Yesterday marked the launch of Lynn Johnston’s “hybrid” For Better or For Worse. Today’s is perhaps the first actual “mixing” of the two old and new art work. Can anyone with a FBoFW collection tell us how much of this strip is actually new versus old? My guess the writing in panels 1-3 are new with the 4th panel gag being the original and panel 1 is new artwork, with panel’s 3-4 being old.
Can anyone confirm or clarify this?
None of the artwork is “old”. It doesn’t match the older style — plus the whole “meet cute” has been retconned from the original strip. Elly found John sleeping in her favorite spot in the library. The nice teeth bit comes from a strip where John is “admiring” a PYT at a party and claims that he was just noticing her “Nice teeth” when Elly shows up.
This hybrid seems like more work — new art and new story when original art and the real backstory are available. Hmm. Why is Lynn doing this again?
Lisa’s right about the artwork; it looks like “mature” Lynn, not “young” Lynn. And I’m pretty sure the original FBOFW began after Elly and John were married and had two kids; it was a fairly pedestrian “family” strip before Lynn started doing extended storylines.
I believe Lynn has said that, in addition to revisiting/repurposing old strips, she will also be filling in some of the backstory she never got to explore in print. She’s got a lot of that material in written form on her website.
Lisa brings up a good point. This hybrid format does seem like alot of work. More, perhaps, than just producing new material. So was the decision to go hybrid one of compromise between the options of retiring the strip or continuing on? I guess I’m still fuzzy on the whole reason this is being done.