| Lynn Franks Johnston | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Johnston at her induction into The Giants of the North: the Canadian Cartoonists Hall of Fame in August 2008 | |
| Born | Lynn Ridgway (1947-05-28)May 28, 1947 (age 78) Collingwood, Ontario, Canada |
Notable works | For Better or For Worse |
Lynn JohnstonCM OM (born May 28, 1947) is a Canadiancartoonist and author, best known for her newspaper comic stripFor Better or For Worse. She was the first woman and first Canadian to win theNational Cartoonist Society'sReuben Award.
Born Lynn Ridgway inCollingwood, Ontario, she was raised inNorth Vancouver,British Columbia, where she was a close childhood friend of comediansPaul K. Willis andMichael Boncoeur. She attended theVancouver School of Art (nowEmily Carr University of Art and Design) with hopes of making a living as an artist. After working briefly in animation, most notably as an uncredited cel colorist onThe Abbott and Costello Cartoon Show,[1] she married in 1969 and moved back to Ontario, where she worked as a medical artist atMcMaster University for five years. Johnston's illustrations are in storage in McMaster's medical archive. They include depictions of routine hospital happenings of the time, such as a father smoking in the waiting room.
While expecting her first child, she drew single-panel cartoons for the ceiling of her obstetricianMurray Enkin's office. Those drawings were published in her first book,David, We're Pregnant! which was published in 1973 under her then name of Lynn Franks (and subsequently republished under the name of Lynn Johnston) and became a best seller. After her divorce, she did freelance commercial and medical art in a studio converted from a greenhouse.Hi Mom! Hi Dad!, a sequel toDavid, was published in 1975. Shortly thereafter, she met and married dental student Rod Johnston.[2][3]
In 1978, the Johnstons and their two children relocated toLynn Lake, Manitoba. She was asked byUniversal Press Syndicate if she was interested in doing a comic strip. She sent twenty copies of a strip calledThe Johnstons, based on her family "since we were the only people I knew I could draw over and over again with some consistency."[2] Much to her surprise, the syndicate approved of the initial strips and offered her a twenty-year contract.[2] After a six-month "work-up" period, the strip first appeared in newspapers throughout Canada under the titleFor Better or For Worse. The strip has been carried by about 2000 newspapers in Canada, the U.S. and 20 other countries.[2][4]
Many story lines draw from her family's real-life experiences. Her main characters are named after the middle names of her husband and children, with the exception of the mother, as Lynn Johnston has no middle name. Instead, she elected to name the protagonist Elly, in honor of a friend of hers who died at a young age. Her friend and Canadian comedianMichael Boncoeur inspired the controversial story about Lawrence'scoming out. Deanna was based on Aaron's high school sweetheart, who died in a car crash years after their relationship ended. Johnston's niece Stephanie is developmentally disabled and her experience is shared in recent story lines on the integration of developmentally disabled students in April's class. Elizabeth's teaching career was based on daughter Kate's decision not to pursue a career in education, but provided Johnston with a chance to imagine how that might have turned out.[5]
The characters inFor Better of For Worse have aged in "real time". On August 31, 2008, Johnston herself appeared in the Sunday strip, which was supposed to be the end of the cartoon, and announced that she would take the story back nearly 30 years to soon after its beginning, with half of the material to be new and the other half repeats.[4] The "new" material was actually reworked versions of older strips with retouched artwork and new dialogue that was sometimes only tweaked to use modern expressions or product names in place of older ones. On seldom occasion an entire strip or a panel has been redone, such as Michael or Elizabeth spanked being turned into a "time out". One spanking strip that remained was a story arc where Michael was spanked by John for hitting another child, and it percolating into a discussion with Elly that she disagreed that spanking was the proper remedy (although she agreed with John that Michael's violent attitude had to be nipped in the bud). Other strips, such as Elly getting annoyed and then hurling something at the back of John's head (such as a coffee cup) were also censored. As the strip was a family strip, issues of throwing a hard object behind someone's back raised issues ofspousal abuse.
Since the 1990s, Johnston has been notably forthcoming in her discussion of the abuse inflicted on her by her mother[6] and her first husband,[7] and being unprepared to be a mother to her son Aaron[8]—topics that have also been reflected in the strip. A column byJan Wong ofThe Globe and Mail, reprinted inLunch with Jan Wong,[9] notably portrayed Johnston as somewhat difficult and irascible.
Johnston resided in theNorthern Ontario town ofCorbeil for many years duringFor Better or For Worse's run.[2] Her daughter Katie also lived in Corbeil and worked at the For Better or For Worse studio,[2] while her son Aaron works in the television industry in Vancouver, BC. In September 2007, Lynn and Rod Johnston announced their separation and intention to divorce.[10] Johnston had talked about either endingFor Better or For Worse or handing it off to another cartoonist, but changed her mind as a result of her split from her husband of over 30 years.[4][11]
In September 2015, Johnston and her daughter moved back toNorth Vancouver.[12]
Johnston had a close friendship withCharles M. Schulz, creator ofPeanuts.[13] She wrote the introduction to one of the volumes ofFantagraphics Books' seriesThe Complete Peanuts.
On 13 March 2014,Library and Archives Canada announced that it had acquired material to add to its Johnston collection, including 3282 drawings, 296 watercolours, 244 photographs, about 3.5 m of textual items, and a few other objects.[14]
