It's becoming interesting how the alterna-FOOB stories out there mainly differ by who is acting decently, and who, well, is being self-involved or a jerk.
I have Elly off the deep end, but getting help and Liz with a level head - but Mike is very self-involved. John is acting mostly reasonable; he at least won't ignore a major problem.
Other stories also have Elly (even more completely) living in a misremembered past, with John doing nothing and Mike being the decent one by taking in April, or John running off on April & Elly with Liz being completely self-involved. (Check out Foob of Destiny.)
I think there's a Law of Conservation of Foobishness. There was simply too much wrong with the final years of FOOB for all the characters to suddenly act like decent people. Somebody must act like a Foob.
Foob's Paradise may the only one with Liz acting reasonable, but keep in mind that it took me about 30 strips, two friends calling her out on her choices, a runaway sister and a ruined heirloom dress to achieve that.
This may not bode well for how much any other characters can change - I'm just saying :-)
6 comments:
insertmonikerhere,
John still really doesn't know Anthony at all well, does he? Not that you can really blame him; Nice Guys[tm] like him get by in the world by looking harmless enough to fool the unwary. Even if he were to have talked to Thérèse and more or less believed her, he'd assume the whole thing was just some sort of misunderstanding; the notion that Anthony has been pursuing Liz with such aggressively desperate purpose would probably alarm him.
Your strip actually kind of follows along the same path as another blog I read where he publishes letters written by the characters.
I do like where you take the characters though so, keep up the good work.
This blog is also also the only alterna-Foob that DIDN'T have Liz pregnant before the wedding. While society now has a greater acceptance of single/unwed moms one has to wonder how much of the wedding seen in the other two is Liz (and maybe Anthony) taking responsibility for the situation they created by creating a Mother-Father unit for the child.
Law of Conservation of Foobishness
Love it! Your analysis is spot-on: if we're all going to try to introduce some reality into the Foobs, they can't all suddenly become self-aware and likeable people who take responsibility for their lives and decisions.
forworse
I'm all for gradual, and possibly unsuccessful and / or incomplete attempts. Let's face it, even if they want help, the psych community of Milborough has their work cut out for them. In my world, the therapists even saw the trouble coming down the pipe (poor, poor, James).
godozo Interesting idea, and certainly worthy of comment as forworse develops the Foob of Destiny.
In the real world, if two people can make a go of it because they genuinely like each other and want to be together - and having a kid makes them focus and realize that, great. Have a huge wedding, too, if they like - sure. It's an event worthy of celebration. But not of twisting the arms of everyone in town to pony up to make the bestest Teal 'n Lavender Dreamy Wedding Ev-ah :-)
Oh, and dc2... You're going to like it when I finally get to Dec 24.
insertmonikerhere,
If this means that John starts to twig to Awfulny not being the man he thought he was, I can hardly wait.
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