Saturday, December 6, 2008

His work was done....

Poor Farley. This has to be worse than being Buffy in season six.
Click on image to enlarge.

I'm planning to do my next posting on Monday, 12/8/2008, and then start doing Monday/Wednesday/Friday postings, at least for a while. Daily's just not sustainable for me at the moment!

12 comments:

DreadedCandiru2 said...

Oh, my. This is distressing; the only characters known to remember the past are the ones who can't communicate their knowledge. I wonder when Farley will twig to not being able to change his destiny.

April Patterson said...

Poor little guy, eh? That's what makes the new-run world such a horror show.

DreadedCandiru2 said...

Damn right! We never did get the promised look behind the scenes; all we got was more whining and selfishness.

April Patterson said...

Oversell and underdeliver seems to be her M.O. lately. :(

Cedar said...

Will Liz continue to remember the past/future as she gets older? Or will she slowly forget?

April Patterson said...

Cedar, you're thinking way farther ahead than I am. I hadn't considered having Liz forget, but I also hadn't been making any longterm plans. I suspect the new-runs have a fairly limited shelf life, so I may never need to decide. ;)

howard said...

I suspect the new-runs have a fairly limited shelf life, so I may never need to decide. ;)

Certainly there is some evidence to this effect. The North Bay Nugget said that Lynn has gone through her archiving project, which implies that she has taken the time to find the materials needed for the reprints (i.e. her original art) to scan for the various files needed for straight reprints. She may even have hired someone (Carrie?) to do the scanning for her in preparation for this. Plus the Nugget said that the strip had dropped below its original 2000+ newspaper circulation, and we had often figured that this would spur Lynn to stop the new-runs and return to the modern strips, but that does not seem to be happening.

Lynn promised a 50/50 split of new-runs to old-runs for one year, which would mean until September, 2009. History has shown that she rarely sticks to those kinds of long-term plans. Both Lynn and Carrie have announced that straight reprints are forthcoming.

On the other hand, history shows that Lynn Johnston has a hard time retiring.

April Patterson said...

(Carrie?)

Chrissy. :)

I agree with you regarding the evidence supporting a short duration for the new-runs. My hunch is that Lynn would like to be able to do straight repeats without losing any papers or revenue, but that will be a case of "how does it feel to want?" :-P

howard said...

Was it Chrissy? Oh well. I can't keep Lynn's assistants straight anymore.

My hunch is that Lynn would like to be able to do straight repeats without losing any papers or revenue, but that will be a case of "how does it feel to want?" :-P

I think she may be past that point, because the North Bay Nugget specifically mentioned that back in September (i.e. back during the wedding sequence), the strip was in 2000+ papers. I infer that it is no longer in as many papers, and certainly we have seen enough papers drop the strip to gather that may be true.

From Lynn's perspective, she tried the new-runs to keep the circulation up, and it failed to do that. Why bother doing new-runs anymore? It can't possibly be a creative outlet for her. The writing and art are worse than the reprinted material from 1980, and the jokes are unoriginal imitations of jokes she has done many times before.

April Patterson said...

From Lynn's perspective, she tried the new-runs to keep the circulation up, and it failed to do that. Why bother doing new-runs anymore?

True--I'm thinking they're not much longer for this world. Betting pool, anyone? ;)

Harley Quinn said...

First -- April, I am loving your take on this "new run" junk. How creative, and much more entertaining then Lynn's work!!! (I'm also loving Foob's Paradise and Foob of Destiny!)

Second -- I agree with most here. I don't see a point to these "new runs". Now, if she was going back where the characters were young, but doing brand new story archs (maybe things we haven't seen before) it'd be way more interesting then the junk Lynn's putting out right now!!

April Patterson said...

Thanks for the kind words, Harley Quinn. :)

I don't see a point to these "new runs". Now, if she was going back where the characters were young, but doing brand new story archs (maybe things we haven't seen before) it'd be way more interesting then the junk Lynn's putting out right now!!

I agree. And further, if Lynn even were doing what she claimed she was going to do--flesh out the old stories--the new-runs would be much more interesting than they are. Instead, she's inserting filler amid the repeats, often echoing existing punchlines in the arc. It's baffling.