Conversations with Lynn Johnston

Jeff McLaughlin

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781496860231
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Artist Biographies

Canadian cartoonist Lynn Johnston (b. 1947) is best known for creating the comic strip For Better or For Worse. This widely acclaimed strip debuted in 1979 and ran until 2008 before being reintroduced as reruns. It chronicles the lives of the Patterson family and, more specifically, new mom Elly Patterson, as she tries to manage a household and family. For Better or For Worse is celebrated for its relatable portrayal of everyday family experiences and, notably, for the way the characters age in real-time, adding depth and authenticity to a narrative readers return to again and again.

This book, presented in sequential order, offers a collection of interviews with Johnston ranging from 1980, shortly after the debut of her best-known work, to a conversation with Kate Beaton and Raina Telgemeier at the 2014 Toronto Comic Arts Festival, to a new, unpublished interview with editor Jeff McLaughlin conducted in 2023. Many of the early interviews were published in Canada and are presented to US readers for the first time. These interviews explore the evolving narrative of For Better or For Worse, including the introduction of a gay character---a historical moment in comics---in the early 1990s and the death of the beloved family's dog.

A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 1994, Lynn Johnston has wrongly been overlooked by comics scholarship. This book seeks to establish her in the comics canon and offers readers an all-encompassing study of the creator and artist behind one of the most enduring comic strips still being published in reruns.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chronology
• A Profile of Cartoonist Lynn Johnston
• A Cartoonist for Better or for Worse
• Canadian Import with USA Appeal
• The Lynn Johnston Interview
• Parenting Ups and Downs with Cartoonist Lynn Johnston
• Life’s Issues Are Just “Stuff” for Lynn Johnston
• It’s for the “Better”: As Lynn Johnston’s Comic Strip Marks Its Twenty-Eighth Anniversary, It’s in for Some Changes. But Then, So Is She.
• Maclean’s Interview: Lynn Johnston
• Lynn Johnston and Kate Beaton “In Conversation”
• Cartoonist Lynn Johnston Answers the Proust Questionnaire
• Lynn Johnston—After the Strip
• Interview: Lynn Johnston
• An Interview with Lynn Johnston, Creator of the Classic For Better or For Worse
• Blockhead: Lynn Johnston Parts 1 and 2
• A Conversation with Lynn Johnston
• Are We Good? Conversations with Lynn Johnston
• Index