Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Reboot is all the rage

OK, so we all know by now about the recent reboot of Spider-Man this year, well, apparently this sort of reboot is swiftly becoming all the rage, and Lynn Johnson who produces For Better or Worse recently decided to reboot her long-running syndicated strip. On September first, after 29 years of on-going continuity (at the age of 61), she decided to reset her own strip, and go back to the beginning.


She posted the reason for this reset on her site:

The move comes a year after the Reuben Award-winning cartoonist attempted semi-retirement by mixing classic reprints of “For Better or for Worse” with new panels that advanced the present-day story. That allowed Johnston to go back and forth in time in the lives of her characters.


For the full story...

I’m not sure what to make of this, nor am I sure that I like it (but hey, don’t listen to me, I didn’t like that the syndicate decided to keep running Peanuts after Charles Schultz passed away. because now — as much as people like this strip — there is some cartoonist out there (or several cartoonists) who can’t get their work into print because Peanuts is occupying their real estate.

Imagine, if you will, if Schultz had been denied publication because some older “revered” cartoonist strip was hanging on after that guy had passed away. I respect the right for the syndicate to make money, but I think that Shultz would have objected (or sahould have objected) to this sort of thing.

1 comment:

Tommy said...

I remember reading about this via the yahoo articles that come up throughout the day.

I've mixed feelings about reboots, and in this case, I'd probably lean towards what the readership thinks as they'll be the ones who have followed the strip over the years.


I've read "For Better or got Worse" at times, but not enough to note all the changes or have the same feelings as the main fanbase, so I defer to them.

Non “Funny” Funnybooks on the Rise

We’ve been reading comics since around 1961. It is — as we’ve often said — our preferred form of entertainment. In fact, the guy we’ve been ...