About that bit at the end....St. Jude is the patron of the absolutely hopeless and impossible causes. To an almost-outsider, that's just how much this family looks like it needs help. Of course, since I have to explain the joke, well, there goes the funny.
I know that while nothing was established in-strip (the only thing I hold to), there's been speculation that the Sobinskis, with the Polish background, are Catholic (well, Deanna wouldn't be, or wouldn't be practicing, given what's shown in-strip). I think I'm going to go with that: they either are or were (exact degree of involvement not being important for the story). And therefore, given her behaviour surrounding the Mike & Dee wedding, Mira can sometimes be the kind of Catholic who gives Catholics a bad name.
16 comments:
I can see why Wilf would invoke St Jude what with his son-in-law and daughter not talking this out with their child. Something tells me, though, that his prayers will go unanswered; Anthony, after all, must arrive and send Elly back to Retcon City babbling about her phantom grandson. You promised that John would read someone the riot act and I don't care which douche gets it.
dc2 It's gonna be a looong Christmas Eve, and I don't guarantee that John will reach his limit in one day. But he will eventually :-)
I really can't identify with Merrie. I can't imagine hurting a grandparent's feelings and then not feeling worse than dirt, especially at that age, whatever the reason. Merrie's insults weren't exactly accidental. And then if another grandparent told me I'd done something that hurt someone else, AND that someone else was a grandparent, I think I'd have abased myself thoroughly and then hid in my room crying for a week.
Is Elly that much of a stranger to her grandkids? Merrie really doesn't seem to love her at all.
echo, Merrie's spent 7 years being raised by TheFoobsv2.0, so I don't think she would have a strong sense of guilt like that. I'm also not sure that is an appropriate reaction given that her genuine fear would probably mitigate her feelings of guilt. YMMV, obviously :-)
If Wilf's prayer to St. Jude is answered, will he place a thank-you ad on the back of the Village Voice? (That's how I first found out about St. Jude--the ads on the VV bulletin board: "Thank you, St. Jude, for prayers answered." Cuz St. Jude, of course, reads the Voice. :)
april_p, I have no idea. I haven't thought through what form of thanks Wilf would give for prayers answered. He might be more the personal-prayers-of-thanks type.
Of course, the answer to many prayers is "no"...
Yeah, I'd expect Wilf would be more likely to stick with personal prayers of thanks. Also, "no" seems like a very likely answer to this prayer.
I <3 St Jude. :)
I really love the expression on Merri's and Wilf's face. You do a great job of it.
I'm really enjoying this!
Yes, IMH; it looks to be a long Xmas eve here. I too am waiting for Anthony to show up and John to read HIM the riot act.
Sadly, I'm surprised that Mike didn't say a thing to Merrie. After all, he HAS controlled children before. At least he did when they lived above the Kelpfrothings.
Well done, very well done. At this rate the Oregonian will be calling you to replace the soon-to-be-dropped ReRunFOOB!
And Echo, remember, in the original strips Elly does almost no spontaneous grandparenting or playing with Mewwie and Wobin after their infancy. She's a Scary Grandma.
Personal shame alert: I once refused to give my maternal grandmother, a particularly dessicated old bombazine vulture, a goodbye kiss because she scared me so much. I was 5, I think. My father tried to explain why I should and sked me why I didn't want to kiss her.
"She makes me think of DEATH!" was my explanation. Poor Grannie never did get her kiss that time...
Kids are cruel, regardless of their manners. The manners just take the edge off when things aren't TOO bad. But Merrie's badly scared and that tends to sand off company manners...
No, grandparent/grandchild is not an automatically loving relationship. The obligations that tie a child to a parent are missing; a grandparent has something to prove.
Clearly, within Merrie's limited experience, her Grandma Patterson has been too wound up to bother. And it's not likely that her parents would've taught her the value of emotional connexions in the first place.
When I was little, my grandma (mom's mom) made me a ton of clothes and my first "grown up" bedroom suite. She had a row of tiny bears on the dresser and let me take some home after my visit. She read to me. I practiced my writing skills by writing letters to her, and she always wrote back.
When I was little, my granny (dad's mom) let me pull out all the pots and pans in her pantry and let me play pretend. She taught me how to braid using the tails of my My Little Pony dolls, then proceeded to braid each one of them with me and allowed me to braid all the fringe on her couch cover. She also read to me and would let me help her cook.
I don't recall seeing Elly do any of this sort of thing with Merrie and Robin, much less Michael, Elizabeth, and April. Therefore, I think Merrie's reaction is perfectly justified. Elly is almost a distant relative at best and seems to regard the children - once they're out of the cuddly infant/toddler stage - very much a chore and not an emotional experience.
Megs,
I don't recall seeing Elly do any of this sort of thing with Merrie and Robin, much less Michael, Elizabeth, and April. Therefore, I think Merrie's reaction is perfectly justified. Elly is almost a distant relative at best and seems to regard the children - once they're out of the cuddly infant/toddler stage - very much a chore and not an emotional experience.
Elly is only vaguely aware that she wasted her life treating childrearing as a dull, nasty chore. She wanted the magic moments she saw on TV and read about but could never see any of the good stuff because she was too busy feeling sorry for herself to notice all the good things she had. Why Lynn wants us to cheer this self-destructive bundle of negativity on is beyond me.
I wonder with Merrie's rudeness if there also isn't an element of Christmas being spoiled for her. There was the fire, then apparently "last year" Grandma was also kind of crazy, and this year she feels in real danger. She knows that Christmas is "supposed to be" a good time where people are happy and movies promise miracles and she may be feeling a child's version of cheated and bitter.
Also, not everyone loves and displays sensitivity the same way. Geez.
I've always assumed that the Sobinskis were Catholic, too. Maybe I read it somewhere, but I thought that that might have had something to do with Dee's refusal to live together before marriage. She might not be a practicing Catholic, but perhaps still retained a sense of her upbringing and wanted to wait until marriage. Then she abandoned said upbringing to lie to her parents' faces and let them spend $50,000 on a fake wedding.
Anyway...your mention of St Jude reminded me of St Anthony as I thought (correctly) that he was the patron saint of lost things, which made sense as I'd often wanted Anthony Caine to get lost. According to Wikipedia, he's also regarded in Brazil and Portugal as a marriage saint as he was one who conciliated couples. Oh, the irony.
Panel 3 was beautiful, especially after the silent panel 2. There was a real sense of emotional progress having happened. The great thing about the comic format is that the amount of time between panel 2 and 3 is undefined, but it's definitely significant. The significant amount of time is shown not by empty panels or whatever, but by how much the facial expressions of the characters have changed. In my mind, it's a long, awkward silence while both of the characters mull over what they'd said before in their own way. Merrie's response is entirely appropriate to a kid of her age--and Wilf's likewise.
I continue to love this treatment of the Foobs.
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