Category Archives: Uncategorized

Monday February 6, 2017

Lynn's Comments: This was an opportunity to make an important observation, I hoped, without sounding preachy. There are serious things a cartoonist wants to say; the challenge is in choosing the right time and the right way to say them.

Sunday December 25, 2016

Lynn's Comments: This is what I do and have always done: I carefully remove wrapping paper from a gift and fold it gently for reuse. I then try to use it as packing material, if possible. I also keep the bows. Good ones I do reuse, especially the ones I make myself. Both my daughter, Katie, and I have a wrapping space in our homes--complete with paper, tape, ribbon and cards. It drives me crazy to see someone scrunching up and discarding a perfectly good bow. I have launched myself across a room to grab a bow before the gift recipient casually crushed it into a ball! I love gift-wrapping and I prefer to make my own bows. I learned how to do this when I was about 8. Before the introduction of commercially-crafted gift toppers, the making of an attractive bow was an art. At the back of our jewelry store on Lonsdale, we had a gift-wrapping table. My mom did gift wrapping as a courtesy to our customers and she taught me how to make her famous bows. If you'd like to learn how, you can watch my quick video tutorial here.

Monday November 14, 2016

Lynn's Comments: Before I had my own business, I dropped my son at daycare and went to work like most other single moms. When Aaron was sick, I had, of course, to leave work, pick him up, and take him home. I felt guilty for leaving my job. I felt guilty for resenting the interruption in my day, and I felt guilty for not being a stay at home mom.

Wednesday November 2, 2016

Lynn's Comments: I soon returned to the bathroom. I'd left the box of dye where he could reach it, and he had emptied every bottle into the tub. My son was sitting in a dark, murky swamp happy as a clam. I lifted him out of the water, and was surprised to see that his small behind had been dyed a dark, greenish-blue like an Easter egg. I thought it was funny, but Aaron was terrified. "I've got a green BUM!" He wailed. "I got a green bum!!!!" The colour lasted for over a week. He went to daycare afraid to ask for help in the bathroom in case someone saw. Fortunately, the staff had been forewarned and had the courtesy not to laugh out loud! This is a story I haven't let him forget.

Thursday, August 11, 2016

Lynn's Comments: Again, this really happened. When my first husband and I left our wedding reception, we found that his friends had stuffed our car with newspaper. Balls of it were tightly jammed everywhere. Before we could get in, we had to remove it all and find a place to put it. Our hands were filthy and our mood was mean. What we didn't expect was that the dust from the newsprint was everywhere, and when we got out of the car, my white wedding outfit was covered in it. Maybe they thought the prank was funny, but to this day, I'd still like to tell off the guys who did it!

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Lynn's Comments: He described the dumpster as being behind a restaurant and grocery store. Wet and decaying vegetables lay in a mucky stew on the bottom. He had to climb in, wearing his best clothes, and dig around in the stinking mess to find his car keys. If it had been a watch, he might have just let it go! Car keys were essential!

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Lynn's Comments: This scenario dates back to my own childhood. My brother and I would torment each other by simply staring. This "game" even had a name: it was "Seeing" (from the lament, "Daddy! She's seeing at me!") This could get intensely annoying, and when my brother finally broke down and asked Dad to intervene, he got into the act. He invented the "one eye see," the "two eye half see," the "blinking see," and so on. With Dad ready to play the game along with us, the sport quickly lost its competitive sting and we gave it up. That is until I told my kids about it--and the tradition carried on.

Sunday, May 22, 2016

Lynn's Comments: This Sunday page was hastily written as soon as I got home from the car wash. It was a funny incident, but thoroughly annoying as well. I was always happy to vent into the strip whenever something like this happened!

Sunday, April 17, 2016

Lynn's Comments: "Should I or should I not cut my hair?" This was a recurring concern for me. Since I was 18, I had worn my hair long, but now and then I yearned for a new look. It took time to grow my hair. Cutting it was a huge decision, and it was one that nobody in the family wished to weigh in on. In the strip, Elly Patterson wore her hair long and tied back--the way I did. Readers would often say, "Why doesn't Elly get a new hairstyle? She looks so old fashioned--so the same!" The thing is--a comic strip character has to have a certain "look"; a certain sameness so that continuity is kept from year to year. To cut Elly's hair would have created a major change in the way I drew her (almost as traumatizing as cutting the hair on my head). So, both Elly Patterson and I retained the same look for many years. I did, however, allow myself the fun of changing the way the kids looked. This is all part of the subtle "rule of thumb" which governs the way we draw and perceive the characters in syndicated comics!