What does this For Better or For Worse strip mean?

March 27, 2020 7:08 PM

Please observe this installment of the Lynn Johnston strip and offer possible interpretations, share feelings, etc.

Here is the strip in question on imgur - https://imgur.com/a/QKE5H9a

This specific strip has been a longtime minor thing in our household, reignited by self-isolation and the attendant digging up of old junk.

What the hell does this mean? I think the part that I have the hardest time with is the QUOTE legs QUOTE. Without the (?)scare quotes, it is just that she is little and closer to legs? And do legs have a smell?

What is happening here? PLEASE HELP US.

posted by cocotine to Media & Arts (18 answers total)

I read this to mean that because she's small, all she can see are legs, and that probably bumping into them often means a chance to smell legs. The quotes mean that she's making a joke, because legs have no smell.
posted by jquinby at 7:12 PM on March 27, 2020 [4 favorites]

Best answer: Wow, this really takes me back to the livejournal (dreamwidth?) community dedicated to hate-reading this strip, I had a minor internet addiction to that community. My take here is that a.) "legs" is a substitute for "ass," b.) which Francie is getting a face full of because she's short, and c.) the joke is juxtaposing Anthony and Elizabeth being dreamy and sentimental about the beauty of the Christmas season with the little girl bluntly saying that everything smells like people's butts, iirc the strip had a lot of butt-related humor at this stage. Please tell me that hate-read community is real and not something I'm hallucinating?
posted by moonlight on vermont at 7:17 PM on March 27, 2020 [34 favorites]

Please tell me that hate-read community is real and not something I'm hallucinating?

No--I remember it following it, too!
posted by synecdoche at 7:21 PM on March 27, 2020 [7 favorites]

OH my god, the site is http://binky-betsy.livejournal.com AND THEY'RE STILL DOING DAILY HATE-READS AND HAVE POSTED ONE EVERY DAY OF THIS MONTH, I COULDN'T SCROLL BACK TO SEE HOW MANY MORE, I FEEL LIKE I ESCAPED A CULT. fucking YIKES
posted by moonlight on vermont at 7:24 PM on March 27, 2020 [33 favorites]

OMG BINKY-BETSY IS STILL AROUND WTF I DRIFTED AWAY FROM THAT 20 YEARS AGO
posted by Melismata at 7:37 PM on March 27, 2020 [8 favorites]

Speaking of comics hate readers, Comics Curmudgeon concurs on the ass theory.
posted by zamboni at 7:46 PM on March 27, 2020 [5 favorites]

My first thought is that it is a typo, and the artist meant to write "L'eggs".
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:48 PM on March 27, 2020 [4 favorites]

This is a ‘cow tools’ situation. Leave it alone; don’t “ruminate.”
posted by Sterros at 7:53 PM on March 27, 2020 [7 favorites]

This is a perfectly normal and accessible joke that MOV explained above. Ima check out that lj site tho.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:09 PM on March 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

I suspect they wrote it as butts or ass & this is the G rated version the editors actually let through.
posted by wwax at 8:25 PM on March 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

I absolutely followed that LJ when Lynn Johnston started devolving and insisting that Granthony and Elizabeth were MFEO.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:04 PM on March 27, 2020 [4 favorites]

insisting that Granthony and Elizabeth were MFEO.

Wait, I thought they got divorced!?! Or is that just my head cannon?
posted by carmicha at 9:23 PM on March 27, 2020

oh my holy jesus how is binky betsy still around this is the best day of my liiiiiife.

Anyway, I concur with everyone else, and also that FBOFW really excelled a the joke-shaped object that wasn't an actual joke. Funky Winkerbean has, I feel, taken on this mantle in the comics page.
posted by kalimac at 9:33 PM on March 27, 2020

Lynn Johnson ended the "real time" strip with them getting married. They are not allowed to divorce. Never never! You're probably thinking of Granthony's first wife.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:46 PM on March 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

Thank you Sterros; today I learned Cow Tools is on wikipedia.
posted by trig at 2:42 AM on March 28, 2020 [1 favorite]

Fucking Anthony. Lynn had Elizabeth carving out her own life doing something she loved and then boom...dragged back home because everyone needs to marry their childhood love.
posted by kimberussell at 5:30 AM on March 28, 2020 [4 favorites]

> Funky Winkerbean has, I feel, taken on this mantle in the comics page

It's still For Better or Worse being dropped on my front porch every morning.
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:30 AM on March 28, 2020 [1 favorite]

I thought that Warren was the best of liz's bfs....he made a point of being there for her graduation.
posted by brujita at 2:08 PM on March 28, 2020 [1 favorite]