sunday: Browse The Strips

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Lynn's Comments: When this strip ran, people all over the continent made paper hugs to send to loved ones all over the world. They sent me letters and photographs of the hugs they made and of the people who received them. This was a strip I didn't think was anything special. I never knew when a simple drawing I did might be seriously taken to heart.

Sunday, March 27, 2016

Lynn's Comments: When I was a kid, my mother was the staunch churchgoer. Dad, my brother and I could hardly stay awake during the services. In order to keep us from fooling around in our seats, Dad would bring big, round, white peppermints, which came in a squeaky plastic wrapper. Try as he might, he could not keep the peppermints a secret; everyone from the folks in the rows around us to the minister himself could hear the telltale sound of the wrapper. Mom would be furious. Dad would be shrugging with feigned embarrassment, and we, with a bulge in our cheek, would simply smile. To this day, when I hear the squeak of a particular kind of plastic wrapper, I am rocketed back in time to the hard pews, the cedar smell, and the sleep-inducing drone of a sermon at St. John's Anglican Church. Thanks, Dad, for the peppermints!

Sunday, April 17, 2016

Lynn's Comments: "Should I or should I not cut my hair?" This was a recurring concern for me. Since I was 18, I had worn my hair long, but now and then I yearned for a new look. It took time to grow my hair. Cutting it was a huge decision, and it was one that nobody in the family wished to weigh in on. In the strip, Elly Patterson wore her hair long and tied back--the way I did. Readers would often say, "Why doesn't Elly get a new hairstyle? She looks so old fashioned--so the same!" The thing is--a comic strip character has to have a certain "look"; a certain sameness so that continuity is kept from year to year. To cut Elly's hair would have created a major change in the way I drew her (almost as traumatizing as cutting the hair on my head). So, both Elly Patterson and I retained the same look for many years. I did, however, allow myself the fun of changing the way the kids looked. This is all part of the subtle "rule of thumb" which governs the way we draw and perceive the characters in syndicated comics!

Sunday, May 1, 2016

Lynn's Comments: This was one of those self-flagellating strips, which said in print something I had been thinking: I often missed important conversations because I was focused on something less relevant. In this strip, I've drawn Katie's favourite jacket--one I destroyed by putting in the dryer! There is also mention of my friend, Margie Palmer. Whenever I could, I'd put a friend's name in the paper to let them know I was thinking of them. This proved to be a lot of fun and even connected me to friends with whom I'd lost touch.

Sunday, May 8, 2016

Lynn's Comments: In reality, we could take the kids anywhere. They were always respectful and well behaved--or else! The restaurant "time-out" was to take the offending child to the car and sit with them until they saw the error of their ways. The hard part was knowing my own meal was getting cold as the rest of the family sat inside.

Sunday, May 22, 2016

Lynn's Comments: This Sunday page was hastily written as soon as I got home from the car wash. It was a funny incident, but thoroughly annoying as well. I was always happy to vent into the strip whenever something like this happened!

Sunday, June 5, 2016

Lynn's Comments: I was appalled when my kids were young and would see graphic material on TV which should never be allowed on prime time. I did this strip in solidarity with other parents desperately wanting their children to have a healthy view of conflict, sex, and politics. I can't imagine what the parents of today's youngsters are doing now!

Sunday, June 12, 2016

Lynn's Comments: I put a lot of private, embarrassing truths into the strip. I often wonder if identifying all these faults and making fun of them made me a better person. If not, it surely made me more aware!

Sunday, June 19, 2016

Lynn's Comments: My husband really was happiest when he was in his workshop. No matter what was going on around him, his hobbies and his various projects kept him focused and content. If you wanted to spend time with him, the workshop was the place to be. Katie learned this at a very young age, which is why she can now fix or make just about anything!

Sunday, June 26, 2016

Lynn's Comments: This was, and likely still is, a contentious issue. By opening the door to conversation on the topic of "when does life begin?" I was rattling a few cages. Knowing I was treading on thin ice, I made sure the punch line was innocuous, but I got the angry mail anyway. In the end, I was glad I had drawn this strip. It was something we were talking to our kids about and I knew other parents were struggling with this question as well. This shows you how much freedom I was given by my syndicate and many editors to write and say things that were sensitive and not easily mentioned in a comic strip.

Sunday, July 17, 2016

Lynn's Comments: This is a scene from my childhood--trying to jump off the high diving board at Mahon Park pool. We called the pool, "Typhoid Tank" because it was emptied infrequently, and when it was, the water was so cold, you thought you'd die. Nobody ever died from the cold water, but we sure took our chances on that board!

Sunday, July 24, 2016

Lynn's Comments: This happened. I was glad to have been wearing clean underwear. Old superstitions can bear fruit. In this case, it was Fruit of the Loom!

Sunday, July 31, 2016

Lynn's Comments: Once, at the Winnipeg Airport, Aaron, who had been given a plastic squirt gun, decided to aim at the guard as we went through security. We were all immediately taken to a secure area and searched. Everything was opened, screened, examined and set aside. We were questioned, and sternly let go just before our flight boarded. We thought the guards had been a bit extreme. After all, it was just a toy squirt gun. Still, we made sure our kids never had weaponry of any kind when we went through security.

Sunday, August 7, 2016

Lynn's Comments: Farley didn't much care if there were squirrels in the yard--he reacted to food and the great outdoors. Any opportunity to disappear into the ravine behind our house, saw him gone. He would eventually be found wet, dirty and blissfully happy--no matter how hard we scolded him. Our next dog, Willy, was a squirrel chaser. If he saw one out the window, he had to be let out before he busted something. Wildly, madly, barking and running as fast as his short legs would take him Willy would chase a squirrel until it was too far up a tree to see any more. He never caught one, of course, and the squirrels loved the comedy of it all.

Sunday, August 21, 2016

Lynn's Comments: Some Sunday strips were so true, they were painful. This was me. This was my husband. He did try to help, but I actually prevented him from doing so. In drawing this strip, I hoped other wives would see themselves. I think some did!

Sunday, September 4, 2016

Lynn's Comments: Here is another real life situation. My dentist husband was cornered, from time to time, outside his office and asked to give his expert opinion on someone's dental work. As a new practitioner, he would do this as a favour and I often saw him at parties, for example, with his fingers in someone's mouth! Eventually, he refused to do this and asked folks to please make an appointment. The nuisance, the intrusion, and the possibility of saying the wrong thing eventually made him realize that the clinic was the best place to do a check-up! Nothing was more convincing, however, than the above scenario! This really happened and it was fun to recreate the scene in the strip. If the culpable lawyer ever read the comics, I doubt he'd have recognized himself!

Sunday, September 11, 2016

Lynn's Comments: This is another true situation. There were times when I was so engrossed in writing or drawing the strip that I was oblivious to everything else around me. My kids could talk to me, ask for things, say stuff that didn't make sense, and I'd simply nod and smile. An entire day could go by and I'd forget to eat or even get up and walk around. It was like being in a sound sleep. There were times when people would have to distract me from my work, look me in the eye, make sure I was absolutely focused on them, and then say what they wanted me to hear!

Sunday October 2, 2016

Lynn's Comments: What's fun about illustrations like this one is the obvious use of things used in the 80s. Here you see the old style telephone. With the move to BC from Ontario, I rid myself of the old landline phone and its spiral cord, and something familiar disappeared. I never thought about it being a relic until on a recent trip to New York. I stayed in an old hotel where the young concierge was struggling with a hopelessly twisted phone cord. I took the receiver from him, held the end of the cord closest to the phone, and let the receiver spin until the knots were out of it. The cord hung down perfectly. "How did you do that?!" he asked, surprised. I couldn't believe that a modern, technically savvy young man hadn't figured it out for himself. Oh, how times have changed!

Sunday October 9, 2016

Lynn's Comments: Another true story. The fact that this happened to me more than once suggests a rather startling lack of intuition. A night-light was installed around the same time as the offending male trained himself to kindly put down the seat.