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Sunday, September 1, 2013


I have enjoyed the “For Better or For Worse” comic in the past, but the one published last Sunday, Aug. 25, was dreadful.

With all the troops being killed or injured and all the gun violence in the world and teenagers killing a man because they were “bored,” why would you publish that comic? I feel it was in very poor taste.

ANNETTE SCHELL

ROANOKE

Editor’s note: The features department does not edit the comics, all of which are syndicated features that the newspaper buys.

Keep in mind that cartoonist Lynn Johnston’s “For Better or For Worse” debuted in 1979, and followed the characters in the Patterson family for 29 years. Johnston ended the serial’s story line in 2008. The current strip is a retelling of the story over those years.

The comic’s website, fborfw.com, includes notes from the cartoonist about her thoughts in developing each episode. Here is what Johnston wrote about the strip in question:

“So many times I ran around my neighbourhood with a finger or a plastic gun, pointing at friends and crying, ‘BANG! You’re dead!’ It was exciting. It was fun. We heard the headline news and listened to our parents. Dad had been in the war, but nothing they said made a difference. We were on a mission to win something. We didn’t know what. There was no real sense to it; nobody explained why we were fighting or what death meant. We were just caught up in the thrill and the energy and the noise and the fun. Later, as a cartoonist, I saw a striking similarity to a child’s attitude and what really happens in a war.”

Saturday, September 14, 2013

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