Michael: Browse The Strips

Wednesday August 16, 2017

Lynn's Comments: This is me at the age of 9 or 10. I was the class clown. I remember a teacher using that old cliché: "We're not laughing at you, we're laughing with you." and I wanted to say, "No! I want you to laugh AT me!" I often thought kids hung with me because I was the one most likely to take a dare, break the rules, and get myself in trouble. I guess I was. It was a way to be where the action was!

Thursday August 17, 2017

Lynn's Comments: I got a lot of mail on this one. There are a lot of lonely people out there. In school, surrounded by people my own age, I considered myself lonely.

Friday August 18, 2017

Lynn's Comments: The old adage, "misery loves company" described some of my early friendships. I gravitated to the kids who were on the outside looking in. We weren't exactly misfits…we thought we were misunderstood.

Saturday August 19, 2017

Lynn's Comments: Michael in the strip and my son in real life were named for a school friend - Michael VadeBoncoeur was destined to become a comedy writer. He eventually wrote for the CBC and created blackout comedy skits for places like Yuk Yuk’s in Toronto.

Thursday August 24, 2017

Lynn's Comments: These drawings were done before I began to pay real attention to anatomy. Check out the length of the kids’ arms. In real life their bodies would be impossibly long! As someone who once did anatomical drawings for a living, this surprises me!

Saturday August 26, 2017

Lynn's Comments: I remember my first kiss. It was in Teddy D’s attic. He and Joanne K and Terry M and myself were playing spin the bottle. When the bottle matched me up with Terry, we leaned forward and kissed on the lips. I remember the feeling. It was fast, dry, and his upper lip was really fuzzy.

Sunday August 27, 2017

Lynn's Comments: Occasionally, I would use the strip for a personal rant. I got my point across to my family in a way that was, perhaps, more palatable than the real thing. Not to say that I didn't rant about this for real. I did. The best part of putting real feelings out there…was the response I got from readers who said how true it was. Some said they had given this strip to the guilty parties to show their frustration. I had put their and my feelings in print. Somehow, seeing a situation on the comics page legitimized it.

Thursday August 31, 2017

Lynn's Comments: I remember so clearly moving from Ridgeway Elementary School to Sutherland Senior Secondary. The girls were all beginning to mature. Our bodies were changing faster than the boys’ were, and suddenly our bodies were on display. This was my impression anyway. We had gone from being almost unisex beings–bumping into each other and roughhousing without too much interest in shape or size, to being physically checked out. Checked out, as in what are you wearing under what you are wearing? It wasn’t just the boys checking out the girls, it was everyone checking out everyone else. We were all changing and we wanted to know who was in the lead and who was lagging.

Monday September 11, 2017

Lynn's Comments: I did this. I had become somewhat good at wallpapering and offered to do my mother-in-law’s kitchen. She chose a Lily of the Valley pattern, and it wasn’t until I’d finished the entire room that she noticed the blossoms were upside down!

Tuesday September 12, 2017

Lynn's Comments: When I wrote about the children in the strip, I tried to create situations that were very obviously not about my own children. Nonetheless, Aaron had to explain over and over that Martha didn't exist! He even got a letter from a Martha, wondering if she was "the one."

Tuesday September 19, 2017

Lynn's Comments: This is from my childhood. I used to lean on my mom when she was cooking and annoy my dad when he was reading the paper, and at the time, I didn't know why. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized I was looking for affection. It’s not always easy or convenient to stop what you're doing and hug your kids, but when I was a young mom, I tried.

Wednesday September 27, 2017

Lynn's Comments: I wrote a love letter to a boy in grade 8, and later, I saw him showing it to his friends. They were standing by the goalpost on the field laughing. I thought I would die.