Michael: Browse The Strips

Monday, November 30, 2015

Lynn's Comments: Despite problems with his hips, Farley was a happy, healthy pooch who only seemed to avoid the stairs. I loved him because he was a real character--as close to a cartoon dog as one can get!

Saturday, December 12, 2015

Lynn's Comments: Every year, my mom dutifully sent us fresh holly from the tree in her backyard. Christmas wasn't Christmas, in her opinion, if there was no fresh holly. She also wanted me to miss North Vancouver in the hope that I would eventually come home. This year, we will celebrate the holidays with real west coast holly, and my parents will be here in spirit to enjoy it with us.

Sunday, December 20, 2015

Lynn's Comments: I remember this feeling. I remember going to bed and wishing so hard that it was Christmas, my teeth ached. I still love Christmas--but nowadays, it comes too fast!

Friday, December 25, 2015

Lynn's Comments: This was me exactly; standing in the early hours of the morning staring at all the gifts under the tree and wishing they were all for me. I wonder when greed changed to giving? Somewhere between the ages of 5 and 15, I became someone who thinks about others. Whenever it was, I'm grateful.

Sunday, December 27, 2015

Lynn's Comments: I kept my father-in-law's hard hat for a long time after he died. It was so much a part of him. For many years, he was an important part of my life, and I felt it kept him close by as long as I had it. Strange how something cold, plastic, and ordinary can have so much meaning. Divorce estranged me from his sons and his daughter. I returned his hard hat to them before I moved from Ontario. This strip was to honour the memory of Tom Johnston. He was one of a kind.

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Lynn's Comments: Bringing Lawrence and his mother back into the strip was a good idea. They were already part of the Pattersons' extended family and I didn't want to lose them! I came up with a plausible scenario; something that would allow them to come back to the neighbourhood, and the result was a much needed boost to the storylines.

Thursday, December 31, 2015

Lynn's Comments: Little things stay in your memory, for example, I remember when my mother and dad finally allowed me to drink out of real glass. I felt so grown up. It was as though they were saying, in a significant way, "We trust you."

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Lynn's Comments: My son, Aaron, really did stick his tongue to the school flagpole. A frantic teacher called me and I ran to the school in time to see one of the staff trying to pour hot coffee down the flagpole to warm it up. Another said to just pull him off, so I worked at his tongue, which was stretched like an elastic, and his teacher pulled him. With an "OUCH!" he was finally free. I thought he'd be upset, but Aaron was quite proud. When he'd stopped nursing his sore tongue, he happily pointed to the pole where a number of small, fuzzy spots marked battles with other frozen tongues. "Here's Cathy, and here's Bryan, and here's--" I guess it's a rite of passage: every kid has to see if the warning has merit--and every generation discovers that it does.

Monday, January 4, 2016

Lynn's Comments: Since ours was a bit of a "blended family" I wanted to include the common concern: will my kid and our kid get along?

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Lynn's Comments: I wanted to give Lawrence a challenging situation, and therefore give me something challenging to write about. How was a young boy, accustomed to being in the care of one female adult, going to adjust to a father figure--plus two more adult females in his family?

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Lynn's Comments: I wanted to see this situation through Lawrence's eyes, to put myself in his position. A male child with a problem like this on his hands gave me an ample fantasy workout. Would I be able to write and draw a believable situation? Would a reader Lawrence's age accept the dialogue and the expressions as true to life, or would he say, "It's an adult pretending to know how a kid feels"?

Saturday, January 9, 2016

Lynn's Comments: I've often thought I was part of a vast and complicated video game wherein the players directed my life in the craziest ways--giving me challenges I could never have imagined for myself. The players would deliver a score depending on the way I behaved under stress. Another challenging aspect to the game is that I won't know what the score is until I leave the planet. I just hope that the ultimate winner is me!

Sunday, January 10, 2016

Lynn's Comments: I went to visit Mike Peters (Mother Goose and Grimm) in Florida. He had a "NordicTrack" in his rec room and it was covered with coats and other clothing. I asked him if he ever used it and he said, "Of course!" and he pointed, theatrically to the elaborate clothes rack it had become. That was the inspiration for this strip.

Monday, January 25, 2016

Lynn's Comments: There were several Mrs. Bairds who thought this lady was named for her. One was a friend of my father's. Another was a neighbour we had in North Vancouver. When I needed a name, this one popped up, and I have no idea where it came from!

Sunday, January 31, 2016

Lynn's Comments: Wordless strips were always fun. Making a story evident just by drawing a sequence of images kept me challenged and aware. The cartoonists who do this consistently have my admiration and applause.

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Lynn's Comments: I have just moved "home" to North Vancouver, BC. Everywhere I look, there are changes. Few of my friends' houses are still standing. What used to be a small town is now a glass and metal city, but the mountains are still there, as are the parks and the beaches--and my heart is right where I left it; on the North Shore.

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Lynn's Comments: Chris is the son of Elly's neighbour, Annie. He was named for the son of a friend of mine and I thought he would play a larger role in the strip. It still amazes me how some characters would come to life and "talk to me," and some wouldn't--even though I wanted to get to know them!

Thursday, February 4, 2016

Lynn's Comments: When you are used to living in a winter climate, an image like this will tell you the temperature has warmed up and the snow has become "sticky." It will also bring back memories of working long and hard to get to a hill for the sheer pleasure of taking a 10 second ride.

Saturday, February 6, 2016

Lynn's Comments: This was directly from my childhood. Mom would push us out the door and tell us not to come in until lunchtime. We'd play in the yard until our fingers were stuck to our mittens with ice, and our noses were running to our chins.

Sunday, February 7, 2016

Lynn's Comments: My brother and I fought all the time, and it was often out of sheer boredom. When there was nothing going on we created our own drama. I often wonder if I continue to do the same thing; when everything is going well, I tend to screw something up, creating a problem I then have to worry about!