Cartoonist makes best of the worst

Chicago Tribune (MCT) - On Sunday, a journey that started on newspaper comics pages nearly 30 years ago ended as it began _ with its maverick creator, Lynn Johnston, bucking comic strip tradition.

As she has promised for some years, she wrote an ending for her popular strip, "For Better or For Worse," tying up all the plot threads and painting a picture of happiness and success to come for each character. Even the death of one character _ Grandpa Jim _ was cast in an up-tempo tone by the fact that he lived to see the birth of granddaughter Elizabeth's first child with her childhood sweetheart, Anthony.

On Monday, in a virtually unprecedented move, the strip began again from its original beginning, and it will continue with a combination of the original drawings and some new ones Johnston will draw in her earlier style.

A pity, then, that Johnston could not write a script for herself as full of unalloyed happiness as that she wrote for her creations. And yet, how admirable that the recent pain of Johnston's broken second marriage did not sour her belief that a bond between two people can survive _ as the strip's name suggests _ the worst that life brings.

Johnston, in fact, has ample reason to believe otherwise. Her early adult life was rocky as she struggled to bring up a rambunctious child on her own, her first marriage having ended in divorce. After she married dentist Rod Johnston in 1975, though, life began to improve. "For Better or For Worse" debuted Sept. 9, 1979, and eventually became one of the most widely distributed newspaper comic strips, with roughly 2,000 newspapers carrying it worldwide to this day, according to Kathie Kerr, a spokeswoman for Universal Press Syndicate.

LONGTIME FAN

I have been reading the strip for so many years that I've lost count. By the time I met Johnston in 2004, when she came to visit the Chicago Tribune, she had already decided to end the strip because of her health (she suffers from a neurological disorder) and her age; she was then 57. She said she planned to wrap up all the plot lines, then retire so she and her husband could travel and pursue their many other interests.

Later that year I interviewed Johnston when she came to Chicago again to promote her book commemorating the strip's 25th anniversary. I also spent two uninterrupted hours conversing with her husband, who turned out to be a candid interview subject.

I was not surprised when he praised his wife's talent.

"You know, we all hear funny stories every day, and we go home and forget them," he said. "But Lynn records them. ... And then when I see that she's done it in the paper, she has all the nuances, all of the inflections, all of the aspects to that story that made it an outstanding story. So she's an amazing recording device, and of course a great storyteller."

Enjoy Daily Readings? Pay it Forward

But he also didn't hesitate to make less flattering comments.

"She's had a huge success," he said. "And as she said (earlier in the day), it really went to her head at first. She's very self-centered, actually, and very consumed with herself. And so we've had this constant struggle where, does she want to be the star, or does she want to be an ordinary person? And she herself struggles with that. ...

"I've often thought that in life we're given many temptations or challenges, and who would think that success and fame are a challenge? But they are, very much."

'ROD AND STAFF'

I came away impressed that their marriage _ then going on 29 years _ had survived these challenges. And I had no inkling otherwise a few years later, when I stopped by a Chicago book signing of Johnston's, and asked if her husband was with her.

"Yes, I like to say I brought my Rod and staff," she quipped.

So when I found out that her husband had left her in April 2006, I couldn't help feeling dismayed. I was disappointed that a marriage that had survived so many stresses over so many years would fail in the end.

I called her to ask how this development would affect her retirement plans. Indeed, she had decided to delay her retirement for a while, finding solace in her work.

I did not ask her directly what caused the rupture with her husband, but she brought it up herself. There was obvious pain in her voice as she said: "He fell in love with somebody else. It had been over a long period of time. I just _ well, it's a surprise."

But she also said, in a brighter tone, that for the first time in her life, she was free to do as she wished when she wished it.

"I find living on my own actually quite exciting," she said. "I wasn't expecting to enjoy certain things about it. I mean, I haven't made my bed for months, I love it. ... I can do anything I want, and I've never had this freedom before.

"I just can't believe how exciting it is. I can stay up and paint until 2 in the morning. I can watch a movie at midnight. ... I can fly to New York on the weekend if I feel like it. And I don't have to worry about anyone else's schedule. I can just go and do it."

Secret Archives of the Saints, Subscribe Today

It seemed to me, though, that her brightness was a bit forced. Would losing the companion of your life, the person with whom you hoped to retire, really be balanced by the freedom to watch a movie at midnight?

Would art imitate life?

I wondered, then, what would happen to John and Elly Patterson, the couple at the core of "For Better or For Worse," who had clearly been the alter egos of Lynn and Rod Johnston all those years. Would this disappointment reflect itself in the last chapters of their story? How tempting must it have been for someone with a ready and widespread forum to take some measure of revenge there.

If Johnston was tempted to do so, it didn't show. And it was her former husband himself, whose comments four years ago revealed the intimate knowledge of a long partnership, who foreshadowed what she did in her last strip. He told me that his wife had once asked a favorite author of hers, who wrote both fiction and non-fiction, if something in one of his books had really happened. The writer replied, "In life, there are some things that, if they didn't happen, should have happened."

Perhaps this is the thought that led Johnston to write, in Sunday's final strip, "Elly and John Patterson retired to travel, to read, to volunteer in their community and to help raise their grandchildren!"

___

© 2008, Chicago Tribune.