"...Or For Worse."
Lynn Johnston's comic strip will be retired next year. Or, to be precise, Lynn is retiring, but I read a rumor that the strip is set to continue "in one form or another." Might it go into re-runs, a la "Peanuts"? Or will it be ghosted by others, like that growing multitude of strips whose creators abandoned them to lesser hands decades ago?
If the latter, this would probably make "For Better Or For Worse" the first autobio (or roman a clef) comic strip ever to be continued by others. So, in the coming decades, we'll presumably watch all the characters die off alongside their real-world counterparts -- Lynn included. In four decades' time, the syndicate will be happily cranking out strips about the lives of Johnston's great-grandchildren and their offspring.
What a strange feeling that would be, to enter the world with your birth heralded in a popular comic strip, and to watch your cartoon counterpart age along with you a day at a time, in humorous four-panel segments... knowing that your death, too, will someday be covered in the strip.
If the latter, this would probably make "For Better Or For Worse" the first autobio (or roman a clef) comic strip ever to be continued by others. So, in the coming decades, we'll presumably watch all the characters die off alongside their real-world counterparts -- Lynn included. In four decades' time, the syndicate will be happily cranking out strips about the lives of Johnston's great-grandchildren and their offspring.
What a strange feeling that would be, to enter the world with your birth heralded in a popular comic strip, and to watch your cartoon counterpart age along with you a day at a time, in humorous four-panel segments... knowing that your death, too, will someday be covered in the strip.