Phil: Browse The Strips

Monday, April 11, 2011

Lynn's Comments: After I was divorced for the first time (wow, I never thought I'd be saying something like that) I lived in my small house in Dundas, learning how to raise a baby on my own. Aaron and I survived on my freelance artwork until I got a job doing graphics for a packaging firm in Hamilton. Money was tight and when my brother said he was moving to town and wanted to stay with me, I saw it as an opportunity for companionship, some help around the house and perhaps some extra cash. Alan was and still is a professional musician - a trumpet player. At the time, he was looking for work as an electrician while he scoped out possibilities in the Ontario music scene. I figured it would be an interesting time - if we had grown past the need to bicker!

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Lynn's Comments: My brother's love life, at the time, was not complicated. In fact I think he was on the loose and happy to be free! He was leaving Vancouver and moving to Ontario, which overshadowed everything else. Later, when I wrote stories for FBorFW, I mixed up all kinds of things. Memories were used as resources and characters came from both my imagination and reality. Connie did not exist. Her character was based on someone real, but had morphed considerably. Her crush on Elly's brother, Phil, was just a fun idea and good fodder for the strip. I had no plans for where this relationship would lead - I let the story go where it wanted to go. In fact, Connie's loneliness came wholly from my own experience as a single mother - everything she said came from some painful places I needed to visit again.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Lynn's Comments: In 1973, Alan moved into my small house in Dundas and settled into the garage, which I'd tried to make as habitable as possible. Aaron, sensing a kindred spirit, was immediately on Al's lap and I could see I was immediately outnumbered. Over the years Alan came to visit often but this was the one time, after a deadly sibling rivalry, we arranged to try cohabitation once more. He moved what little he had into the garage and, as they say, we lived for awhile in "interesting times". I had also sublet Aaron's room to a geologist friend who was working on her master's thesis and who had offered to help pay the rent. The dynamics of the three of us under the same roof with a baby made us all get to know each other perhaps a little too well!

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Alan's life hadn't really been this exciting. He had been working in construction while trying to get a music career off the ground and had moved to Ontario to see if the grass (yes) was greener in the east. Still, I was jealous of his freedom and his casual ways. I had become a mom and a homeowner who had little to live on, and I was determined to carry my own load. If I spent more than $20 a week on groceries, I'd be unable to pay the mortgage, which at the time was $147 a month. My friends who rented apartments and had no kids thought I was rich. This, of course, was far from the truth. Along with the mortgage came the taxes, repairs, maintenance and other bills - all of which meant that I was living at or below the poverty line. My friend Fran was renting a room, which helped a lot. She also took care of Aaron and did much of the cooking, but we were far from solvent. When Alan went out for groceries one day and came back with a few cases of beer, I knew that our living arrangement was going to come in for review.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Jumping into the future, here, these strips come from our time in Lynn Lake when Alan came to visit. The stories in FBorFW were always a blurry mixture of then and now, of my own childhood then and the lives of my two young children now. In order to bring reality into the strip, I relied on every memory I had filed away. When I was writing about Michael, I would have to be the same age he was, thinking the way he did and behaving like a child. This is not to say that I ran about the house flailing my arms and refusing to eat cold peas. I would be in a trance, writing, talking to him, being him and talking back. Likewise, I would try and think the way my brother did: a bachelor, being crawled on by kids and expected to know something about family dynamics. Alan loved Aaron and Katie, but he was always keen to burrow into a book or fly the coop when the noise and the chaos got the best of him.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Our house in Lynn Lake was a large, three-bedroom split level home with a finished basement. This is the house the Pattersons lived in - but I had already established the outside of the house to look like the one I had in Dundas. The Dundas house was one level, so when the strip started to take shape and I wanted to keep some continuity I had to combine the two houses, which I did with difficulty. In the Dundas house, we'd have had to play musical beds. In the LL house, there was room to spare. Because it was more fun to have the kids vacate their space for Uncle Phil, I let the story go in this direction. Anyone really scrutinizing the floor plan of the Patterson house might have asked why - but there was still too little information to work with. And besides, once you start an idea, the deadlines force you to carry on no matter what! Having Uncle Phil take over Elizabeth's room would provide more opportunity for comedy, and I hoped the muse would bring me something funny to write about!

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Uncle Phil's relationship with Connie illustrated the single side of things and Connie's having a child nicely complicated everything. Naturally, Elly was intrigued by her brother's affairs. Because he was living in her home and dating her close friend she felt it was...let's say... "her responsibility" to find out what was going on. When my brother lived with me, however, I refused to ask him his personal life. I would wait until he confided in my other room mate, Fran...and worm the information out of her!

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Elly's younger brother was a delightfully charming character whose flair for delivering a good opening line made doors open in all directions. I tried to imagine what Lawrence would think as he watched his mother flirt with uncle Phil. With his biological father out of the picture, Lawrence should have been the only man in her life. What would it be like to see his personal space invaded by someone else; someone who would be competing for his mother's affections?

Friday, May 6, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Never ask a kid a direct question unless you're prepared to hear an equally direct answer! When my grandfather read the comics page to me he would rail at the interaction between the Peanuts characters saying "Children don't talk like that! Children don't have such intellectual thoughts!" Privately, I disagreed with him. I might have been in first grade at the time, but I remember thinking "Of course we have those thoughts and ideas! We might not use the same words you do, but we're smarter than you think!"

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Lynn's Comments: When I was a single mom, I dated a man who sent my head spinning, then stopped the carousel, saying that because I was not of the same religion, I was not "forever". His family would never accept me and he was moving on. He was a serial "shiksa" man and I was number 61! In my machinations afterwards, I fantasized his return; his begging for forgiveness and his asking for another chance (fodder for a good song). This never happened to me...but in the strip, it happens to Connie. She readily accepts Phil's apology and for awhile their relationship goes on.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Lynn's Comments: My brother Alan has been playing the trumpet since he was about nine years old. He'd sit on the old blue couch in our folks' living room and, with unyielding dedication, practice until he was exhausted. We all admired his tenacity. Dad was a musician and taught me the guitar - so music was a way of life in our family. Eventually, Al's musical friends entered the picture. Our basement became a rehearsal hall, the kitchen a roost and the refrigerator emptied faster than a gut full of goose grease (a quote from Dad). Beer was never a staple in our family but it soon became the weekend libation of choice. Though drinking was never a problem, Mom's philosophy was; "If you can't stay sober, stay home!"

Monday, May 16, 2011

Lynn's Comments: My friend Adrienne went back to school when she was 30. She finished her grade 12 and went on to become a lab technician in the blood lab at McMaster University. She was a single mom with more courage and determination than most. She made me realize that you can do anything - at any age, if you really want to. With "Andie" in mind, I had Elly go back to school and take some of the courses she had missed.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Smoking has always been a problem for me. Both my folks smoked and it was my job to clean the ashtrays. Because of the jewelry/gift shop, we had an ashtray on every surface, it seemed, and emptying them was a chore I hated! The ceiling above Dad's chair was yellow and the curtains always had the stale smell of smoke. I would kneel on the couch, looking out the window through the sheers and vow that in my own house, there would be no smoking. It was therefore a bone of contention between Alan and I when he moved in with his habit and his reluctance to smoke outside.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Aaron was just a baby when Alan became a roommate. Aaron was thrilled to have a man around; one with a sense of humor and the time to play rough and tumble with him. It was surprising to see how well they got along together and today, my son and my brother are still the best of friends.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Lynn's Comments: I've said before that my brother's idea of a week's worth of groceries was several cases of beer. Well, he still comes to visit me with "groceries" but now he brings a more expensive brand!

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Lynn's Comments: Being at home when your spouse is with friends is usually a time to relax and enjoy the solitude. During my first marriage I was left at home too often, however, and the feeling of unrest is easy to recall. I remember wondering where he was, what he was doing and with whom he was doing it. In this strip, I turned the scenario around. Here it's the GUY who's left out and wondering if "something" is going on!