Elly: Browse The Strips

Friday May 11, 2018

Lynn's Comments: What had happened was exactly this. The kids had been attaching streamers and other things to the dog’s legs using elastic bands. They had forgotten to take one of them off and the elastic worked its way down to the bone!

Doctors and veterinarians must think they've seen it all and then something like this comes along. We all felt so badly. The elastic was completely invisible in the dog’s thick fur. We had no idea what was hurting him.

Sunday May 20, 2018

Lynn's Comments: My dog Farley did lie in and roll on my freshly planted flower beds. I was so angry with him. Then I thought about how hot he was and how cool it would have felt to lie on a nice bed of freshly turned earth with soft plants. I understood what he’d done was innocent and for a reason. But I was still really angry with him.

Monday May 21, 2018

Lynn's Comments: Here’s a strip that should have ended at the third panel. Sometimes I’d send off something I was sure of. Then, when I saw it in the paper later, I’d see how it could have been improved.

Tuesday May 29, 2018

Lynn's Comments: I not only bared my soul as a parent in this discipline series, I bared my soul as a kid. When you are playing two roles like this, you have to see both sides. Memories of how I felt and how I acted as a child are right here. This wasn't Michael thinking…this was me.

Thursday May 31, 2018

Lynn's Comments: I did this. I drew a witch and it was my mother. She picked up the drawing, looked at it and asked if the screaming, ugly woman I had drawn was her. I admitted that it was and she did something I didn't expect; she cried.

Sunday June 3, 2018

Lynn's Comments: I remember sitting like this and listening to my parents eating breakfast. It drove me crazy. My dad had full dentures and the sounds he made were different from my mom’s. The worst was the coffee "intake and swallow." I try not to make those sounds myself, but I'm not out there listening so I'm sure I do!

Monday June 4, 2018

Lynn's Comments: My mom used to hang the laundry on two lines in our backyard. Once, we were guilty of getting the sheets dirty by playing badminton. Another time was when my brother put the neighbour’s small dog into the hanging fold of a sheet and let him fumble his way out. It never occurred to us that we were ruining an expensive piece of fabric and wasting hours of hard work. We were kids. We just didn't think at all!

Friday June 8, 2018

Lynn's Comments: This is my daughter Katie speaking. Word for word…and I thought it was great. Over and over, kids can get the better of you–but cuteness and comedy save their bacon.

Saturday June 9, 2018

Lynn's Comments: This didn't happen, but if Kate had thought of it, it would have. And, as a kid, I would have too.

Tuesday June 12, 2018

Lynn's Comments: This was an actual conversation. At the time, I was frustrated by the lack of "baby stuff" to write about. I was aging the kids in the strip and they had started to become real people with real questions, and were understanding serious replies. By regressing here, I could talk about Elly as a young mother and show readers (and myself) what the Pattersons’ lives were like when the kids were still small.

Friday June 15, 2018

Lynn's Comments: Bulging the thought balloons out of the margins made the "memory" strips work somehow. It’s funny how the comic art shorthand works; how lines, balloons, and the size of the lettering can convey so much information.