Elizabeth: Browse The Strips

Saturday July 28, 2018

Lynn's Comments: My first husband had Phil’s philosophy. We saved and saved for the down payment on a house and when we were ready to buy, he suddenly wanted to spend it on a sailboat. We bought the house.

Sunday August 5, 2018

Lynn's Comments: If you can come up with a strip that has no words, it’s a real plus. With the right subject, the right imagery, facial expressions and timing, a joke with no words is as much fun for the artist to work through as it is for the reader. Strips with no dialogue need no translation and can be published anywhere. This style of comic strip is not easy to do. Artists who consistently produce wordless, beautifully constructed comic strips have always had my sincere admiration. Canada’s Doug Wright was one of these.

Saturday August 11, 2018

Lynn's Comments: When I was a child, I looked at many things as if they were animate objects. Drawer pulls, for example looked like smiles. A bathtub faucet and handles could look like a face with a long curved nose. A radio dial looked like a smile with many teeth. Houses, to me, had personalities, and some, like this one, even had a "face."

Sunday August 12, 2018

Lynn's Comments: My mother had a garbage philosophy: "Put one human being in a house for one hour and there will be garbage." I think she was right.

Sunday August 19, 2018

Lynn's Comments: I know the kids today are wearing a lot more than shorts and a helmet when learning to ride a skateboard. We've tried many times to bring the strip up to date by adding seat belts and helmets, and removing sexist remarks and cigarettes. I thought about adding kneepads to Elizabeth’s gear here, but then there would be no gag.

I know I will get comments, so let’s add another family truth to this: Elizabeth has knee and elbow pads and has been told to use them. It’s just too much trouble to do so, however, and now she is learning a good lesson about safety and protection. And the ice cream is not her favourite flavour.

Sunday August 26, 2018

Lynn's Comments: Ahhhh, 39. It seems so long ago. A friend of mine has just turned 40 and I told her that she is beginning the best years of her life: "You're mature and confident, you've found your career, your children are old enough to feed themselves, you're still young and active and you still recognize yourself in the mirror!" Yes, 39 was a great year, turning 40 is fine, too…and you have 10 years until the dreaded 5-0. Amazing how quickly those 10 years will fly by!

Monday August 27, 2018

Lynn's Comments: I got into some trouble with this idea. Too many kids decided to make superteddys. I liked the storyline, but the readers did not! Super Teddy had a very short-lived run (or flight!)

Wednesday August 29, 2018

Lynn's Comments: Whenever I added a new character to the strip, it added to the complexity of the story. Mrs. Grunion promised to be a lot of fun to work with, but she would have cut into the other characters’ roles. Since I only had one statement a day in which to tell a story, I had to gloss over some potentially great characters. After I retired and we were doing an assessment, my archivist, Stephanie, told me that during my career in syndication, I had created over 90 characters! Wow. This was something I never knew.

Monday September 3, 2018

Lynn's Comments: I once had to write a letter of apology to a girl whose finger I broke. We'd had a bad fight. She pulled a chunk of hair out of my head and I twisted her finger. It was a difficult few words to write. About 6 months ago, she and I met at the funeral of a mutual friend. It had been over 65 years since the incident…but it was the first thing we both had to talk about! Isn't it amazing how situations like this carve themselves into our memories. The apology, though hard to make, allowed us to maintain a friendship. We are both now in our 70s.

Tuesday September 4, 2018

Lynn's Comments: I was one to take a dare! I was dared to tell a classmate that she needed to wash more often. I wrote a note and stuck it on her locker. It said, "Veronica, you smell bad". She was devastated. The kids who dared me took her side and I was sent to the principal’s office. It was a mean thing to do, but I wasn't thinking about her, I was thinking about me. Here’s another lesson that has stayed with me since elementary school! The best lessons are often learned the hard way.

Thursday September 6, 2018

Lynn's Comments: This was another story that ignited some controversy. These kids should never have been left to fend for themselves. I was writing about my own childhood. When I was old enough to babysit and put on the dinner, I was responsible for the house and my brother after school. Times have changed!

Saturday September 8, 2018

Lynn's Comments: A fun story: One year, my husband and I flew out to Santa Rosa, California to visit Charles and Jeannie Schulz. "Sparky" was proud of his home and he asked us to come and walk about his property with him. I just had flats to wear, so he said I could borrow a pair of his sneakers. To make them fit, he stuffed the toes with Kleenex and off we went. There was a thick wooded area, a pond and a scenic ridge to walk along and we were gone for over an hour. When we got back to the house, I said to my hero, the creator of Peanuts, “Guess what, Sparky. I've walked a mile in your shoes!”