoonist. She explains how she came to put a certain story in the script, why she chose certain characters for certain events, and interesting reader responses to her work. Plus, reading the strips she chooses to include in the anniversary collections are always a nice trip down memory lane (though I still tear up every time I read Farley's rescue story).

I have long-since abandoned the newspaper and follow the strip daily online. Since Lynn stopped drawing the strip, she has been running FBorFW in syndicate. I get to live life with the Patterson's all over again! It's neat, because reading it as an adult, I have a whole different perspective than when I it as a child teenager. ...I feel like FBorFW is a bit timeless... I do hope that one day, if I have children, they will enjoy the strip as much as I do.

*Lynn also had a couple FBorFW Christmas specials, though I haven't seen them in years--a holiday television highlight, for sure!