Ok… if you weren’t there, or in the room when Lynn took the calls, or even know Lynn, then how could you “know she was persuaded”?

But, yes, she was persuaded, but not by the syndicate. She was persuaded by drastic and unexpected changes in her life, Malc. As long as she’s doing her feature, she can produce it any way she wants. Your El Cid analogy would be apt if she died or retired and the syndicate kept it going.

Lynn Johnson flagged as early as 2001 that she was ill, she felt she had lost her perspective and that she wanted to retire – no, even more than that, she was GOING to. She set the date and the clock was ticking.

What happened after that was she was got at.

I wasn’t there in the meetings, or in the room when Lynn took the phone calls, but I know she was persuaded to carry on after her projected retirement, with promises that she need not actually lift a finger.
It would be all down to her team of artists and the syndicate’s marketing department. The feature would continue on in the same way El Cid did when they propped up his dead body on his horse and sent him to battle the Moors.

Still, that was apparently his decision too.

It still boils down to it being Lynn’s feature to produce, or retire, in the manner she sees fit. And she’s going to do what’s best for her life, just as anyone else would do. Time will tell if she’s made the right decision or not, as there have already been several reports of newspapers not liking the idea and getting ready to drop it. Then its a matter of how they’ll deal with the reader response.

In any case, she chose not to retire. And that’s pretty much the final answer. Her life, her decision.

It has everything to do with us whether a feature like FBOFW sees out its time in dignified fashion or whether it’s propped up by artifice to keep the shelf space for the syndicate.

Let there be no mistake here, this is purely about business – cold hard cash is the motivation, not any concern for Lynn’s welfare or her reputation, and beyond that it is detrimental to cartooning as an art form and a profession.

The whole concept of posting old FBOFW strips is an interesting one, but (as has been mentioned before) it should be in book form, in a collection for the FBOFW purists.
I think there are legions of them, but I doubt if they are interested in seeing these archival, historical strips scattered piecemeal amongst later work in newspapers by a team of admin workers.

Again, it’s a personal decision that we all make in our lives (except for those who are forced into a mandatory retirement). Sometimes events postpone retirement plans. But it’s still a personal decision, not an artistic or ethical issue. It has nothing to do with any of us anymore than what clothes she chooses to wear would be.

I know enough about it to see why it’s popular, but I don’t read it. Don’t know the names of characters, how they relate to each other, nothing.

I’m not basing my opinions on how much I like the strip, or (and take note) how much I like Lynn. It’s the principle of the thing.

I don’t count Lynn Johnson amongst my personal friends, and I’ve never had a conversation with her face to face OR by phone. I don’t need to to have an OPINION on this issue.

That opinion is based on what she has said publicly, not on what I have manufactured out of my imagination.

Lynn said: “Initially that was my plan (to retire like Watterson, Larson, etc), and I had sort of speculated on what type of work would fill that space, because that little piece of real estate in the newspaper is a pretty coveted one. Then when Universal Press said that they felt there was real opportunity to run the older strips, I thought about it and decided that their argument was a good one”.

So she wanted to retire but her syndicate persuaded her to keep going. Fine. I think she should have stuck to her guns, because I think carrying FBOFW on in the proposed manner will lessen it, lessen her and ultimately take away everything she has achieved.

But hey, I’m not her friend, right?

Including retire it.<<

Precisely. And she has opted to not retire it. So how is this personal decision on what she’s going to do with her life any of our business and worthy of even discussing here? You don’t like the direction she’s taking with the strip? Fine. That’s all fodder for discussion on these forums. So the only options you see is for her to do her strip the way you want or to retire? Just a tad egocentric there, don’t you think?

Her strip is no different than anyone else’s. If you don’t like what she’s doing, then don’t read it.

Including retire it.