For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for December 02, 2020

We all know Lawrence’s excuse years later, but what is Brian’s excuse of not dating girls?

WHAT appeal does Allyson have besides being a flirt? I wish Lynn drew a strip where Gordon meets Allyson 20 years later and he goes “bleh” at her and wonders why he flipped, screamed and went breathless every time he saw her. She was just a girl like all others.

Ah those halcyon days when we thought we knew it all! (And made awful jokes like that.)

When love is involved we all go to pieces.

Me 61 years ago.

Lynn’s Comments:

The name Allyson Creemore wasn’t for anyone specific…I just liked the way the name sounded.

Nice. Desperate humor is the best. …sad though. But still…

Gordon will be a good catch for some young lady – he does better than anyone else in this strip.

Sticky-out tongue!!

Probably what mine was(and a lot of teenage boys)pending embarrassment of blurting out something inappropriate or stupid sounding ! ! ! !

There’s that creepy sticking-your-tongue-out laugh. Why do we think this is a good way to draw laughter?

Nice kidneys their Lawrence! Thanks Allyson – how YOU doin’?

I’m bothered more by his intense focus on just one girl—that’s the way stalkers start.

I gave her my right arm.

I gave her my eyeteeth.

I gave her my blood, my lungs, my kidneys.

I gave her my everything.

By the time she said “yes” there was nothing left of me.

But you just wouldn’t give her your heart?

This is a little bit of a retcon on the bit about Lawrence not dating. After Martha and Mike broke up due to events at his 13th birthday party, there was a stretch from then until the Valentine’s Day dance the next year when Lawrence was dating Martha. The Lawrence story coming up in 2 years was in honor of the death of one of Lynn Johnston’s friends, a guy named Michael Vadeboncoeur, who had been murdered earlier in 1991, the year when this comic strip was published. It is possible that Lynn is retconning Lawrence at this point in preparation for that story.

I didn’t date but I was busy with other things.