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lizardbreath does not approve

I admit that I like For Better Or For Worse.

It’s not a great day-to-day strip as comic strips go, but I’ve been reading it as long as I’ve been reading comics, and since the characters age in real-time and there’s 25 years of complete continuity there (and in part because I’m the around the same age as Michael in the strip, so when I was off to university the strip was him being off at university, and so on) it makes for a good read. I was sad when Farley died and I can’t stand Deanna. I can’t say I’d recommend that anyone that hasn’t read it for 25 years tune in now, but there you go.

But as always the Internet has to come along and be weird.

Witness Binky_betsy, aka “The FOOBiverse”. It’s a community which contains an in-depth analysis (posted by the same person, daily) of the plot and artwork of each day’s strip and the “letters from the characters” on the strip’s website with dozens of comments every day. Now I’m not that surprised that people obsess over fiction, but then I saw the FBOW FAQ in the community maintainer’s userinfo, and now I’m wondering if “When do you think April will start getting her period?” is really asked that frequently.

But that’s just run-of-the-mill comic book guy obsession. Weird, but not outright wrong. But then at the bottom of that userinfo I found a link to someone who has a blog in which she roleplays April. And you know that when you reach that point it’s going to get worse, and it does:

For Better Or For Worse slashfic..

Rich

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8 responses to “lizardbreath does not approve”

  2. I read it every day growing up and still keep up on it. There are lots of storylines that make me eyeroll as well, but I’m the same age as Elizabeth and I’ll be sad when Lynn Johnston ends the strip next year.

  3. I used to read this. I only get bits of it now, but I used to read it every day and I thought it was great as a comic strip about actual life. The fact that it goes in real-time and there’s actual continuity is wonderful.

    But I read the thing about Deanna and am now confused. Their second wedding? Did she and Michael get married twice?

  4. Years and years ago I found alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.cartoons or something like that. I thought “oh, like those Italian fumetti. those are kinda sexy. let’s browse”. And that’s how I found Sunday funnies characters, the Simpsons, and all of Disney animation clusterfucking. NOT zesty.

  6. They did, indeed, get married twice. The first time, they quietly eloped so that they wouldn’t have to (shock!) be living in SIN!!! Because after all, Canada is a very conservative country, what with only allowing same-sex marriage in the last few years, and only just recently decriminalizing marijuana.

    The second time they got married, it was the big official dealie with the church and stuff.

  7. I was thinking that it would be like that, with doing it once and then having a big ceremony later for one reason or another. But something about the wording made me think that maybe instead they were married, separated, and then got back together.

  8. Rich,

    I’ve been reading that comic strip over many years myself and have very much enjoyed it. It became especially interesting to me after we moved to Canada in 2000 and some of the Canadian references started making more sense. (And now, having moved back to the USA, I still enjoy my daily touch of Canada.) I, too, was sad when Farley died. I have to agree with you that the level of obsessiveness of some fans is… well… er… um… “fascinating”.

    Thanks for writing this and giving me a brief trip to the past through that website.

    Dan