Michael: Browse The Strips

Friday, July 25, 2014

Lynn's Comments: Looking back on this storyline gives me great pleasure. The strong friendship between Mike and Lawrence binds these two boys for 30 years, and yet, Lawrence is gay. This was something even I didn't know until Lawrence was in his late teens.

Sunday, August 3, 2014

Lynn's Comments: I did this Sunday page after I was squeezed in half by a sadistically designed lawn chair. I brought the chair into my studio and drew the exact position it was in when it maimed me. I felt relieved and vindicated even before the art was published. This job came with unlimited and curative benefits. I was jubilant when I took the chair to the dump.

Saturday, August 16, 2014

Lynn's Comments: I chose Thunder Bay as the city where Connie and Lawrence were moving because it was too far away for a friendly visit. Even though it's in the same province, it's a long drive to Thunder Bay from Toronto. I knew that, despite promises to do so, these two ladies would not be seeing each other for a very long time.

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Lynn's Comments: It was never my intention to have Connie and Lawrence move away. It just happened! Once Connie's relationship with Ted soured and Uncle Phil met Georgia, Connie's personal life was on hold. An opportunity for her to take a good job in another town seemed like a positive step, so the story took this turn. What the move did was give me another challenge to deal with and a new family to welcome. This helped to keep the story interesting.

Saturday, August 23, 2014

Lynn's Comments: I wanted to explore the sense of loss we all share when a good friend moves away. I think this must be harder for children to deal with. In our case, we were the ones who left and Aaron's friends were sad to see him go. It wasn't until we had settled in our new house and the excitement of moving was over, that he began to feel the loss as well.

Friday, August 29, 2014

Lynn's Comments: In Lynn Lake, we would walk the kids to school. When we moved to rural Ontario, even though Kate's school was close by, the bus would pick her up and drop her off at our mailbox everyday. Aaron, too, caught the school bus, and because he went to a different school, he had to transfer to another bus in town. For both of them, it was a whole new experience, in a very different place.

Sunday, August 31, 2014

Lynn's Comments: Listening to Katie talking to her dollies, I realized I was hearing myself. Her choice of words, her phrases, inflections, and body language, had all been learned from me. I'm sure I was parroting my mother when I directed my children, and now that I'm a grandmother, I'm waiting to hear if my granddaughter will talk the way HER mother does!

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Lynn's Comments: When I was about 10, I watched as a family moved into one of the houses where we lived on 5th Street. My friend Evelyn's father was watching too and when he saw the big assortment of tools the new guy had, he said "I don't know this guy, but I like him already!" Both men were mechanics--who looked after their stuff.

Friday, September 5, 2014

Lynn's Comments: This strip received some nice mail. Folks expected to read a sarcastic punch line. Growing up in North Vancouver, we were always playing with and studying next to kids from China, Japan, and other Asian countries. In fact, it was hard to learn French as a second language when we were more familiar with Mandarin and Japanese. I wanted to draw an Asian family, and the Enjos stepped in.

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Lynn's Comments: The name "Enjo" was for my grade six home economics teacher. Miss Enjo was a sweet and lovely lady and must have been in her twenties at the time. My dad guessed that her last name had been longer and had been shortened when her family immigrated to Canada. The family I made up was based on the Masuda family--who had known my in-laws in Lynn Lake, Manitoba. They had also moved to North Bay, which was a nice coincidence: We had friends here to make us feel at home.

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Lynn's Comments: My folks used to take us to farms in the Fraser Delta for fresh strawberries. Both Alan and I were too young to enjoy picking, but we sure liked eating them. One day when our family was standing at the checkout with our baskets of strawberries, the man at the till looked at my brother with a curious smile. Alan was covered from his mouth to his navel in red juice. The man picked him up, put him on a big metal scale, and announced that he had to charge for the extra weight of the berries inside. He was kidding, but Dad paid him a little extra anyway.

Every summer we went as a family to get fresh fruit in season. In the Okanagan, we got peaches, plums, and apricots. It was a long drive but worth it. Mom canned everything, so we had the luxury of fruit preserves all winter long. Nothing tasted like the fresh stuff, though, and on one trip, Dad said we kids could eat whatever we wanted--so we did! As I said, it was a long drive home. With two kids full of fresh fruit, it's easy to imagine the results. We used the "roadside" washroom many times, with Mom hiding us behind her skirt as Dad looked madly around for paper!

Friday, September 12, 2014

Lynn's Comments: After this strip ran, I had all kinds of letters from folks with similar backgrounds wondering where our family had originated and if there was any connection. I wished at the time we could have met some long-lost cousins, but sadly, that didn't happen.

Monday, September 15, 2014

Lynn's Comments: I never looked forward to phys ed, and as soon as I could, I dropped it in favour of--well, anything else! This series was done for the teachers who loved to watch us tail-draggers squirm! In their defense, they kept us in the best shape we'd ever been in.

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Lynn's Comments: In junior high, our teacher used to cut things so short we had no time to change before our next class. Her rule was, we HAD to shower. She'd watch us as we scrambled, slipped, and slid through the water and into our clothes--barking at those of us who tried to get away with not taking off our underwear. Some of us wondered if she was "unusual" or just plain mean!

Friday, September 19, 2014

Lynn's Comments: I did get complaints about this one. People said I was stereotyping Asians as being intellectuals. Ironically, none of the complaints came from Asians.