book: Browse The Strips

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Lynn's Comments: Two prominent features of the prairies are the endless flat spaces and long, straight roads. A city person might wonder why cars and trucks cruise these roads at a snail's pace, but it's all part of the job. Farmers like to drive slowly and do their "crop-watching," while searching the horizon for rain. It often seemed that crop watching was more important than getting to where you were actually planning to go!

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Lynn's Comments: I can still feel the texture and taste the sweet rubbery flavour of a brand new eraser. I had no restraint when it came to chewing on them, and I did bite them in half. My mother would bark at me for destroying a brand new eraser, but MY reasoning was that I now had two!

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Lynn's Comments: The problem was also compounded by the fact that the kids never liked those odd-coloured, molasses tasting, wax paper wrapped toffees that you only see during the last days of October--they'd always leave them for me. These ugly things are still given out at Halloween, they still taste the same, and I still like them!

Friday, November 2, 2012

Lynn's Comments: Like so many, I would rather buy a can of pumpkin filling or purchase a whole darned ready-made pie, than go to the trouble of making one myself. In reality, I have only once cooked and eaten a pumpkin. In this one true-to-life case, I did cook our Halloween pumpkin and learned a valuable lesson: Never cook a pumpkin you've used as a Jack-o-lantern...it tastes like *#$%!!!

Monday, November 5, 2012

Lynn's Comments: My mother-in-law, having been an elementary school teacher for many years, readily took on the challenge of teaching our children whatever they hadn't been able to grasp in school. She once used a fresh pie to help Aaron learn fractions. My dad-in-law was in the room when she asked, "What do we call the biggest piece of pie?" and it wasn't Aaron who answered but Tom who, smiling easily, said, "mine!"

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Lynn's Comments: The other place where a silent candy wrapper is needed is church! Mom never minded the peppermints Dad brought so we kids would stay awake during the sermon... she was embarrassed by the sounds of the wrapper!

Friday, February 1, 2013

Lynn's Comments: My mother-in-law was one of the primary school teachers in Lynn Lake, which meant she had to teach her own kids. They complained that she was harder on them than she was on everyone else!

Monday, March 11, 2013

Lynn's Comments: Monique was a sweet young woman who won a trip to Lynn Lake to meet me, on a show called Thrill of a Lifetime. I was the "thrill!" Part of the arrangement was that she would see herself in the comic strip and receive an original drawing. Because our encounter had been so short and I had done just one drawing for the show (a Sunday page), I decided to include her as one of the library staff. I never heard from her, but I hoped she enjoyed her brief appearances.

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Lynn's Comments: In order to inject a bit of jealousy between my two main characters, I showed John firing off a definite ogle in the direction of Elly's shapely co-worker, Sue. I planned to take this farther and have something of a relationship evolve between John and Sue resulting in a serious exchange amongst all three. As in other attempts to show some "straying from the fold," I lost my nerve and never continued with the storyline.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Lynn's Comments: The punch line here came from my experience with McMaster University. When I was first hired as a medical artist, everyone was working in temporary facilities as we waited for the new medical centre to be finished. We all had direct contact with the doctors, for whom we were working, and information was easily transferred from the physician to us to the drawing board. Later, when we moved into the new building and the department expanded, supervisors were hired to supervise supervisors, and direct access to the doctors became impossible. Suddenly the artists were trying to get information through a chain of command, which naturally resulted in misunderstandings and mistakes. Going directly to a surgeon to find out exactly how to interpret a procedure was discouraged. What was once a straightforward process became... well,... like trying to take seeds out of a watermelon with rubber gloves on! In frustration, I became the class clown again; a jokester--it was the only way I could survive the assistants who were assistants to assistants!

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Lynn's Comments: This was the rule in our house when it came to birthday parties. Although the "rule" was often broken, it did help to reduce the number of kids in attendance.

Monday, May 6, 2013

Lynn's Comments: I had fun drawing this character. I had meant her to be very sexy and very nice--someone who would possibly come between Elly and John. She would make Elly jealous, in any case. As the library job continued, Susan became less and less visible. I couldn't quite resolve her relationship to the rest of the characters...and, perhaps, I was afraid that life might imitate art!

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Lynn's Comments: Until I became a teenager and could work at the store, do chores at home, and generally understand adult conversation, my mother and I were like oil and water. My best memories of her when I was very small seem to be when I was sick! She spent hours sitting next to me in my room, reading, taking my temperature, and trying to make me more comfortable. Measles, mumps and chicken pox went the rounds of every neighbourhood, and there was little to do but stay in bed and sweat it out. Mom should have been a doctor. She was smart, unfazed by barf, blood and trauma, and eager to try every home remedy known to man. Her poultices, enemas and steam tents were worse than the plague itself, but they worked. Thanks to Mom, we were up and feeling better before anyone else on the block!

Friday, July 26, 2013

Lynn's Comments: When I saw this in the paper, I almost wept. I had done the strip as a "bit of truth," but had no idea how serious the situation was and I berated myself for my poor mothering skills.

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Lynn's Comments: My father loved to dance. He would pick me up and dance with me until I fell asleep in his arms. He could sing so well and knew the words to so many songs that he never seemed to run out of waltzes or shanties or tunes from the bar. I remember the swoop of his body as he waltzed to the "Blue Danube" with theatrical panache. He could two-step and tango and polka and jive, and I melted into his shoulder with the rhythm and the warmth of his style.

Last November, my daughter, Katie, and her husband, Lane, presented me with my first grandchild. Laura is now almost two years old, and she loves to dance with me. I hold her the way my father held me. I sing the same songs, and I move with the same style. I thank him again and again for this memory and a gift that I'm now passing on.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Lynn's Comments: Allowing Aaron to stay home while I went shopping was a privilege for both of us. He was a responsible kid, and his grandparents lived next door. As far as I know, he didn't get into any mischief, but I was always on my guard. All I had to do was remember what my brother and I did when given the run of the house.

For years Mom and Dad worked in our small jewellery shop on upper Lonsdale in North Vancouver. It took twenty minutes for them to walk home, so we could gauge almost to the minute when the front door handle would turn. It was my job to get dinner on and Al's job to stay out of my way. Sometimes, dinner was a snap, and I'd take off on my bike until the folks arrived. During these times of freedom, Al (aged 13 or 14 at the time) emptied Dad's gin, substituting the missing booze with water. He ate whatever candy was hidden and smoked Dad's cigarettes. I thought he'd be in for it, but he never got caught.

I explored every drawer and every crevice in our house looking for treasure or secrets or hidden birthday gifts. I tried on my mother's underwear and used her perfume. I made crank phone calls and listened in to the party line. (This was a forbidden indiscretion, but I saw Mom do it as well.) I ate stuff and danced on the sofa and felt the freedom I longed for. Freedom then was having the house to myself.

It was with these memories in mind that I looked for evidence of similar lawlessness when Aaron was left alone. I never saw a thing. Obviously, he was as good at covering his tracks as we were!

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Lynn's Comments: Several librarians wrote to me to protest this storyline. Seems there are too many deserving people working in libraries with the right credentials to give an opportunity like this to a volunteer.

Monday, March 10, 2014

Lynn's Comments: I have met many interesting folks on my travels. When I'm travelling alone on a plane, I wonder if I can guess what the person next to me does. If my seatmate and I are both keen to engage in conversation, I discover I am always wrong; I can never guess by looking at another passenger what they are like and what they do for a living. This intrigues me.

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Lynn's Comments: My brother and I fought over trivia; my kids fought over stupid things, too. Whether it’s caused by boredom or the need to establish territory, fighting between siblings seems to be unavoidable. My mother would say, “You two are LOOKING for an excuse to fight!” And we were.

Monday, April 28, 2014

Lynn's Comments: The library where Elly volunteered was based on the library in Dundas, Ontario, where I went with Aaron to borrow toys and books and to take in the free events put on for kids. There were readings, films, children's shows, and an annual yard sale--the profits from which went to buy the toys we all borrowed and appreciated so much. That library was a resource and a refuge, and even though these images were sparse in detail, I felt I was "there" when I drew them!