For Better Or For Worse just ended

For the uninitiated, it's a comic strip by a Canadian woman, Lynn Johnston, about matriarch Elly, husband John, and their three kids Michael, Liz and April. (Loosely based on Lynn, her husband Rod, and their two kids, with a third she probably wished she could have).

Christ Almighty.

GLURGE.

I mean, the strip jumped the shark years ago, but they went into ultraglurge mode a while back, and we ended up seeing the surreality of Lynn wanting everything ultrasaccharine while taking digs at her real-life ex-husband Rod, who had enough of her and took off with a younger woman.

What made the strip so wonderfully entertaining, apart from the antics of Flapandhonk and JTSF (as they're called by a large group of people whose entire lives revolve around criticising the strip and tearing Lynn Johnston a new asshole every day) is the stuff that shows an insight into their real lives.

Michael, the couple's son, ignores his own children to work. They literally crawl all over him in a desperate bid for attention, and he continues to type with his eyes closed.

The bland as fuck boy next door the daughter marries (who has a child by a previous marriage) actually builds a three by three holding pen in the basement so that he can work uninterrupted by his child. Sticking a child in a de facto cage in the basement? CPS on line one.

Google "Foobiverse" and check out the community that lives to criticise the strip. I laughed for days.

And yeah, I picked up on her disturbing 1950s subtext that "nice girls don't" and if they do, they're a "gig"! or "road-side", and "once you go there, YOU NEVER COME BACK."

I thought it was funny when I was a kid. It seemed like they were hiding in our closet and writing about my family. Then I didn't see it for a while. When I did, I apreciated that the characters had developed, but it was so much of a soap opera I lumped it in with the not-so-funny funnies that I don't really read. It its odd to see people so serious about a comic strip, but then, I like to bang on things and yell nonsense at people. Go figure.

I only read it because it was on the page with all the others

at least we still have marmaduke.

I kind of grew up reading it with my mother, so I have fond memories of the story arcs. I have to admit, Elizabeth's marriage to Anthony (the end of the last arc, thus ending the strip) was rather trite. I like how the characters actually aged and grew as the strip went on. When Lynn starts rewriting FBofW from the beginning, I'll probably stop reading it.

I haven't read it since I stopped reading the comics section in a regular newspaper i.e. been a long time. I remember thinking Farley dying was out of tone for the strip.

The author's husband left her for a younger woman? Can you fucking imagine how horrible it would be to have to write something family-oriented called For Better or Worse after that.

According to her ex-husband Rod, she does live in a fantasy world of her own making.

I've been reading that comic since I was like 7 or some shit. I can still remember when Elizabeth still talked like a baby...Jeez, like 30 years ago. I, myself, miss Bloom County, The Far Side, and Calvin and Hobbes. Those were the only strips to ever make my really laugh. Really, the ONLY two strips I still read was For Better or For Worse and Garfield....and that's ONLY cause it was habit. The comic strips, in my neck of the woods, suck.