Lynn Johnston's Drawn-Out Adieu to Cartooning

Cartoonist Lynn Johnston will retell her "For Better" story. (By Ed Eng)

One question rippling its way through the industry is whether many newspaper editors will be willing to pay for "new-runs," especially since the core story lines will remain the same. (The Washington Post is dropping the strip in the paper but will continue to carry it online. )

"The descriptive 'new-runs' was new to us, but it does hint at the blend of new and old that she'll undertake," says Lee Salem, Universal Press Syndicate's president and editor. "It's quite a gamble on her part and much of this terrain will be new to her, too. Only time will tell if it's effective or not."

Johnston, whose strip is in more than 2,000 papers, has endured losing clients before, such as when a gay character, Lawrence, came out. Is she concerned about losing newspapers this time around?

As a cartoonist, "You know people are always going to drop your strip -- that's what editors do," she says. "Blondie" cartoonist "Dean Young and I joke that we keep taking each other's place [on the comics page]. . . . If you write for editors so that they will keep your work, you'll be losing clients and readers. It's just part of it: I don't want to lose papers, but I know that I will."

Sounding energized, she characterizes this experiment as a way to create a better, livelier, funnier beginning to the strip. Call it the Old Adventures of the New Lynn Johnston.

"In this business, you're a perfectionist -- you've got to be," she says. "My early work on the strip was freer, it was more spontaneous. But I want to combine the confidence and experience [I have now] with that freedom -- that's the best of all worlds."

Johnston downplays some elements of her early work, but in the '80s, "For Better or for Worse" soon found a commercial following and critical praise. She received the cartooning industry's Reuben Award in 1985 for the strip, and nearly a decade later, she was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. And Universal Press Syndicate launched her feature at a time when women cartoonists were very few and far between on the funny pages.

Decades later, Johnston stands near the top of the syndication heap, which is why her ending of the current real-time stories is bound to disappoint her many readers worldwide. But the cartoonist speaks with conviction about this stopping point.

"The analogy would be like decorating a room: Once you've done everything you can do to it, you step back and [realize] you can't do any more. . . . I wanted to stop the story while it was still a reasonably good story. You can't fulfill everyone's needs. I've told the story -- I can't do any more . . . to redecorate this room."

Johnston sounds as upbeat as ever about producing the strip. She says she doesn't even use it to take veiled digs at her ex-husband. Well, except once.

"The only thing I've put in the strip with a sarcastic streak toward my ex-husband is John [Patterson's] potbelly, because my ex is very proud of his physique," says Johnston before pausing, again sweetly reflective in her approach. "Perhaps I made up my own husband and saw John Patterson in my husband."

She says she feels 30 years old again while drawing it, and relishes the joy that comes from returning to the comic's roots -- to a time when she herself was still newly married, raising small children and discovering her full talent through a newborn strip.

"It's going to be the best work I can possibly do. . . . It's going to be a lot more fun," she says. Then, recalling the beloved family sheepdog who died saving young April Patterson, she chimes: "And Farley is coming back!"