Michael: Browse The Strips

Thursday, November 6, 2014

Lynn's Comments: This was another home truth I shared with my skate-mom audience. After hours of watching from the bleachers, you really do think you have good advice to give. Sadly, if you don't skate, your offspring will not be listening to anything you say--even though they OWE you the courtesy of a nod and a thank-you.

Friday, November 7, 2014

Lynn's Comments: In North Bay, we had access to some great sports facilities, so the kids were soon skating, swimming, and playing hockey. My car was on the road constantly--ferrying them to the rink or the "Y," or wherever the game was to be, and I had a rule: four trips only. I would only drive into town four times in a day. This was met with some confusion, as I had counted each way, there and back, as separate trips! The rule was then changed to eight trips. AAAUGH!

Sunday, November 9, 2014

Lynn's Comments: Our house in Corbeil was hidden in quite a dense forest, so leaves and clippings could easily be tossed into the woods or piled somewhere for compost. Our house in Dundas, though (on which the Pattersons' house was based), was in a busy, upscale neighbourhood, where leaves had to be piled, pushed into bags, and left for city workers to remove. After a discussion about the waste we made with plastic bags, I decided to take a load of leaves to the dump myself, but in the back of the car, bagless. I only did this once. It was a nuisance, a mess, and created a lot of work!

Friday, November 21, 2014

Lynn's Comments: One year, my mother found a recipe for sugar plums. They were a lot of work, tasted awful, and gave us the trots. After that, "visions of sugar plums" had an entirely different meaning.

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Lynn's Comments: Once again--a true-to-life bit of stupidity became a Sunday strip. It was one of those things that made me say to myself, "What was I thinking? I KNEW that would happen!" Because these events made such good material, I was almost HAPPY to have done something silly! When I could use a situation, make fun of it, exaggerate it, draw all of the expressions, delve into the body language--I was grateful! Knowing this, my kids would try to diminish a situation by saying, "Hey, you can use that in the strip!" Using the strip as an outlet was convenient. I didn't need a therapist; I just poured my thoughts into the ether and waited for the results to come back. Always, there was someone out there who felt the same way I did, someone had had the same experience exactly and could identify. Their letters were wonderful. There's nothing more comforting than knowing you're not alone!

Thursday, November 27, 2014

Lynn's Comments: Having gone on several Medical Missions to Honduras and Peru, I am well aware of how little some people have and how much we in North America take for granted. When my kids said they were "starving," I was grateful that they had no idea what "starving" meant.

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Lynn's Comments: This was one of my father's "tricks of the trade." He had many ways to make tears disappear. He had stories and sayings and jokes and songs. He made faces, he danced and clowned--we had our own private vaudeville show complete with costumes, music, mime, and verse. He could be silly. He could delve into fantasy as easily as we could, and he saw things through our eyes, something few grown-ups have the imagination to do. Dad was like another kid who sometimes sided with us--against Mom. I remember her telling us and Dad to, "Please--GROW UP!!!"

Friday, December 19, 2014

Lynn's Comments: Aaron and my dad had a hard time playing board games. Aaron wanted to learn and Dad wanted to teach him, but they both wanted to win!

Thursday, December 25, 2014

Lynn's Comments: This is something that didn't happen but should have. Brought up in the Anglican Church, I endured countless hours sitting through painfully dull sermons and kneeling as the litany droned on. I would have given anything to see a kid launch a toy down the aisle--and I'm sure the adults would have appreciated it, too!

Friday, December 26, 2014

Lynn's Comments: It was fun to give Connie a new look. A big change in your life affects you mentally and physically, and it seemed to me that after ridding herself of the annoying Ted, Connie was renewed, refreshed, and recharged.

Friday, January 2, 2015

Lynn's Comments: One of the good things about Michael and Lawrence's friendship is that it comes from the heart: two boys with much in common, nothing more. In a few years Lawrence will tell Michael that he is gay, and it doesn't matter. What does matter is their affection for one another. I had no idea when I drew these strips that Lawrence would realize this about himself, and so it was a surprise to me too. Looking back at these two boys, enjoying what will ultimately be a life-long friendship, I'm proud of the story that evolved.

Saturday, January 3, 2015

Lynn's Comments: My dad talked a lot about the war, and any time the subject came up in the strip, I received letters from veterans happy to see it mentioned.

Sunday, January 4, 2015

Lynn's Comments: I have always had fun with sound effects and radio broadcasts, labels and names. Jim Borecki is the name of a good friend, with whom I have lost touch. I tried to contact him by putting his name in this strip, but so far I have not been able to find him.

Monday, January 5, 2015

Lynn's Comments: I tried to imagine what it would be like for Lawrence to stand outside his old house in a neighbourhood that he loved. He must have felt a sense of loss and confusion. Children have no choice when it comes to enormous decisions like moving, so I assumed he would stand there, wondering why he was now living somewhere else!

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Lynn's Comments: Having someone new come into a family is an enormous adjustment. Aaron and I had been a team before I married Rod--and even though Rod adopted Aaron and gave him his last name, their personalities were never really compatible. I wanted Lawrence and Connie's story to be a happy one--one in which everyone adapted and the relationships worked. Having this kind of control over their lives was like playing God!

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Lynn's Comments: Sometimes the strip was confining. I had four panels, maybe 15 seconds a day to tell what became a pretty complicated story. I would have loved to explore Connie's blossoming relationship with Greg. I wanted to show more, write more, but I didn't have the time or the space. This meant that readers had to fill in some blanks for themselves! Maybe, with comic strips going to the internet, creators won't be confined by the "one window a day" method of storytelling that we had in the newspapers.

Saturday, January 10, 2015

Lynn's Comments: This is a true story. The freezer didn't break down, but it did have to be moved and therefore defrosted. I pulled out an archive of forgotten leftovers, summer fruit and fishing acquisitions, dry pie crusts, soup stock, and more. Some of this was still recognizable, so a mess of reconstituted fodder graced our plates for a week or two. People actually ate what I served--and the freezer was then refilled with the leftovers from the leftovers. We recycle.

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Lynn's Comments: When my paternal grandmother came to stay with us for 6 months, I was 16 and very independent. My parents both worked, so it was my job to get the dinner on and Gram's appearance in the kitchen was "one too many cooks!" She had just lost her husband, was lonely and depressed, and my dad had invited her to stay. Having spent her adult lifetime looking after others, she naturally put herself to work--on my turf! From the day we set eyes on each other, we were rivals. Gram had my bedroom. I was sleeping in the basement in a "room" made of plywood boards and a curtain. I resented this terribly. I resented her teeth in a glass on my dresser and her clothes in my closet. I also resented being told what to do by someone other than my parents, and her criticism irritated me beyond belief.

One day I saw her fidgeting with the oven. It was a gas oven, and she wasn't familiar with the way the oven worked. When I tried to tell her how to do it, she barked at me to mind my own business, that she knew how to operate an oven, and to get out of her way. Figuring this would be a great opportunity to see what would actually happen if you lit the oven the wrong way, I crossed my arms, leaned against the doorway, and watched. First she turned on the gas. The oven door was closed. Interesting. Then she looked for a match. She found the matchbox on the wall and took out a match. She went to the stove, struck the match on one of the elements and opened the oven door. Well--Ka-BOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!!! The explosion blew Granny across the room. She wound up on the opposite side--sitting on the floor with her back against the cupboard doors. Her eyebrows were gone, and all the hairs on her chin were frizzled black. The best thing of all was the look on her face. Her mouth had formed a little "o." I was thinking, "Wow! So THAT's what happens!" It took a few seconds before I reached out to help her up, and a few more for us both to realize that she could have been very seriously hurt! With grateful relief, we hugged each other, and for the rest of her stay, we held a truce.