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The Pattersons, clockwise from left: Deanna (with Robin), Michael, Elly (with Butterscotch), Elizabeth (with Shilmsa), John, April, Dixie, Edgar, Meredith.
One of the more popular Newspaper Comics of its time, Lynn Johnston's For Better or for Worse debuted in 1979 and ran until 2008, appearing in over 2,000 newspapers at its peak.

Set in Milborough (a fictional suburb of Toronto, Ontario, Canada), the strip's main characters are the Patterson family: mild-mannered parents Elly and John and their children Michael, Elizabeth, and April. All but April are based closely on Johnston's real-life family: herself, her (now ex-) husband Rod, and their children Aaron and Katie. Johnston claimed that she created April because she wanted another baby, but knew it wasn't practical for her in real life.

The strip is perhaps best-known for the fact that, unlike most comic strips, it did not use Comic-Book Time, and took place more or less in real time for most of its run. Michael and Elizabeth were a young child and a toddler at the strip's beginning, and by the end had grown into adults, with Michael married and raising his own children while Elizabeth married at the end of the strip. Youngest child April was born 11 years into the strip's run and was roughly 16 at the strip's conclusion.

In its heyday, the strip was also celebrated for its realism, eschewing Sitcom stereotypes in favor of a nuanced, relatable look at typical adult, child and teen concerns. A storyline in which a supporting character came out as gay cemented this reputation, as well as various stories dealing with prejudice, bullying, the mentally and physically handicapped, theft, cheating and abuse. The Pattersons were often shown as a good, "normal" family, often forced to deal with others from broken homes or worse situations.

Unfortunately, the same intimacy that allowed Johnston such insight also takes in her shortcomings and shortsightedness, something the author herself (a proudly self-described "Child of The '50s") has acknowledged. This became steadily more apparent in the strip's final years, as — concurrent with Johnston's discovery that her husband was cheating on her and the subsequent messy divorce — the strip wound down and the characters all began settling into domestic bliss rather than continue being exciting young adults, resulting in two of the three Patterson kids marrying their childhood sweethearts due to massively contrived circumstances. Much speculation ensued from disappointed fans over this development, in particular whether or not Johnston may have been attempting to deal with her personal trials by creating the life she wanted for herself through the strip.

Starting in September 2007, flashbacks to the early years of the strip were interspersed into the present-day plotlines. The last regular daily strip of For Better or For Worse was published on August 30, 2008, and the last Sunday strip was published the next day. Though Johnston had announced her retirement from the strip entirely, she relented, largely due to the collapse of her marriage removing one of her key motivations for retiring. To ramp down her workload, starting in September 2008, Johnston began in effect to retell the strip from the beginning, through what she described as "new-runs". For some time, the strip consisted of a mixture of reprints from the early years with newly drawn strips also set during the era when Michael was a young child and Elizabeth was a toddler. In 2010, the new-run strips were phased out, and the strip remained in syndication but almost exclusively with straight reprints. As of 2022, the For Better or For Worse strips appearing in newspapers generally correspond exactly to those which originally appeared 39 years before. Only rarely does this pattern change, with an occasional new strip being drawn to ensure that holiday-themed strips appear on the relevant holiday.


This strip includes examples of:

  • '80s Hair: Elly averted these styles for the better part of a decade until in one arc in 1989, she got the idea to cut off her long straight hair, as Georgia had done. But when she actually went to get it done, one thing led to another and she ended up getting a body perm instead (from a hairdresser with an edgy '80s girl mullet). Elly was not happy with the result, but John claimed to like it (though it is possible he was just being kind or diplomatic), giving her second thoughts. Connie also liked the perm, but Elizabeth's frank (if unwelcome) comparison to the Bride of Frankenstein seemed to settle the issue. Johnston drew Elly with some curl in her hair for about four months; she started drawing it straight again in September of that year and never gave her that look again.
    • Michael’s second girlfriend, Rhetta Blum, arguably counts as another example of this, especially in her early appearances.
    • Connie’s stepdaughter Molly had a short and teased hairstyle.
  • Abuse Discretion Shot: In Brad Luggsworth’s backstory, his father’s abuse of him and his mother isn’t shown until Brad comes home to find police and paramedics arresting his father and treating his injured mother. His horrified reaction to her bruised and bloody face is disturbing for a family friendly comic strip.
  • Actually Pretty Funny:
    • At one point, Lawerence and Michael create and act as superheroes named after bodily functions and noises. Elly scolds them for being gross, then walks into the kitchen and starts laughing.
    • April uses Elizabeth's bra as a slingshot to shoot koosh balls at the dog. When Elizabeth tells on her, Elly is too busy laughing to immediately say anything.
    • When Mrs. Kelpfroth finds out that Michael wrote about her and her husband being terrible neighbors, she admits the title "Knock on the Ceiling Twice" is clever since they've been banging on the ceiling.
    • When Michael's toddler daughter Meredith helps him set the table, being a toddler she mispronounces all the words. Michael loses it when she says "fault and pecker" (salt and pepper)
  • An Aesop: A September 1993 storyline focused on Michael and his friends joining a protest against a student bus fare hike. However, they're mostly doing it for fun, as they get to block rush hour traffic and shout slogans at the police. After it ends, John picks them up (angry at their involvement after seeing it on the news) and tells them what the bus fare hike is about; the 30% bus fare hike is a gradual raise for the next three years (something that the city voted in favor for last spring) and the new fares mean that someone could travel twice as far, meaning that the protest was pointless and detrimental. The lesson? Don't join a protest unless you know all the facts, and if you are going to do a protest, don't do it for fun.
  • Aesop Amnesia: The Pattersons never retain anything they learn, such as Elly's temporary bout of appreciating her husband after he and Phil nearly died on a camping trip Gone Horribly Wrong, or Michael realizing that "bad things don't just happen to other people".
    • Despite being called out on her behavior by Wilf, Michael, and Lovey, and her other daughter moving all the way to Halifax, Mira never learns when to stop butting in on her daughter’s life.
  • Altar the Speed: Liz basically drops all commitments and her career to get married to Anthony at the end of the strip's run.
    • Mira and Wilf had one in their backstory, which results in Mira micromanaging the weddings of her daughters.
  • Alpha Bitch: Becky becomes one throughout high school after getting tastes of talent-based fame.
  • Ambiguously Brown: Michael's best friend Lawrence is eventually revealed to be the result of his mother's past relationship with a Black Brazilian man she met in Central America. At first he was colored as white/pink, but when society began accepting mixed-race people he got a tan.
  • Ambition Is Evil: An unfortunate subtext. Good people know that Fate will reward them; messing about with this Natural Order of Things can only lead to unnatural desires.
    • Thérèse wants to pursue a successful career and is demonized for not complying with her husband Anthony's wishes and giving it all up to become a stay-at-home mom. The fact that she apparently gets postpartum depression is glossed over by Anthony. She then abandons, then completely rejects her own daughter
    • April's sometimes-friend Becky dreams of becoming a star, like the rest of her friends. When she rises to fame, she becomes progressively bitchy, though she does have her occasional sympathetic moments.
    • Liz showed some ambition, becoming a teacher at a First Nation village, learning their culture and bonding with her students. She gave all of it up for Anthony, though according to the epilogue she did resume her work, presumably in her hometown.
    • Perhaps rather tellingly, the only one who's shown to have achieved her ambition is the black sheep of the family, April.
  • And I Must Scream: Grandpa Jim's stroke appears to have left him mentally damaged, but he is in fact just fine mentally. He just can't speak. So we get strips where he mentally begs people to stop babying him, but can only communicate with a loud noise that people take as him thanking them for babying him (or, in one memorable strip, his own grandson calling him 'crazy'). Yeah...
  • Animated Adaptation: Three incarnations over a sixteen-year span, each capturing a different era of the comic it was adapting:
    • The Bestest Present, a one-off 1985 half-hour Christmas Special by Atkinson Film-Arts which aired on CTV (following The '80s trend of adapting popular comic strips into Christmas specials). Michael and Elizabeth are still young children, and are even voiced by their Real Life inspirations, Aaron and Katie Johnston. (Elly and John are voiced by professional voice actors, but Lynn's then-husband Rod cameos as a mailman.)
    • A series of six half-hour specials in the early '90s, produced by Lacewood Productions, which also aired on CTV. Three of these were holiday specials (including another Christmas Special, a Halloween Special, and a Valentine's Day Special), and three were "normal" episodes. Michael is in high school and Elizabeth is a preteen, with infant April now completing the Patterson family. Given that he was the right age for a lot of juicy storylines, the specials tended to focus more on Michael over the rest of the family.
    • A two-season, sixteen-episode Animated Series which aired 2000-01 on Teletoon, produced by Funbag Animation. Although produced by a different studio, several of the voice actors from the Lacewood specials returned for this series, which helped to provide some continuity with them. The show featured a unique variation on the Three Shorts format: each episode would focus on a specific theme, introduced in a short live-action segment by none other than Lynn Johnston herself. (And yes, for the sake of completion, one of these themed episodes was indeed a Christmas Episode.) We would then see one example of this theme in a six-minute cartoon segment depicting each "era" of the comic:
      • The Early Years: The '80s, the same period as The Bestest Present.
      • The Growing Years: The early '90s, the same period as the Lacewood specials.
      • The Later Years: The present day as of the production of the cartoon, the Turn of the Millennium. Michael is a young adult, attending university (or recently graduated) and in a serious relationship with Deanna Sobinski (they would marry in late 2001). Elizabeth is in her late teens (and, amusingly, dating her eventual husband Anthony), and April is a rambunctious child doing her best to exhaust her aging parents.
    • The animated series would presage the "new-run" treatment the comic itself would later receive by applying Johnston's modern-day drawing style retroactively to the "Early Years" and "Growing Years" segments (contrast how the characters actually appeared at the time in the contemporary animated specials). Each cartoon segment was preceded by a slideshow presentation of a contemporary Sunday strip, in a similar function to the "Quickie" segments on Garfield and Friends.
  • Annoyingly Repetitive Child: Invoked in one comic. Michael plays with a spring doorstop, causing it to emit a "boing" sound. Eventually, Elly caves in and lets him watch TV.
  • Appeal to Worse Problems: Very frequently used to shut up characters' trivial complaints. Grandpa Jim uses a speech about how people are starving in third world countries to shut up his grandson Michael's Obnoxious In-Laws when they complain about him having gotten married earlier without their permission.
  • Armor-Piercing Question: When April tells Elly she has proof that Kortney threatened her for being on a chatroom when she was supposed to be working, Elly is in denial. April asks Elly, "Why do you keep defending her?" Elly weakly says she knows Kortney could do great things as an achiever. April snarks that she's already achieved being paid for doing nothing.
  • Armor-Piercing Response: When Elly is venting about her latest body issues to Anne, she tells her if she can lose ten pounds and reduce her thighs, then she’ll be happy. Anne responds with "Face it, El…you’ll never be happy."
  • Art Evolution: Leading to Lynn Johnston having to consciously imitate her earlier style for the post-2008 "new-runs".
  • Artistic License – Animal Care: In one strip, a young Elizabeth gives Farley Michael's Halloween candy (including chocolate!) Let's hope the Pattersons got him to a vet as quickly as possible, as that could make him seriously ill.
  • Artistic License – Pharmacology: Deanna's claim that she, a licensed pharmacist, didn't know switching birth control meds would leave you more fertile between cycling off the old and starting the new. (The dual result of this "oopsie" was their first child, Meredith — conception occurred on their honeymoon — and the fan theory that she deliberately did this.) This is lampshaded later when Elizabeth's friend Candace points out how unlikely it would be for a pharmacist to make such a mistake.
  • Artistic License – Law: When the Kelpfroths are revealed to be smokers, Lovey Salzman says that she can’t evict them due to the paperwork. In reality, Ontario rental laws do allow termination for smokers, especially since there’s a health risk to the two small children in the apartment.
    • In Stone Season, one of the many conflicts between protagonist Sheleigh and her abusive husband Harvey is that he refuses to let their sons go to school. However, it takes place in 1950s Saskatchewan, where compulsory education laws were put into place by that time. In reality, both parents would be jailed and the kids placed into care.
    • During Anthony’s parental leave, he does work at home for Gordon. But because he’s legally on leave, he shouldn’t be doing both paid work and receiving benefits. He would either have to return to work or have him and Gordon be investigated for fraud.
  • Artistic License – History: According to Johnston, Mira and Wilf were married in a quick ceremony in Poland before getting on a boat to Canada- in the 1960’s, when travel out of Poland was difficult and a plane would have been more likely used.
    • Michael’s book Stone Season is supposed to take place in the 1950s, but everything about it leans closer to the 1850s.
  • Attempted Rape: Of Elizabeth, by a coworker, from which Anthony rescues her. Unfortunately (especially given the strip's by-then iconic reputation for nuanced realism) Johnson initially chose to use the situation solely as a device to give Anthony a Big Damn Heroes moment to kickstart their romance. Thus an immediate aftermath that focused, not on Elizabeth struggling with her trauma or even reporting the assault to the police, but Anthony seemingly taking advantage of her vulnerability to demand she wait for him to escape his horrible marriage. When the inevitable reader backlash erupted, Johnson hastily cobbled together a followup in which Howard the rapist is arrested and tried... in which the focus is almost solely on on Anthony's chivalrous support in Liz' time of need.
  • Author Avatar: Elly Patterson. In fact, the entire Patterson family was modeled after the Johnston family, with each character's first name being the middle name of their real life counterpart — except Elly, who was named after a childhood friend of Lynn Johnston who died at a young age, and April, who was created to fulfill Johnston's desire for a third child that she never actually had.
  • Author Filibuster: The (long) series in Mtigwaki where Elly narrates about the Natives' lives; Shannon's speech about the disabled.
  • Babies Ever After: James Allen, the offspring of Anthony and Elizabeth, shown only in the final strip to make it clear to all readers that this much-discussed couple will be happy together. Not quite Dead Guy Junior, as James is born in time for his great-grandfather and namesake Jim to hold him before finally expiring.
  • Babies Make Everything Better: Played with: Anthony invokes this by pressuring Thérèse to have a child, despite her repeatedly telling him that she's not ready yet. He goes so far as to outright lie to her, promising that she can go back to work after recovering from the birth and he'll be primary caretaker, while fully expecting that once she's popped the baby out, mysterious female hormones will kick in and make her give up her career in a heartbeat for becoming a housewife. Didn't work. He flat-out admits this while recounting this to Liz later, seeing absolutely nothing wrong with this, and honestly believing that its failure means something is wrong with Thérèse, rather than him.
  • Betty and Veronica: Anthony (Betty) and Paul (Veronica) for Elizabeth (Archie).
    • Alternatively, there’s Elizabeth (Betty) and Thérèse (Veronica) for Anthony (Archie).
  • Big Friendly Dog: Farley was friendly to everyone and died saving April's life.
  • Bonding Over Dislikes: Mike and his first girlfriend Martha bonded over disliking their first names (Mike was named after a high school friend of his mom's that he's never met, Martha after an aunt). After hearing this, Martha eagerly asks what else they hate in common.
    Martha: I hate relish on hot dogs!
    Mike: Me, too.
    Martha: I hate Elvis Presley!
    Mike: Me, too!
    Martha: I hate it when they treat me like a 2-year-old when I'm old enough an' smart enough to think for myself!!!
    Mike: YEAH!!!
    Mike and Martha: [thinking] This could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship.
  • Both Sides Have a Point: While Michael and Deanna were living in their apartment, Mira kept trying to convince them to move somewhere bigger, due to not having a lot of space for themselves and their family, plus the frustrating neighbors. While she’s right about that, Deanna is right to point out that the space is fine, they like the area they live in, and it’s close to work. Plus, the only reason Mira wants them to move is so she can see them every day, which Deanna does not want.
  • Bowdlerization: In the lead-up to Michael and Deanna's wedding, Deanna's mother threw one more massive hissy fit about Michael allowing Lawrence, an openly gay man, to be his best man. However, unlike the earlier Lawrence stories, an alternative storyline was also circulated to papers that deemed their readership too sensitive to the subject that changed the fight to being concerned with a flower arrangement. Notably, both strips used the same art, simply reworking dialog slightly to make both of them work - and in the censored version, Lawrence had provided the flower arrangement, hence he remained relevant.
    • When the strip was re-ran from the beginning, any strip with Michael being spanked as a punishment was altered to have him being punished in a different way, because spanking is considered a controversial form of discipline in this day and age unlike in the 80s when the strips were originally published.
  • Brick Joke:
  • Canada Does Not Exist: The strip's Canadian setting really isn't played up, and at times deliberately obfuscated. This can result in the impression that the strip actually takes place in America, apparently in an effort to make it more relatable to American audiences. She makes a point of using American legal expressions during the trial of Howard Bunt, and avoids mentioning that Canadian Thanksgiving is in October.
  • Canada, Eh?: The strip is technically set in Canada, where the author lives, though you might not realize it because Canada Does Not Exist. The only time Johnston really played with it was when she had Michael go to post-secondary school in the mid-sized city London, Ontario, which is only about 300 kilometers west of Toronto, knowing that there would be people who would think that the boy was studying in the British city. Notably, one of her slip-ups had her portray milk being sold in plastic bags (which is only done in Ontario, Quebec, and parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin). She ended up getting an incredible number of letters over that.
    • The supplementary materials do play up the setting and name various cities and provinces in the country, however.
  • Ceiling Banger: The Kelpfroths, Mike and Deanna's downstairs neighbors in their old apartment. To the point where they eventually caused actual damage, which finally gave the landlady (who hated them as much as Mike and Deanna did) the excuse to evict them.
  • Central Theme:
    • The power of family and friends.
    • Life is not perfect but for better or for worse things will turn out fine.
  • Cerebus Syndrome: Early comics, as shown by some of the reruns Johnston has done, were gag-a-day strips with the same general range of humor as Marvin or Baby Blues. Later on, the strip developed a serious streak where the jokes would be mild to nonexistent for brief periods; for example, the coming-out story often had very gentle jokes in the last panel at best. The strip went into turnaround mode as it neared the end, ending almost every single strip in a groan-inducing bad pun, no matter how serious the content is supposed to be.
  • Cerebus Retcon: A staple of the biographies of several supporting cast members:
    • In Anthony’s early appearances as a teenager, he’s shown to be a cheerful and happy guy, if rather dorky in contrast to the rather insecure Elizabeth. But years later in his online biography, he’s shown to be a more angsty and miserable person as opposed to a more upbeat and confident Elizabeth.
    • Anne Nichol’s husband Steve was shown in the strip to be a loving husband and father despite his faults of hoarding junk and cheating. Anne’s biography has his hoarding Played for Drama and him to be a neglectful alcoholic and borderline abusive to Anne, especially in one scene where he comes dangerously close to beating her because she confronted him on staying out late.
    • Mrs. Hardarce was Michael’s Stern Teacher in Grade Four in the strip. Her biography reveals that she had dreams to be a nurse but her mother forced her to be a teacher instead. She later "achieves her dream"…by becoming the sole caregiver for her sick husband.
  • Chain of People: Elly and John do this to pull a toddler April and Farley from the river currents. Elly grabs a branch and holds onto John, who manages to catch April's hoodie.
  • Character Development: Hard to avoid in a strip that uses real-time and various characters age from childhood to adulthood. April moved from a standard goofy kid to a fairly bratty teenager, and Elizabeth went from nerdy and loud to a thoughtful young woman. A few villains later turned up having done a Heel–Face Turn. And notably, Elly used to be a fussy, angry, crabby young mother prone to outbursts, and developed into the more calm "voice of reason" of the strip, and John became a lot less of a snarky character (he used to poke fun at Elly constantly, much to her consternation).
    • Candace notably - she is pretty much held up as a deviant girl who acts out... but over the course of the college era, eventually gained a mother figure in the form of her aunt. Becky was April's best friend... then lost that status in high school... but then worked to become April's friend again once she started to mature.
    • Michael started off as a bit of a troublemaker in school — argumentative, a class clown, and a pain. Once he meets Martha at summer camp, he becomes a lot more introspective, thoughtful and sincere.
  • Characterization Marches On: In Mira's early appearances when Deanna brought Mike home to meet her parents, she was called "Eva" and was a perfectly pleasant woman with no hint of the meddlesome control freak she became.
  • Child Hater:
    • According to Johnston, Thérèse is one.
    • The Kelpfroths downstairs are implied to be this as well, since the main thing they complain about is the presence of child's toys and various other child-related items being strewn across the property. Despite this being a rather reasonable complaint in a shared living space, the strip naturally took the view that only people who loathed children would dare ask for a clean property.
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: With the size of the cast, it is perhaps inevitable that certain characters would be written out of the series. However, several simply vanished without an explanation, until rather contradictory prose accounts were written some years later. Iconic examples would be Connie's stepdaughters Molly and Gayle, who vanished without warning after two years of being the focal point of some drama. Averted with Howard, though: she tried doing this but reckoned without the fanbase who wanted to see him get his comeuppance.
    • The most egregious example of this are Anne and her family, who had been neighbors to Elly since the strip began, and her 3 kids being the focus of many story arcs (most infamously her daughter Leah being born with 6 fingers on each hand) She all but vanished from the comic after she got a job and couldn't babysit April for Elly anymore, and her kids never appeared again.
  • Cleaning Up Romantic Loose Ends: Paving the way for the eventual marriage of Liz and Anthony, Liz's boyfriend Paul cheated on her, and her on-and-off boyfriend Warren started being depicted as a manipulative, unstable quasi-stalker. Meanwhile, Anthony's bitchy Clingy Jealous Wife Thérèse left him for another person after years of (justified!) jealousy over Anthony's feelings for Liz, but her final appearance in the comic is less resolution and more of the comic making one last attempt to get the readers to hate her.
  • Comic-Book Time: Averted since the characters aged up in real time.
  • Coming-Out Story: Michael's best friend Lawrence, in a storyline that got the strip pulled from many newspapers, either temporarily or permanently.
  • The Complainer Is Always Wrong:
    • Partially inverted; Elly frequently complained and carried on about how horrible and thoughtless her family was, although their crimes weren't always as obvious as was clearly intended.
    • The Kelpfroths were horrible neighbors because they chronically complained about Michael and his family, for reasons both valid and invalid. They were also known to repeatedly violate the terms of their lease, so that the landlady could be all gleeful when she finally got an excuse to evict them.
    • April, as The Unfavorite, often had the odd opinion out and was meant to be seen as having the wrong opinion.
  • Cool Uncle: Elly's musician brother has made a few appearances and the kids just adore him. Hilarity Ensues when he attempts to take them off the parents' hands for a night and he wears himself out trying to get them to bed.
  • Cordon Bleugh Chef: A lot of the humor of the first few years of the strip was based on the family's dreading meal time owing to Elly's love of cooking stews and casseroles and insistence that they go into gastric distress to prove their love for her. Also, she was known to go on diets and force the whole family to join her.
  • Cut Himself Shaving: After the incident with Elly's new car, Gordon shows up at school with his face bandaged. He explains that he fell while taking down Christmas lights. Brian asks Mike why he's so suspicious. Mike tells him that they went to Gordon's house for Christmas and they hadn't put up any lights.
  • Cuteness Proximity: John with baby Lizzie, although he tries to deny it. Elly isn't fooled.
  • Daddy's Girl: Elizabeth to John, especially when she was little.
    • Francie is also this to Anthony.
    • Elly to Jim, moreso after Marian’s death.
  • Deadpan Snarker: John in the early days was pretty likely to just make a joke at Elly's expense when she was being particularly fussy or crabby about something. It usually went unappreciated.
  • Death by Newbery Medal: Farley's death. The old sheepdog had rescued the then-preschooler April from drowning and had suffered a severe heart attack as a result.
  • Derailing Love Interests: Pretty much any guy Liz was romantically involved with who wasn't Anthony would be revealed to be a Jerkass, cheat, or rapist, in order to make Anthony look better by comparison.
  • Description Cut: When Michael writes a story based on the Kelpfroths and it gets published in a local journal, Deanna expresses concern about them finding out. Michael brushes it off by saying that the Kelpfroths don’t read the journal and if they do, they won’t know it’s them due to Michael using fake names. Cut to the Kelpfroths doing the exact opposite.
  • Died in Your Arms Tonight: Mr. B, the family's pet rabbit, eventually dies of old age late one night in April's arms.
  • Disposable Fiancé: Perry, Deanna’s unseen first fiancé is a classic Bland Perfection example: he’s never seen in the strip, his only trait is that he’s rich and successful and Mira practically arranged for him to marry Deanna. Naturally, Deanna dumps him without a thought after bonding with Michael.
    • Thérèse is considered to be an Evil All Along version by Johnston.
  • Disappeared Dad: Lawrence's father wasn't shown in the comics for most of its run. At first readers likely assumed he was his mom's ex-husband Pete. It turned out this wasn't true however. His father came from Brazil, but went back there before he was born. Much later, this was expanded on. Lawrence revealed that he tracked his father down on finding out he was visiting the US, and they finally met. It turned out his parents had been in a very brief relationship when they both worked at a medical relief mission in Central America. While his parents had planned after this to meet up in Canada, his father never arrived. Lawrence learned he had two half-brothers from a later marriage his father had. Lawrence's father apologized for never contacting him or his mother, and it seemed they were going to build a relationship. However, he was not shown again or mentioned.
    • Jeremy Jones’s father is a traveling musician and rarely around. This causes him to lash out at people, especially April, who was beginning to show some musical talent.
  • The Diss Track: April Patterson composed a ditty aimed at her schoolmate antagonist. "Wormy, Germy Jeremy Jones" gains traction among April's classmates, and annoys Jeremy enough to sic the principal on April.
  • The Dog Bites Back: Kortney threatens April for finding her on a chatroom during work hours at Elly's business. Later, April helps Moira gather the evidence that Kortney was stealing from them, reports her to the police, and breaks the news to her mother with a sad I Told You So after Moira fires Kortney.
  • Dreaded Kids' Table: In the final Christmas strip, April is made to sit in the kitchen with Françoise, Meredith and Robin despite her being in her late teens. It’s explicitly stated that she was sent to babysit.
  • Dress Code: April finds a loophole in her school's uniform dress code when she notes that knee length socks are compulsory, but that it does not specify colour. She proceeds to buy the brightest rainbow striped socks she can find.
  • Dropped in the Toilet: After graduating college, Michael Patterson took home Naked Ned, a novelty of a naked man with suction cups on its hands and feet. Mike and his wife Deanna have a daughter, Meredith. Meredith got hold of Ned, and threw him into the commode, flushing it away. Both Mike and his college roommate, Joe Weeder, were saddened at the loss of Ned. However, Ned managed to clog the sewer lines enough the necessitate a plumber, who retrieved Ned from the drainage pipe. Joe Weeder took possession of Ned to preclude Meredith from imperiling him again.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending:
    • Candace endured years of poverty and cruel treatment before finally getting a loving boyfriend, entering a common law marriage with him and thriving in Toronto.
    • For what it's worth, April as an adult pursues a career as a vet, marries long after the fact, and moves away from her family.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: The strip’s first few years were more of a Deconstruction of the domestic family strip and in a gag a day format instead of story arcs. The aging in real time concept wouldn’t start until 1981.
  • Embarrassing Nickname: As kids, Michael used to refer his sister Elizabeth as 'Lizard Breath'. He would sometimes do it as an adult when he wanted to annoy her.
  • Evil Counterpart:
    • Mira, Michael's mother-in-law, is one for Elly due to Mira being a control freak and antagonizing the Patterson family.
    • Thérèse is supposed to be one for Elizabeth due to wanting a career and being more sophisticated, but readers sympathized with her.
  • Extra Digits: The Pattersons' neighbor Anne Nichols has three children. The youngest, Leah, was born with six fingers on both hands. Anne has the extra fingers surgically removed shortly after birth.
  • Face Death with Dignity: When Grandma Marian, Grandpa's first wife, is dying of heart complications, she's completely calm about it and accepts that her time has come. She even manages to joke about it.
  • Felony Misdemeanor: One example had Elly throwing a fit about her horrible spawn April and prompted John to loom ominously over his youngest daughter, implying he intended to beat her if she didn't immediately come down and apologize to her mother. The "crime" was that April wanted to finish her homework and skip dinner.
  • First Girl Wins: Both Liz and Michael end up marrying their elementary school sweethearts.
  • Flanderization: Pretty much everyone in the last few years of the strip gets boiled down to basic personally traits.
  • Five-Finger Discount: Michael shoplifts a scarf for his mother in an early strip. He doesn't get caught, but he feels guilty and returns it to the store - and this time he IS caught (but doesn't get in any real trouble).
  • Flowery Elizabethan English: Someone who steals the door of Michael's dorm room talks like this when Michael asks where his door is. His speech bubbles even have flowers in them.
  • Foil: In Anthony’s backstory, his mother Hanneke and stepmother Clarice behave a lot like Thérèse and Elizabeth. The former is a career woman from another culture (The Dutch model Hanneke and the French-Canadian Thérèse who works in finance), both hate housework and child rearing with a lack of support from their husbands and later become Missing Mom to Anthony and Françoise. The latter is a woman who grew up in Milborough and has an "acceptable" job (Receptionist Clarice and elementary school teacher Elizabeth) and wants to be a wife and mother more than anything. Take a guess who’s considered to be the bad guy.
  • Free-Range Children: All of the kids constantly go around the neighborhood unsupervised, even at very young ages.
  • Freudian Excuse: Anthony’s backstory implies that his issues with his parents and stepmother are the source of some of his actions later in the strip.
  • Fun with Flushing: April flushed something, probably a toy boat, down the toilet when she was a toddler. It was the punchline of a strip where they define the word "goomby" or something similar (that's what April says upon flushing it; rhymes with "good-bye"). The following strip shows the father with a plunger, and eventually picking the commode up off the base, saying "Whoever called that thing a convenience never had small children!"
    • Meredith as a toddler flushed the Naked Ned doll down the toilet, which becomes a Brick Joke a few years later when Michael finds it after the family's toilet needs to be fixed (Robin clogged the toilet by flushing a sock down it)
  • Generation Xerox: Michael's family life is exceptionally similar to that of his own parents, with him eventually moving into their house with his similarly-made-up brood. Also one of the major criticisms of Elizabeth's relationship with Anthony: Elizabeth eagerly shed teaching school amid a different culture in exchange for settling down to be as much like her homebody parents as possible.
  • The Ghost: Anthony’s family was never seen in the strip, not even at both of his weddings.
  • Good Adultery, Bad Adultery: In a nutshell, the situation with Elizabeth, Anthony and Thérèse:
    • When Anthony emotionally cheats on Thérèse with Elizabeth during his entire engagement and marriage and Elizabeth leads Eric, Paul and Warren on, it’s portrayed as Starcrossed Lovers and romantic.
    • When Thérèse cheats on Anthony with another man, it’s treated as a major betrayal and the reason why their marriage ended. On Elizabeth’s end, when Eric cheats and Paul breaks up their long distance relationship, they’re both shown to be the bad guys in the relationship and not deserving of Elizabeth.
  • Grand Finale: The final installment was published August 31, 2008, and revealed what became of the main characters in future years:
    • Main protagonists Elly and John retire to travel, volunteer in the community, and help raise their four grandchildren.
    • The Pattersons' son and oldest child, Michael, an author, has four books published and later realizes a lifelong dream with the signing of a film contract. Deanna opens a sewing school and teaches Robin how to cook. Meredith enters dance and theater.
    • Older daughter Elizabeth, who has married longtime boyfriend Anthony Caine, continues to teach. She and Anthony have a child, James Allen, presumably named in honor of his great-grandfather Jim Richards. Anthony manages Mayes Motors and its various related businesses, introduces Elizabeth to ballroom dancing, and hopes to eventually open a bed-and-breakfast.
    • The younger daughter, April — presumably graduating from high school in 2009 — enters college (at an unnamed university) and eventually earns a degree in veterinary medicine. Following her established love of horses, she gets a job with the Calgary Stampede. She eventually establishes herself in western Canada, where she meets her boyfriend.
    • Family patriarch James Richards ("Grandpa Jim," Elly's father), a widower who had suffered a stroke earlier in the 2000s that left him unable to talk or care for himself, lives to welcome the birth of his fourth great grandson James Allen. In early 2010, at age 89, Jim — who had other health issues late in his life, including several heart attacks — dies peacefully in his sleep, his second wife, Iris (who had been his caretaker) at his side.
  • Hate Sink: Lynn Johnston tried to do this, bless her heart, with Anthony's shrewish, self-centered ex-wife Thérèse, who was intended to be seen as a icy-hearted, spiteful, and vindictive witch so that readers wouldn't feel bad about Anthony cheating on her. Unfortunately, it didn't quite work out that way, since most of her "hateful" behavior towards Liz and Anthony stemmed from things like 1) not wanting to have a child, 2) not wanting to give up her job and become the sole caretaker for said unwanted child, 3) being angry at Anthony when he went back on his word that she wouldn't be the sole caretaker for said unwanted child, and 4) getting angry at him because she thought he was cheating on her...which he was. And yet readers were basically expected to take the other characters' word that Thérèse was a demoness bride of Hitler.
  • Heroic Dog:
    • Farley suffers a fatal heart attack while rescuing April from drowning in a river. John calls him a good boy.
    • Edgar also counts. While that was happening, he went back home and barked at Elly and John to come help. Then Edgar led them to the river where April and Farley were drifting and stood watch.
  • Hereditary Wedding Dress: During the planning of Elizabeth's wedding to Anthony in For Better or for Worse, Liz's sister-in-law Deanna just happened to find her late grandmother Marian’s wedding dress in a crawlspace in the house Mike inherited from his parents, and naturally the Pattersons insisted Liz wore it by having Deanna talk Elizabeth into it as her reaction to the engagement, not giving Liz any time to think about it or if she wanted her own dress. At least they had it cleaned first. Deanna altered it to the point where it looked like a different dress entirely, resulting in a fan theory that the dress realistically fell apart after years of being shoved in a cardboard box in a moldy crawl space and Elizabeth and Deanna secretly bought a dress and passed it off as her grandmother’s.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Farley was old, and his heart was weak. He spent the last few minutes of his life rescuing April from drowning.
  • High-School Sweethearts:
    • Liz and Anthony, Gordon and Tracey, plus elementary school sweethearts Mike and Deanna. In fact, a running mockery of the strip has become that everyone in the Foobiverse must marry the first non-related person of the opposite sex they meet. The last non-"new-run" strips reveal that April moved to the other side of the country and hooked up with an unnamed "country boy", a fact which elicited cheers; the readers just wanted to see one Patterson kid escape the web.
    • Supplementary material make this apply to Anthony... with Thérèse! They knew each other as kids (even younger than when Elizabeth met Anthony) thanks to their father's long-standing business ties.
  • Hopeless Suitor: Gordon to Allyson Creedmore during his high school years.
  • Housewife: Elly Patterson, and seen as the "natural role" of women in the strip, despite Elly hating the job.
  • House Fire: The December 2006 story arc where Michael, Deanna and their children are forced from their duplex home due to a fire in the downstairs unit (caused by the occupant smoking in bed).
  • Hypocritical Humour: A staple, especially in the strips involving Elly's parenting or home-making skills.
    • One week-long arc had Elly and John flipping out when April wanted to skip eating dinner with them and finish up her homework. After being forced to apologize and join them, Elly lectures about how mealtimes are for them spending time as a family and discussing their day. Cue both parents completely ignoring their daughter after dragging her back into her place.
    • One strip had Elly having a conversation with one of her friends about how she loves being a mother and she is always there whenever her children need her, during the entire conversation a five year old Elizabeth repeatedly tries to get her attention, eventually Elly yells back at her "Will you please get lost, I'm trying to have a conversation here!".
  • Idiot Ball: Michael picked up a huge one when he left Deanna to get their two young children out of the apartment alone during a fire, while he rushed back up to his "writing room" to collect the laptop containing his freshly completed first novel. Even published writers who were fans of the strip criticized this. (Adding exponentially to the surreality, Johnston later admitted she was using the laptop in this story simply as an update for "paper manuscript" and thus hadn't considered backups, the fact that Mike had emailed his mother a copy, etc.)
    • Becky once wore a midriff baring top to show off her belly button ring…in winter.
    • In the beginning of the "Storm In April" special, Elly takes a toddler April to the library and places her at a table and expects her to sit quietly. It goes about as well as you’d expect, and Elly blames April.
  • I Just Write the Thing: Johnston has alluded to this in the form of "The Characters Said So", although it may just be trying to deflect criticism.
  • Illness Blanket: In one strip, Elly gets sick and lies on the coach wrapped in a blanket.
  • Impossible Leavening: Elly's attempt to hide a large mass of dough she'd added too much yeast to is foiled when it starts exploding out of the trash can as John comes home.
  • Informed Ability: Michael's writing "genius", when shown excerpts of his writing are generally regarded as cliché at best or junk at worst; Anthony's positive traits and suitability as a husband as related by everyone Elizabeth knows.
    • Deanna was supposed to be a skilled pharmacist, but she made an easy mistake with contraceptives that resulted in Meredith and then her job was downplayed to the point where she was essentially a homemaker.
  • Informed Flaw:
    • Anthony's ex-wife Thérèse is given a myriad of informed flaws. She rarely appears in the strip proper, so for the most part we have only Anthony's point of view and the local gossips to provide us with these "facts". The only times we see her acting on any of them are fairly mild and sometimes even justified (i.e. her jealous suspicions that her husband was still obsessed with Liz).
    • April is supposedly a rebellious teenager, yet is only occasionally shown talking back to her parents. Note that in the strip's eyes, things like deciding to skip dinner to focus on finishing her homework, insisting that somebody is stealing from her mother's store and abusing her trust, and reminding them of promises they've completely broken all count as being "defiant". She's at least vindicated when Kortney is fired, after she helps Moira gather the evidence.
  • Innocent Awkward Question: In one strip, Michael asks his dad what sex is. After awkwardly stumbling through the "male and female biological sexes" definition, Michael laughs at him and says it's the number between five and seven.
  • Innocent Swearing: April does this at one point.
  • Inspirationally Disadvantaged: Shannon, who despite her speech impediments apparently had no flaws and made inspirational speeches at the drop of a hat.
  • Instant Book Deal: Michael, pretty much once he decides on this as a career.
    • Lynn Johnston had this happen to her pretty much IRL. On the strength of some cartoons she drew for an ObGyn office ceiling (reprinted into two books) Universal Press Syndicate asked her to do a daily strip and signed her to a 20 year contract. It's thought this is why she thinks it so easy to get one.
  • Irony: The main reason why Deanna refused Mira’s offers to move out of the apartment she and Michael lived in was that Mira kept suggesting a place close enough to her to see them every day. Later, she happily moves into the old Patterson house…where Elly can see them every day.
  • It's All My Fault: April thinks this as a toddler after Farley dies saving her. She lies awake at night, wishing that she hadn't gone out to the river.
  • Jerkass Has a Point:
    • Patterson Family Enemy Number One Thérèse would be a lot less sympathetic for jealously accusing her husband of still neglecting her because he's obsessed with another woman...were those "suspicions" not completely accurate.
    • John’s distant cousin Fiona Brass is crass, lazy and a con artist. But she’s right that John and Elly were too trusting of someone they barely knew to help them with a baby and that Michael and Elizabeth are rather sheltered and naive.
    • Brad Luggsworth as a kid was a bully, but he wasn’t wrong that Michael and his family were unaware of their middle class privileges.
    • While she went WAY too far by banging pots and pans and then starting a fight with the Kelpfroths, Mira was right about them going too far with their ceiling banging when they lived below a family with 2 small children (and it's implied to have caused damage to the ceiling). Not to mention that they do it every time the Pattersons make any noise, even if it’s a toilet flushing or playing mostly quietly, which makes the Kelpfroths overzealous and sensitive.
  • Kids Hate Vegetables: Elizabeth has a serving of peas on her plate, and her mother insists that she eat them. After much protest and negotiating, Elizabeth appears to get the peas off her plate. It's not until Elly clears away the dinner dishes that she discovers Elizabeth had hidden her peas under the plate's rim.
  • Lack of Empathy: The Pattersons are frequently accused of this, due to Protagonist-Centered Morality. Perhaps best illustrated by Michael when he witnessed a car accident; unlike his friend Weed, who wanted to help, Michael was more interested in snapping photos of the wreck for an exclusive story, and became outraged when police shooed him off. He only briefly regretted his actions upon learning his childhood crush Deanna was in one of the cars; this did not, however, stop him from insisting that the accident was "fate bringing them back together".
  • Laser-Guided Karma: Elly gets some with how she treated Kortney. April reports to Elly, with Grandpa Jim backing her up, that Kortney threatened to knock her teeth out for catching her on an adult chatroom. Elly remains in denial and decides to give Kortney a second chance. She finds out several months later that Kortney was stealing from her on a regular basis, including the model trains on display. Fittingly, April helped Moira uncover the evidence and deliver the I Told You So to her mother.
  • Lecherous Stepparent: According to the supplementary materials, Candace has one who repeatedly attempted to assault her or make blatant passes at her. To make matters worse, her mother knew, but cared more about having a man in her life than her daughter’s safety. This resulted in Candace disowning them both and staying away from them.
  • Life Embellished:
    • April was created because Johnston wanted to have another child but wound up not actually doing so.
    • Michael and Elizabeth's eventual marriages came despite Johnston's own children having yet to "settle down" at the time.
  • Like Is, Like, a Comma: Teenaged April, like, speaks like this, like, often.
  • Like Parent, Like Spouse: Anthony was often compared to John, by other characters and John himself. Naturally, this is why he was the perfect man for Liz.
  • Limited Wardrobe: Usually played straight, but for awhile, as the plots became more complicated, the characters' outfits started to get more complicated and varied. By the end of the strip, however, everyone, men and women, appeared to just wear a t-shirt and pants outside of special occasions.
  • Locked in the Bathroom: Lizzie locked herself in the bathroom once when she was very young.
  • "London, England" Syndrome: When readers learned that Michael was heading to a university in London, several naturally thought he was going to London, England, and not the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. Lynn herself said that this was deliberate to get this kind of response.
  • Lonely Rich Kid: Michael's friend Weed, Anthony in his backstory.
  • Lost Wedding Ring: Liz once lost Deanna's engagement ring while trying it on.
  • Malaproper: Came up from time to time when the kids were small children, such as Elizabeth saying "goof bumps" instead of "goose bumps"
    • One strip has 2 year old Meredith helping Michael set the table, and mispronouncing the names of all the utensils. Michael loses it when she pronounces "salt and pepper" as "fault and pecker".
  • Lower-Class Lout: Quite a few in the supplementary materials: Fiona, Gordon’s parents, Brad’s father…
  • Manipulative Bastard: Emotional blackmail of the most repulsive sort is a recurring theme in the strip; most of the time, it involves a parent tricking a child into acting against his or her own best interests by subjecting him or her to a logical fallacy that has as its basis the belief that willingly inconveniencing yourself is the only way to be a good child.
  • Maternally Challenged: Thérèse has no real desire for a child, and only agrees to have one when Anthony promises he'll feed it and clean up after it and everything while she resumes her career — while secretly hoping all the while that pregnancy will cause some sort of maternal instinct to kick in. When it doesn't, this is shamelessly used to clear Anthony's moral path to the much more conventionally-minded Elizabeth.
  • Misery Lit: Michael’s first book, Stone Season is this: Loosely Based On A True Story from his college landlady about a young British woman who marries a Canadian solider right after WW2 and ends up in an unhappy and abusive relationship in a failing remote farm, slaving away along with her children for years until he drinks himself to death. It’s a smash hit in the strip, but many readers thought it was over the top.
  • Mistaken for Racist: Elly in one strip thinks Mike is going to comment on the new neighbours' (Japanese) ethnicity and shushs him, but he surprises her when he says "They're MY age!"
  • Mood Whiplash: Mr. B’s death was an emotional and heartbreaking arc as April watched her bunny decline and die…until it ended with Black Comedy with Elly placing the body in the freezer before burial.
  • Momma's Boy: Ted.
    • Michael has some shades of this, especially when he let Elly edit Stone Season.
  • My Girl Is Not a Slut: The only teenage female character who has pre-marital sex is the "roadside hands-on gig" Becky, who gets demonized for it.
  • My Hair Came Out Green: Liz goes for a dye job, and apparently her hair ends up bright purple.
  • My Own Private "I Do": Michael and Deanna secretly married before moving in together. Later, his mother-in-law Mira got to plan a big, fancy wedding for them, while Mike, Deanna, and everyone else let in on the secret mocked her behind her back, making light of all the fuss. Mira went way over the top with her control-freak tendencies where the wedding was concerned. When Michael and Deanna are having the conversation that leads to the private ceremony, Deanna reveals that she was engaged once before, and she accepted his proposal solely because of her mother's insistence. If you read the 'between strips notes' in some of the collections, Deanna's older sister ran off and eloped with her fiancee in the middle of the wedding plans solely because of Mira's Bridezilla-ness; Mira refused to speak to her older daughter for years because of it. It's pretty obvious that Mira really, really wants to plan and execute a fancy wedding, to make up for the five-minute ceremony she had.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: When Lawrence comes out to his mother and step-father, the latter reacts by throwing him out of the house, much to Connie's shock and horror. A couple of hours later, Greg is hit with a lot of regret, and the next day he welcomes his stepson back promising to respect his sexual orientation.
  • Naked People Are Funny: Lynn Johnston loved showing the toddler aged characters (especially April) run around or play naked from time to time.
  • Never My Fault: In 2004, Kortney Krelbutz, the assistant at Elly's bookstore, is discovered to have been stealing items from the store and forging checks and charity letters to cover them up, resulting in Moira firing her while Elly's on vacation in Mexico. Kortney retaliates by attempting to sue them for wrongful dismissal, but the lawsuit is quickly thrown out, especially once the cops discover that she assisted in the robbery of a model train in the store a couple of years ago.
  • New Baby Episode: Almost every single married couple in the strip has at least one child, many of their births shown in the strip:
    • Leah Nichols in July of 1986.
    • April Patterson in April of 1991.
    • Paul Mayes in April of 1997.
    • Rosemary Mayes in April of 1999.
    • Meredith Patterson in October of 2002.
    • Robin Patterson in November of 2004.
    • Françoise Caine in March of 2005.
  • No Periods, Period: Despite both Elizabeth and April going through puberty, they are never shown getting their first periods or discussing anything related to menstruation.
    • There is one strip where April and Liz are catching up after not having seen each other for a few months, and April, who's at a plausible age of menarche, mentions she "started my you-know-what".
  • Not Wanting Kids Is Weird: Much of the story of Thérèse and Anthony's marriage was communicated to readers via a week of New Year’s party bathroom gossip, with a group of young women clucking over how awful Thérèse was for having a job and not wanting a baby. See also Babies Make Everything Better above.
  • Obnoxious In-Laws: Mira Sobinski, Deanna’s mother and Michael’s mother in law is an annoying busybody who walks over everyone and bosses them around, to the point where Deanna’s sister moved with her family clear across the country to Halifax and Deanna and Michael eloped (although they did later have a formal wedding). It wasn’t until she berated the couple for having a small apartment while they had just had their second child and Deanna was recovering from a C-Section that her mild mattered husband Wilf told her to shut up and Michael kicked her out of the house, although she never really apologized or became nicer. The final straw was when she intentionally caused a ruckus with their downstairs neighbors, after complaining about their ceiling banging (which they were doing less frequently) After this arc she only made spordaic appearances in the strip, only doing mildly inconvienient things like giving Meredith and Robin too many stickers which they put all over themselves and the house, and giving Meredith, Robin, and Francie candy when their parents are trying to calm them down (they were excited about Elizabeth's wedding)
    • During Ted’s marriage to Irene, his mother was judgmental and would regularly come over and criticize her. This resulted in Irene divorcing Ted after only six months.
  • Oh, Crap!: While Elly is pregnant with April, Elizabeth and Michael are discussing the new baby. Elizabeth says she hopes it's a girl, and very much to her surprise, Michael says, "Me too, then I won't have to share my room." Elizabeth's non-verbal reaction is the very epitome of this, as she realizes she WILL have to share her room if it's a girl.
  • Older Than They Look: Anthony without his mustache looks almost exactly how he did when he was in high school.
  • Only Sane Man: April at times, who doesn't have her family's lack of empathy, marries someone who is not a childhood sweetheart, and is pretty much supposed to be Lynn's Butt-Monkey...
  • Out of Focus: John, in the later years.
  • Overreacting Airport Security: The family gets in trouble when the kids play with toy ray guns, which no one in their right mind would confuse for real weapons. Luckily, a more reasonable security officer defuses the situationnote .
  • Papa Wolf: Grandpa Jim gets angry when April tells him that Elly's new hire threatened her for finding her on an online website. He says it's good April told him, and they both notify her mother. Grandpa Jim is not happy when Elly remains in denial. It says something that John agrees with his father-in-law and tells Elly that she needs to fire Kortney.
  • Parental Substitute:
    • Ruby became a mother figure to Candace after her relationship with her own mother fell apart.
    • There’s subtext that Anthony sees John as a father figure.
    • Until his decline, Jim was implied to be this to April.
  • Plagiarism in Fiction: When Becky starts falling behind on schoolwork, she asks April for a copy of her upcoming book report. April does a variation; she gives Becky the outline for her book report because she doesn't want to get busted. It turns out even with that, Becky is still failing.
  • Playing Pictionary: One strip has young Elizabeth showing her father a painting after a day of preschool. Her dad starts to comment on what a nice face it is — until Elizabeth interrupts to tell him that it's just a pizza.
  • Please Wake Up: Liz and John try to rouse Farley after he's saved April and has fallen asleep from the ordeal. Only he's not waking up, and he's not breathing. They wrap Farley in a blanket, take him to the vet, who says the dog's heart stopped from the river's cold water. John said he knew Farley was old, but thought his heart would beat forever.
  • Protagonist-Centered Morality: By definition, the Pattersons are their creator's mouthpieces... which becomes a serious problem when their creator needs to work out issues. Over time, a distinct "if you're not with the Pattersons, you're against them" theme emerged. Lynn Johnson was on the record as firmly believing in the "not a Patter', don't matter" school of thought, to the extent that she was actually surprised that readers wanted to see Howard convicted for "going after" Elizabeth, because hey, he wasn't going to bother the Pattersons again, so who cares about any other people he might go after?
  • Pungeon Master: Almost every punchline is a horrible pun like this. Grandpa Jim can't even speak much and is close to death, and he STILL makes puns in his head.
  • Race Lift: Whether Shawna-Marie is white or black depends on which strip you read.
  • Rail Enthusiast: John, who became so obsessed with this in the declining years of the strip that it moved him Out of Focus.
  • Rape as Drama: The "going after". Lynn later stated that she was surprised that readers actually wanted to see Howard punished — the attack had been his only role in the story, and she saw nothing wrong with simply letting him leave afterward, as who cared about what he might do afterward so long as he didn't bother the Pattersons again? The arc and its fallout resulted in criticism from fans and sexual assault survivors due to it being used to shill Anthony and sweeping aside Elizabeth’s trauma.
  • Rape Portrayed as Redemption: While she was "merely gone after", Elizabeth's Near-Rape Experience had uncomfortable undertones of this, as it was used to drive her back home into the smothering care of her parents until Anthony was "on the market" again.
  • Real Life Writes the Plot: A lot of cases (the family was based off of Lynn's), but often averted, which often provoked surprise from people, who assumed they knew a lot about the "lives behind the lines":
    • Rod Johnston is actually a dentist with a love for model trains (he actually had a ride-able scale model built around the family home). But Lynn carefully points out in some of the commentary that "Rod would never say this" if John says something particularly hurtful — she was creating conflict for the strip.
    • Averted in cases like Michael's. His basis (Lynn's young son) was occasionally scolded by complete strangers for being "such a handful", when he was a lot calmer in real life than Michael was. He also did not grow up to be a reporter nor a writer — he jokes in one documentary that his mom basically suggested he become a reporter, and when he declined to follow her advice, she simply wrote that trait into Michael.
    • Lynn Johnston desperately wanted grandchildren, and her kids at the time had none. And so Michael had two, and Elizabeth very quickly became a lot more family-oriented, and was revealed to have given birth in the final strip (her basis finally did breed, to Lynn's joy).
    • Played straight examples include Lynn's son seeing a car crash, then discovering that the victim was someone he knew, Lynn's desire for another child (but unwillingness to actually go through the physical struggle yet again) resulting in the birth of April in the comic, and numerous real-life arguments, comments and jokes said by people Lynn knew (such as the time Michael said "don't get your panties in a bunch" to his own mother).
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: Moira is this when helping Elly run the bookstore. She suspects Kortney Krelbutz, their new employee, of stealing. Kortney finds ways to cover up with forged letters and checks, and smirks at Moira when Elly absolves her. So Moira waits until she has evidence, and fires Kortney while Elly is away. Then she presents the proof to Elly, telling her while it's good to be nice, sometimes you need to trust your instincts and follow up on seemingly perfect cover stories. As Elly starts to cry Tears of Remorse, Moira tells April to give her mother some alone time, knowing this is a hard pill to swallow.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Grandpa Jim gives himself one after realizing that he's been wallowing in self-pity over his limitations that have come with age, then concludes by mentally noting that it's always good to give a speech like that to someone you don't like.
  • Romantic False Lead: Mason and Julia, thrown in at the last minute to (rather unsuccessfully) add suspense as to whether Liz and Anthony would finally hook up. They were dates to Shawna-Marie’s wedding and they were both ditched during the reception (Mason getting drunk to boot).
  • Romantic Runner-Up: Anthony. Or, at any rate, he seems like he should be one of these, and the strip's insistence on making him Elizabeth's "man of destiny" regardless of this goes a long way toward explaining the extreme antipathy he inspires in the readership.
  • Satellite Love Interest: Tracey doesn’t have much characterization outside of being Gordon’s wife, business partner and mother of Paul and Rosemary.
  • Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: Grandpa Jim
  • Self-Serving Memory: The reason for the Patterson's inability to learn from their past; Elly, for instance, honestly believes that she was a loving, firm, fair and calm parent, when in fact she was none of those things.
  • Self-Inflicted Hell: Elly constantly complains about how nobody ever helps her with the chores... but berates anyone who tries because they're "doing everything wrong". She uses passive-aggressiveness on her husband, then laments that he never gets the message; wobbles and wrings her hands over punishing her children for misbehaving, then whines that she simply doesn't understand how they could be so rowdy. The later years imply that Deanna is drifting towards this trope as well.
  • Sent Off to Work for Relatives: This became a regular event as Michael, Elizabeth and later April became teenagers:
    • Michael is sent to live with his aunt Beverly and uncle Dan, John's sister and brother-in-law, beginning Tuesday 27 June 1991. John grew up on a farm, so he believes his kids should have the same life experience. Michael is initially reluctant, but warms to the farm over the summer. He returns a second time.
    • Elizabeth is sent there beginning on Wednesday 17 July 1996. She starts out gloomy, but the place grows on her. Her trip also results in her buying Mr. B at an auction.
    • April spends three summers at the farm in 2005, 2006 and 2007. She enjoys it the most, due to her already being an animal lover.
  • Series Continuity Error: A common accusation leveled at the author, over everything from basic fact-checking to apparently being unable to keep elements of her own strip straight, causing character ages, appearances, personalities and even names to flux wildly, particularly in the last few years. She has on occasion openly admitted that her readers keep better track of her continuity than she can be bothered to.
  • She Is All Grown Up: Elizabeth, on her wedding day.
  • Shipper on Deck: Everyone for Liz and Anthony, except April.
  • Shout-Out:
    • April and her friends watch Chicken Run at her 10th birthday sleepover.
    • At Elizabeth's second birthday party she carries around a Magilla Gorilla doll.
  • Shown Their Work:
    • In the Animated Adaptation when Michael is working at a hot dog stand, his boss explains to him that, out of a pack of six hot dogs being sold, only the sixth sale generates profit. All the rest go to overhead. Granted, this really isn't something that only a business major would know, but it actually is nice to see someone explain that not every sale of something equals profit, especially in an animated show.
    • Another example in the strip itself, when Michael goes on a business trip to Japan. At one point, Michael is writing his article in the hotel bar, and can happily type away because everyone's surrounding conversation is just white noise to him. The Japanese-speaking people around him have dialogue bubbles filled with kanji; according to Johnston, she wrote the 'small talk' of all the people in English, then consulted with a Japanese friend to translate them properly. Those who know kanji have confirmed that all of this actually does read as real, sensible phrases, rather than random kanji strung together.
  • Skewed Priorities: Played for Drama; while John had a legitimate excuse to not talk to toddler April because he was on the phone, Elly was more focused on showing vacation photos as April was asking if she could play outside. She goes Oh, Crap! when Edgar leads her to the riverbanks, where Farley is keeping April from drowning.
  • Sleeps with Both Eyes Open: One issue has Michael fall asleep and start snoring in class with his eyes wide open after studying all night.
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: Goes back and forth, but in the long run its probably aiming more on the idealistic end due to its amount of heart and themes.
  • Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome: Lynn Johnston's notorious inability to remember the ages of her characters led to interesting things like Mike's one year older friend Gordon (with spouse Tracey) aging from their twenties to their sixties in the space of a few years, then being in their 30s in their final appearance. Also occurs with Anthony's two-year-old daughter Francie, who speaks and looks like an exceptionally articulate ten-year-old, and Liz's student Jesse who transforms from an adorable seven-year-old tyke to tall and teenaged in the space of only three years. (Johnston later admitted in interviews that she'd just decide to change the way a character is depicted sometimes, leading to some abrupt shifts in age and appearance.)
  • Speechbubbles Interruption
  • Stalker with a Crush: Liz's coworker Howard Bunt, whose obsession eventually culminates in the Attempted Rape mentioned above.
  • Stalking is Love: At least when Anthony does it!
  • Straight Gay: Michael's childhood best friend Lawrence, who came out in a series of dramatic strips.
  • Straying Baby: Portrayed realistically. When April was a toddler, she wandered into the background and opened the gate that led to the nearby river. She had asked her parents she could go outside, and they were too busy to pay attention to her. She then fell into the river and went under while calling for her mother. Farley dives in and grabs April's hoodie, keeping her head above the water, just as Elly and John realize they can't find April and see the duo fighting the currents after Edgar leads them there. They manage to pull out April and Farley doing an impromptu Chain of People, with April apologizing for nearly dying. Liz comes, checking on her little sister...and notices Farley has collapsed. He died from the cold water giving him shock.
  • Stating the Simple Solution: Mentioned by April after Michael and Deanna's apartment burns down; since their neighbor is selling the house next door, they could buy it and move in with his money from the book deal; sure it's smaller, but it can definitely hold four people. Michael and Deanna veto this.
  • Straw Feminist:
    • Thérèse.
    • Connie originally was this in the earliest strips. According to Johnson this was so Elly could have a nemesis, but she became more sympathetic over the years.
  • Strip Archive: All the strips, even ones that were never put into collections, are now available for free on the strip's website. They have put a block over strips that are due to be reprinted in the near future, however, along with a line about "Not spoiling the surprise".
  • Sudden School Uniform: The unnamed public high school institutes uniforms sometime between when Elizabeth graduated and when April started. John and Elly note to each other the additional expense in the strip.
  • Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
    • Mentioned with April's career plans. April likes playing in 4 Eva — later 4 Eva and Eva — but she doesn't want it to be her dream job. She tells Gerald that being a musician would consume her life, the way it turned Becka into a domineering Alpha Bitch. Thus, the band is just a hobby. She becomes a veterinarian in adulthood instead, a much more financially stable job and also in line with her love of animals.
    • One of Elly's employees, Kortney, is slacking off at work. She threatens April for finding her on a chatroom during store hours; Elly is in denial and can't bring herself to fire Kortney, even when her own husband advises it. She believes that if she just treats Kortney nicely, the lady will become better as an achiever. April snarkily says that the lady has already achieved doing nothing while getting paid. Sure enough, Kortney starts stealing inventory and covering it up with Blatant Lies about them being donations to the local church, using stolen checks and a Forged Letter. Moira, Elly's second-in-command, eventually takes the initiative to fire Kortney when she and April find that evidence and Elly is on vacation. She tells Elly gently that Kortney didn't appreciate having a good boss like Elly and was taking advantage of her.
    • A lot of Thérèse's behavior is exactly what you expect from someone who’s being forced into a life they don’t want: She was convinced to have a baby and be a wife in the suburbs, Anthony lied to her about being the primary caregiver in hopes she would be magically compelled to be a Housewife after the birth of their daughter, never got help for her PPD and was essentially a replacement for the woman her husband really loved. So it’s no surprise that she cheats on Anthony and walks away from it all.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute:
    • Edgar the dog, for Farley (his dad). He has his father's heroic spirit.
    • It seems that Lynn had originally planned to pair Liz off with Christopher Nichols; when she placed his family under embargo because of his parents' marital problems, she created a look-alike with freckles and eyeglasses: Anthony.
  • Take That!: The "new runs" seem to be one long series of these toward her now ex husband.
  • Tempting Fate: April as a toddler took Farley and Edgar outside with her after asking "someone" (herself in the mirror) if she can go to play. She reassured Farley that he would be safe with her. Farley ended up saving her life when April fell in the river.
  • That Came Out Wrong: When April, having a guitar malfunction in a concert, complains that "(her) G-string broke". Two men who overhear find it hilarious.
  • There Are No Therapists: Despite multiple traumas faced by the cast (John and Phil nearly dying on a camping trip gone wrong, April nearly drowning, Elly watching her mother die and father’s physical health decline, Elizabeth’s sexual assault, Michael and his family losing their home in a fire, Françoise being abandoned by her mother), nobody is ever seen going to a therapist. The one exception is Thérèse in the supplemental stories going to therapy for her PPD and issues with Anthony and her parents, and she’s naturally in the wrong for it.
  • Timmy in a Well: While Farley dives into the river to save April as a toddler, Edgar runs back home and barks at Elly and John, refusing to come inside and leading them to the rapids.
  • Title Drop: In the second to last strip, Iris tells Elizabeth the promise she made with her husband defines her "for better or for worse".
  • Toilet Humour: Used sometimes within the strip. Used almost constantly in the author's daily notes accompanying the strips on the official website.
  • Token Minority: Lawrence and the Enjo family in the strip’s early years.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl:
    • Tomboy April likes animals, plays in a band, and moves away to a city in another province and stays there for good, vs. Girly Girl Elizabeth who chooses a traditionally-feminine profession, moves back home because she becomes homesick in Mtigwaki, and marries her high school boyfriend.
    • Career woman Thérèse does not want children, does not stay home after giving birth, and lets her ex-husband have full custody of her daughter, vs. Deanna getting pregnant by "planned accident" and leaving her career to start a sewing school.
  • Tomboyish Ponytail:
    • April wears one as a teenager.
    • Elizabeth wears one for a while before her makeover.
  • Tongue on the Flagpole: Elizabeth gets her tongue stuck on a flagpole after her mother warned her of the risk. Her reasoning (after Mom painfully peels her tongue off the frozen metal)? "I wanted to see if it was true!"
  • Torment by Annoyance: Michael repetitively messes with the spring door stop, causing it to "boing" incessantly. Finally, Elly yells, "All right, you can watch television!"
  • Totally Radical: Johnston, in an attempt to avoid dating the strip too badly (and probably also to get around syndicate censorship), tries to create her own teenage slang for stuff. Some of these include the insult "foob" and the phrase "Roadside".
  • Trapped at the Dinner Table: In one strip, a young Elizabeth isn't allowed to leave the dinner table until she's finished her peas. She tries to hide them by putting them under her plate.
  • The Un Favourite: April is treated as if she's a selfish little monster for, you know, her parents having her late in their lives and thus being ready to retire when she's not old enough to kick out of the house. If a person, thing, or activity was supposed to be viewed negatively it's because April adored it. These "negative" acts included things like adoring her ailing grandfather and going out of her way to spend time with him, disapproving of Anthony cheating on his wife with Liz, and finishing her homework.
  • Unishment: April is once sent to her room for misbehaving - and instead takes a nap.
  • The Unpronounceable: Mtigwaki, the First Nation village Liz taught at.
  • Unsound Effect: Used frequently.
  • Unusual Euphemism: Often mixes with the wholly invented slang mentioned in Totally Radical above, where characters will use an Unusual Euphemism that Johnston invented... and then have to explain it by using a more standard euphemism ("Boxcar!").
  • Vacation Episode: Several, the most common being Elly and John taking kid free vacations or one of the kids going to a family farm. Notable ones include:
    • The Pattersons staying at Ted’s cabin in July of 1981.
    • The Pattersons visiting John’s sister Beverly and family in their farm in Manitoba in July 1983.
    • Michael taking a solo trip to visit Jim and Marian in Vancouver in June of 1984.
    • The Pattersons returning to the farm in Christmas of 1988.
    • Michael taking a solo trip to the farm in June of 1991.
    • Elly, Elizabeth and April going to Vancouver for Spring Break of 1992.
    • Elly and John taking a cruise in February of 1995.
    • The Pattersons (sans Michael) going on a road trip throughout western Canada and parts of the US in July of 1995.
    • Elly and John going to Mexico in February of 1996.
    • Elizabeth taking a solo trip to the farm in July of 1996.
    • Michael and Weed going to Ireland in August of 1998.
    • Michael and Weed going to Tokyo in March of 2003.
    • John and Elly returning to Mexico in April of 2004.
    • April going on solo trips to the farm in the summers of 2005, 2006 and 2007.
  • "The Villain Sucks" Song: April writes a song called "Germy Wormy Jeremy Jones", about a kid who’s been bullying her and her friends. It becomes a hit with the rest of the student body until the principal is forced to step in and ban them from singing it.
  • Wants a Prize for Basic Decency: Elly and John seem to be under the mistaken impression that feeding, clothing and housing their children is a sacrifice on their part instead of the moral obligation it actually is. What makes it worse is that exploiting their children's hard work because they did the least that a human being is supposed to do is seen as a wonderful thing instead of an example of sleaze and evil. Sadly, this is Truth in Television (or truth in comics, as it were). Elly and John's attitude is VERY common among real-life parents of their generation.
  • Wedding Episode: Several throughout the years:
    • Ted and Irene’s wedding in March of 1986.
    • Phil and Georgia’s wedding in June of 1987.
    • Gordon and Tracey in August of 1995.
    • Michael and Deanna’s private wedding in November of 2000.
    • Michael and Deanna’s public wedding in August of 2001.
    • Jim and Iris’s elopement in August of 2002.
    • Anthony and Thérèse's wedding in August of 2003.
    • Elizabeth and Anthony’s wedding in August of 2008, which is also the strip’s Series Finale.
  • Wham Episode: Farley's death, Lawrence's coming out.
  • Wham Line:
    • "I have fallen in love...but it's not with a girl."
    • After a months-long arc of troubles with an employee, Moira finally drops the bomb on Elly, who is returning from vacation: "I fired Kortney."
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Moira is disappointed that Elly doesn't want to confront Kortney for slacking off in the shop. She says Elly is the boss but also tells her at some point she needs to stop believing in someone who threatened her daughter and is the most likely thief for missing inventory. John says the same thing after Kortney threatens April for finding her on a chatroom during work hours. Eventually, Moira takes action while Elly is on vacation; she finds evidence that Kortney was stealing and fires her on those grounds while showing Elly the proof, including stolen checks and letters. Elly is in shock that she let herself be played for a fool, especially when Moira reminds her that April was a prime witness to this behavior, and April reveals that Kortney's boyfriend stole the model trains that went missing.
  • "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The 8-31-08 strip.
  • Wish-Fulfillment:
    • Many have pointed out that the picture-perfect wedding between Elizabeth and Anthony followed suspiciously closely on Johnston's real-life divorce.
    • April was born because Johnson had wanted (but not had) a third child. Lynn knew it wasn't really practical in real life and said in the Animated Adaptation that she did the next best thing.
  • Worse with Context:
    • In one comic, Michael tells his half-asleep mother that Elizabeth just went outside with her new umbrella and wearing her new boots, which just gets a series of grunts. Then he adds she's only wearing the boots. Elly runs outside to chase down her daughter while a grinning Michael muses that he likes telling the best part last.
    • Another strip shows Elizabeth retaliating after Michael puts soap on her toothbrush. When she tells him she used his toothbrush, it doesn't faze Michael in the slightest. Then Elizabeth tells him she didn't use it for her teeth, but for Farley's.
  • Worst Aid: When April is pulled out from a freezing river, the only medical care John and Elly give her is wrapping her in a coat. They’re never shown taking her to a hospital or checking her for symptoms of hypothermia or if she has any water in her lungs. In Real Life, effects from drowning can sometimes appear hours after rescue and April would have to kept under observation in an emergency room.
  • Wring Every Last Drop out of Him: Grandpa Jim gets progressively sicker and sicker with strokes and heart attacks to the point there have been several "fakeouts" of his death. He has yet another heart attack at the end of the strip, on the day of Liz's wedding. Yet he never actually dies until the age of 89 —somehow surviving two more years (he was born in 1921) after the end of the strip!
  • Writer on Board: A one-off example is a Sunday strip from a couple of years ago about the Pattersons "going green", while the rest of the world continues to waste and rot.
  • Yes-Man: The strip's site has no forum, but some of the regular contributors to the letters page can veer close to this.
  • Yiddish as a Second Language: Mrs. Saltzman peppered her speech with increasingly more Yiddishisms as time went on.
  • Younger Than They Look:
    • Anthony when he had his mustache.
    • Gordon and Weed in the later years, especially in comparison to Michael. Both looked as if they were John and Elly's age.
    • Anthony's daughter Françoise is supposed to be 2 years old but looks and acts more like a 6-10 year old.
  • Youthful Freckles: Anthony.

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