« Friday's Caffeine Kick | Main | More Coffee Chat »

Do I ever identify with Dee in today's strip! We just went thru the exact same thing! We bought my in-laws home except that they moved all the way to Ottawa... they'll be coming to visit next month and well I'm a little anxious about what my mother-in-law is going to think about the changes we've made...From the simple things like moving where the toaster was to painting and throwing stuff away that they left behind... it's a constant worry of what they will think.

Lyne G.

I'm an 82 year-old woman who is hooked on your comic strips. When I get up in the morning, the first thing I look for on my computer is your latest episode. I love your family, but was a little surprised when they didn't help you move in. This didn't seem in keeping with the family image. Please don't stop your writing. I love it all.

Yours truly, Doris

Let me see if I've got things straight: A young couple fall in love, but for many reasons, don't marry and drift apart on different paths. Later, the man marries another woman, who presents him with a much-wanted chid. However, the wife discovers that her husband has never stopped pining after his first love, even keeping in contact with her during the marriage. The cheated-on wife, in hurt and jealousy, lashes out and a messy divorce ensues. The original couple are now freed of moral and legal concerns and free to reunite and--oops! I thought I was trying to figure out the Liz-Anthony-Therese triangle, but somehow this has turned into Diana-Charles-Camilla! (Please reassure us that you haven't planned a high speed car ride--in Paris or elsewhere--for poor Therese.)

Mary Ann G, Missoula MT

dear Lynn,
i've been reading your comics since i was able to read! every mornign before school i'll read the comics in the paper, and everytime i go away to camp i'll read the ones i missed off the internet.
but what i find most interesting about your comics is that they relate to my family so well! i remember when mike and dee had their wedding that i was actaully at my cousins wedding! i remember my aunt saying taht she wrote to you about it as well. April is the same age as my sister and it's funny how sometimes they relate to each other. And my Poppa and grandpa Jim relate as well.
i love to read your comics, not just because it's a comic strip based on being funny, it relates to real topics. the story folows all of the pattersons and works for ANY age! i know this because me my brother and sister my mom and my nanny all read the comics.
thanks for all the laughs and tears you've supplied us with!

Lisa

I've enjoyed your strip for many years, mainly because it had 'real people' to whom I had grown attached, and because the people grew older and dealt with different issues. (I know they won't grow older any longer, but I'm hooked anyway).

First of all, ditto to what the writer of 7/13 Wisconsin had to say with regard to the comments of the ranter of 7/10 (although I think that nothing will make the ranter happy). I wanted to add: Of course the characters make feeble choices sometimes; they'd have to in order to be even slightly realistic. On the other hand, what one block of readers thinks is a feeble choice another block thinks is a natural choice, and vice versa. In addition, many times the viewpoint is not 100% in on either side of the issue (as is the case in real life). For instance, take the recent issue with April: Of course she has some reason to be upset, but her friend is also correct that she is behaving in a spoiled way because the is (1) thinking *only* of how she is affected and (2) she is overreacting.

That the strip is multidimensional (and the example above is one aspect of this) is another thing that separates it from other strips. It is easy to set up a straw horse and knock it down if you take an incomplete or inaccurate sample of what is there. [Another case in point: I had sufficiently many friends in high school that they could have dropped by during lunch (as happened with April) to rib me for sitting with Shannon and the others, and I was neither 'popular' or unpopular.]

Not that I'd choose the same direction every time (so I'm not a blind fborfw fanatic), but on the whole I think Lynn does a wonderful job.

Linus T

It's a testament to the strength of your creation that it elicits so many strong feelings from its readers. Like many of the folks who have written, I've been reading your strip for decades. It is a highlight of my day.

Obviously, you know your characters better than anyone; after all, you invented them! Having said that, I have to join in the chorus that thinks you'd be missing the proverbial boat if you were to end your story with Liz and Anthony together.

For years, you've written Liz as an adventurous, capable, exceptional woman; someone who goes forward into the great unknown and makes her own way. To pair her with someone who represents her past, someone who has never displayed ambition, someone who has (his devotion to his child aside) never been depicted as anything as pedestrian, is untrue to the character of Liz as you've written her. Liz's swoon into Anthony's arms looks more like a retreat into the safety of nostalgia than a step forward into self-realization.

Yes, there is something to be said for winding up with someone who helps you find your feet, but there is a difference between being "grounded" and being "bought to ground." If Elizabeth and Anthony wind up together, you will be prematurely cutting off Elizabeth's journey into maturity.

I am hoping beyond hope that you will amaze me once more; that Liz will realize that her fling with Anthony was untrue to herself, and that you will end the strip with Liz continuing bravely onward into the future she is making, not running into her past. She should not settle.

Thanks for listening.

Adam S

Hi there. I just wanted to add my kudos to the website team for the fantastic "Coffee Talk" feature. I have now realized I am not alone in my Patterson obsession. I work graveyard shift, and the first thing I do upon arriving home in the wee hours of the morning is check this website for the latest installment. Now I have two reasons to do so, one: the progression of the latest story, and two: the Coffee Talk Blog that allows me to see that others share my love and connection with these characters. I have been reading FBOFW since the age of 6, and being roughly the same age as Michael, have shared most of the major life milestones with he and Dee. Thank you Lynn and Staff for this website, and thanks to all the FBOFW fans out there for sharing their thoughts in this blog. Sincerely, a FBOFW fan for life,

Stephanie P, Vancouver Island, BC

It has always amazed me how "For Better or Worse" mirrored my own life. I've often wondered if Lynn didn't come to beautiful Lake Tenkiller in Oklahoma to vacation and happened to observe my family. My "Michael" and "Elizabeth" are happily settled with families of their own. My "April" has one more year of high school. Just like Elly, no one could have been more surprised than I when we found out she was on the way. And yes, the "baby" is spoiled but possibly the most level headed one of all my children. Once again, the Pattersons and my family are running parell lives - we're thinking of downsizing too. I have followed John and Elly's move and all the trials that go along with it to see what I may expect! I am dreading and at the same time looking forward to the new format. Thanks Lynn for all the wonderful years of sharing the Pattersons with us.

Karen C, Oklahoma

Lynn, do you realize that you misspelled "squeak" in Friday's comic? I was almost propelled into a vomit-powered retrograde consisting of 4th grade spelling lists when I saw it... Let's write responsibly, shall we?

Elyse, Chicago

Why are all the people, without exception, on your team women? Are there no qualified men for any of these poisitions in what amounts to a henhouse? Surely, if you were a regular business the Human Rights Commission could really see your staffing policies as blatantly sexist!

John

We have had many male staff members in the past. At this point, we're all women on the team because it just happened to work out that way. Cluck cluck!

I've been your devoted fan for years...so glad to find this web site where I can read the strips I missed when we were on vacation.

I attended your Smart Talk women's lecture in Wilmington, Delaware. We've had season tickets for 6 years, but when we talk about the speakers we liked the best...YOU are it !

Judith K, Elkton, MD

It's been interesting to see readers rushing to defend Ms. Johnston's right to have her characters do whatever she chooses, or defending the realism of those characters' actions.

The defenders are right - this is Ms. Johnston's strip, and she can have the characters do exactly as she pleases. I'd never argue otherwise, about this or any other strip. My problem isn't with her rights as an artist, and it's not with the actions that her characters take. My problem is that we're constantly presented with characters doing asinine and thoughtless things, and still asked to accept and love those characters, simply because they're the ones that the author wants us to identify with. It's OK to have protagonists with occasional moral gray areas, it may even make the strip more interesting. If she wants to do that, all she has to do is own it! Just say, "Yes, Anthony has made some poor choices in his relationships, but I want to explore that in my strip, and show what effects that has on him." If we got that instead of, "Well, gosh, I certainly hope that Liz reconnects with old friends, too! Twoo high skool luv 4evah!", I could read this strip each morning without feeling like I've just been preached to.

Danny H, TX

I have to agree with those who say that Michael is a terrible father. It's not just his preoccupation with his career and his art (which is totally understandable); it's his active avoidance of parenting. The 2007 Father's Day strip was especially heartbreaking to me; Mike was hardly able to make eye contact with his own kids! They're telling him how much they love and care for him, and he's regarding them with horror and disgust. He doesn't even talk to them, and the moment things get overwhelming, he yells for Dee to come take over. This sort of thing happens all the time in the strip; yes, Mike is often shown having fun with his kids (playing in the snow, for example), but when it comes to day-to-day parenting, he is completely absent from their lives. Even in the monthly letters, which often give me an insight into a character's seemingly bad decision (reading Liz's letters from Mtig made her homesickness come through much clearer), Mike still comes off terribly. He hides from his parental duties by staying late at work to write, or going to Weed's. He admits to trying to get home after the kids' bedtimes. Throughout 2006, he rarely mentioned his kids, preferring to talk about his novel.

I always loved how characters in the strip would be portrayed warts and all. However, I feel like in the past, they would be called out for their bad behavior. April is the only one getting that now. I have no problem with the characters being flawed, but I wish someone (Dee!) would take Mike to task for his selfish behavior.

Kristen, Seattle

Hi Lynn

Started reading back in '85 and have been impressed and pleased ever since. When I was a kid I was in a Junior Bowling League on Saturday Mornings (10 pin...not the Canadian 5 pin kind...sorry) Anyway, there was an advanced league in the mid-afternoons and so I would simply wait around at the bowling alley for three hours waiting for it to start. During that time, the league for handicapped bowlers came in and after a while I found myself helping them out with what ever I could do, from keeping score to setting up wheelchair ramps...you get the idea.

Nowadays when I go back to my hometown to visit, I can't walk down any street without running into someone from that league who remembers me and wants to talk to me. Interestingly enough, if it wasn't for this, I probably wouldn't be so successfully married. When I would bring a girl home and she would have an 'issue' with handicapped people coming up to me and hugging me, I would know that she was not the 'one'. When I found a girl that wasn't bothered by this, I married her six weeks later.

Twelve years later (still happily married) I am a special needs teacher and NOW...I will get to the point. I just wanted you to know that from a professional and personal viewpoint that I truly value your Shannon story arcs. I find them timely and pretty darn accurate. (Frankly I have been of the mind that April would get into special education with her music background and not having 'issues' with the 'special' kids...but I'm probably biased) Anyhow thanks again for everything. Hope my 'expert-type' opinion helps support you when faced with other opinions that are...I guess 'less-supportive' would be the politically correct way to describe some other comments concerning your interpretation of special needs kids and situations.

Jon, CA