Elly: Browse The Strips

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Lynn's Comments: Over the years, I met all kinds of television and radio personalities. Some were wonderful and got the best out of me. Others were arrogant, obnoxious, and didn't know how to communicate. This made two of us. I was beginning to think I was God's gift to the airwaves as well!

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Lynn's Comments: The guys at the rock radio stations were often the most insecure. Having become minor heartthrobs and mini celebs, they were constantly trying to live up to their own hype. Some were manic, some were smarmy, and some were completely down to earth. The ones who were themselves, who didn't take their rock-radio job too seriously, inevitably moved on to bigger and better things.

Friday, June 12, 2015

Lynn's Comments: My first husband was a radio announcer when I met him, and my second worked as a disc jockey for a while, as well, so I was pretty familiar with the workings of a radio station. Even so, I was tense and far too giddy when it was my turn at the microphone, and I did some awful interviews!

Monday, June 15, 2015

Lynn's Comments: I sent in this strip knowing it wasn't one of my best. Again, the pressure of a relentless deadline will often result in an "OK, it's done, I'm sending it!" situation. For someone trying to analyze this for its humour (and there are people who do this kind of thing), what I was trying to do was to contrast Lizzie's English language gaffes with something which has meaning. HUH? Anyway, it didn't work. This is where a storyline (rather than gag-a-day) helps because the audience, by following a series, might overlook one lousy strip! Did I make that clear? No? Uhhhh--OK--NEXT!!!

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Lynn's Comments: Kate's kindergarten teacher was Miss Dorothy Lyon. Here was an opportunity to give a nod to a favourite person.

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Lynn's Comments: Strips like this brought messages of hope and sympathy from moms all over the world. The one criticism I received was, "So, where did Elly find the time to have cookies and tea?"

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Lynn's Comments: This was my one bit of grandstanding in support of the arts. From community to community and from school to school, it always seems that athletics are better funded and better equipped than anything else. We called it, "The jocks VS the smocks."

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Lynn's Comments: My brother and my husband never did go on a canoe trip together, but this series of strips was based on a true and nearly fatal story.

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Lynn's Comments: My husband, Rod, and I had purchased an aircraft: a Cessna 185 on floats with retractable wheels. Four of his friends had gone on an arctic canoe trip, and he had agreed to pick them up when they were done. Maps were spread out on the kitchen table of the remote location where they were to be found. Rod was confident he could find them and return them safely to Lynn Lake.

Friday, June 26, 2015

Lynn's Comments: I wasn't happy about the idea. We hadn't owned the plane for very long, and even though it was August, the weather could turn bitterly cold up there. The men could have taken a chartered Twin Otter from their landing spot, but Rod insisted he could get them home.

Saturday, June 27, 2015

Lynn's Comments: Itinerary for the trip was carefully planned. Rod’s father, Tom Johnston, knew the area and had the planned location of the canoe party marked on a big aerial map. Their trip was to end at Yathyked Lake, where Rod could ease the plane into a bay and pick them up. It was going to be a long flight…much longer than expected. (To be continued…)

Sunday, June 28, 2015

Lynn's Comments: This didn't happen, but here's a story that did: I was about 12 years old. For weeks, a cat had been coming to sit under my bedroom window and howl. It sounded like a demonic baby's cry, and I hated the sound. Nothing would deter the cat so one night, I decided to get even. I opened the window wide, placed a pitcher of cold water on the windowsill, and waited for the cat. Like clockwork, it arrived in full voice, and as soon as the howling reached a crescendo, I dumped the water. The cries I expected to hear, however, didn't come from a cat. They came from my brother who had a room in the basement. He had been sneaking out of his bedroom window and howling under mine!

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Lynn's Comments: When I worked as a medical artist for McMaster University, one of the projects I worked on involved foetal development. I learned that the creation of one human being is so incredibly complicated, it's amazing that so few of us have serious physical problems! In this series of illustrations I wanted to address the fact that some babies are born with abnormalities. I chose a situation that was common and easily remedied.

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Lynn's Comments: I don't think there's a mother on earth who doesn't blame herself for the unforeseen things which affect the lives and the health of her children. We wonder if the things we consumed or did, or even thought, affected our babies' development. We worry and we wish and we think, "If something bad is going to happen, God, let it happen to me."

Thursday, July 2, 2015

Lynn's Comments: As a medical artist, I once had the privilege of working on a long and demanding project which tracked the development of the foetus. I worked with tiny, unborn bodies. I drew detailed illustrations showing how internal organs grew, expanded, displaced other organs, and eventually packed themselves neatly into the body and began to function. I learned minute details about the bowel, the heart, and the brain. I learned that each organ depended on the others to turn, close, twist, secrete or open at an exact time in an exact order, and if anything failed to do what it was supposed to do at the right time, then there might be a serious problem. Years later, when I gave birth to my first child, I couldn't believe how perfect he was. When you think about the infinite complexity of creation, it's a miracle that any of us comes through the process as "normal!"

Friday, July 3, 2015

Lynn's Comments: When Annie had her baby, I wanted to acknowledge those who are born with a difference. I knew this might be a controversial topic and I didn't want to focus on something which was not an integral part of the strip, so I chose a condition known as "polydactyly," meaning "many fingers." It's not uncommon and can be corrected, often very easily, with surgery.

Saturday, July 4, 2015

Lynn's Comments: When this story appeared, I received calls from editors wanting to know what the reader response was to this storyline. Many parents did contact me with stories about their babies' varying conditions at birth, and the one thing they all told me was how accepting their other children were of a new baby brother or sister who was just a little different.

Sunday, July 5, 2015

Lynn's Comments: One year my dad insisted we all go on a camping trip into the BC interior. He was an amateur rockhound who loved to gold pan, and his plan was to follow the route of the gold rush to Barkerville and back.

Before we left, both he and my mom made sure we kids had everything we needed. They packed, repacked, checked, and double-checked our suitcases, and told us that if we forgot anything, we'd be out in the bush where there were no stores, we would have to live without it. Off we went in our old 1959 Chev, with a pile of supplies and suitcases lashed to the top of the car.

After a long day of driving, we finally came to our first stop; a swampy, mosquito-infested campground just north of the town of Hope. The sun had dropped below the mountains. Mom reminded Alan and I that there was nothing around us for miles, and to make sure we had everything we needed for a night in the woods--just as Dad discovered he'd forgotten the tent poles.

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Lynn's Comments: My friend Ghislaine has three children--all married with children of their own. They had given Ghi eight grandsons, and baby number nine was due. Everyone wondered of this would be the long awaited girl, but when number nine boy arrived, they all breathed a sigh of relief. What would they have done if a little girl had come along? All the stuff they had was for boys! Now, they look forward to all the future girlfriends they will welcome into their homes.

Friday, July 10, 2015

Lynn's Comments: I have friends who are serious canoeists and they are in seriously good shape. After a couple of hours paddling last summer, I had to go to a physiotherapist for six months. No joke!

Saturday, July 11, 2015

Lynn's Comments: My three-year-old granddaughter asks these kinds of questions every day. She also makes these kinds of observations. When you write a comic strip, you have to think like a kid. I think like a kid, and I don't ever want to grow up!

Monday, July 13, 2015

Lynn's Comments: This was a situation which came from my own childhood: My brother had twisted his knee in a soccer game and was being bullied by some bigger kids in the neighbourhood. He was limping and they accused him of faking the limp (even then we were both theatrical and always pretending to be something or someone else, so the accusation wasn't entirely without cause). I jumped between the bullies and him and threatened to beat them up if they touched my brother. At the time, this thought went through my head, "Nobody knocks my brother around but ME!"

Saturday, July 18, 2015

Lynn's Comments: I was angry with him. I wondered how he could do such a risky thing when he had a wife and two small children to consider. He was the kind of man who, when he decided to do something, actually did it! I went home and began the wait. His father's reassurance was comforting, but still, I worried.

Sunday, July 19, 2015

Lynn's Comments: My three-year-old granddaughter and her friends have learned the word "consequences." When you do something bad--there are consequences. Recently, after a nice evening of playtime and stories, Laura decided she wasn't going to go to sleep. She whined and cried and tried to wake her baby brother, with whom she shares a room. Her mother, Katie, said she would have to give up her favourite sleep toys if she didn't end the strike. Laura whined and lost her teddy. She then lost her blankie, her pillow, her quilt and her sheets. The whining continued until she was lying on a stripped bed with nothing but her "pull-ups" to keep her warm. At this point she capitulated, stopped her bad behaviour, and decided to sleep.

Katie was pleased to have had the standoff resolved--thanks to "consequences."

Saturday, July 25, 2015

Lynn's Comments: Back home, I was beginning to worry. My father-in-law knew exactly where Rod had gone, and he knew almost to the minute when he'd return--if all went well. The ETA came and went. My mom-in-law took the kids, and I drove up to the airport to wait. Rod's dad joined me. The weather was clear but cold and it was getting dark. The men at the airport assured us that the guys would be safe if they'd had to put down on a lake somewhere, but nothing sounded right to us. We filed a missing persons report and waited for Search and Rescue to respond.