For Better or For Worse

Did You Know?

• The strip's title references the marriage service from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.
• In 1985, Atkinson Film-Arts and CTV produced an animated Christmas special called The Bestest Present.

Characters

The strip centers on the Patterson family. Elly Patterson (née Richards) is a stressed but loving wife and mother of three. She tried night classes, wrote columns for a local paper, worked as a dental assistant, and later landed a library job. After a surprise pregnancy with April during menopause, she worked in a bookstore that she and her husband John eventually bought and expanded.

She later sold the store and retired. John Patterson, a mild-mannered dentist and loyal family man, is a big kid at heart who develops interests in cars and model railroads. Michael Patterson began as a rambunctious preschooler, grew into a sullen teenager, and became a mature young man. He became a freelance writer, married his childhood crush Deanna Sobinski, and fathered Meredith and Robin.

Elizabeth Patterson started as a bratty toddler, grew into a cute little girl, an awkward preadolescent, and a confident young woman. By the strip's end, she is a teacher who married her ex-boyfriend Anthony Caine, becoming stepmother to his daughter Françoise, and later gave birth to a son, James Allen Caine. April Patterson, born on April Fool's Day 1991, nearly drowned at age four, with the family dog Farley dying to save her. She developed into a bright tomboy, a talented musician, and a lover of animals, heading to university to study veterinary medicine. As the children aged, the strip expanded to include neighbours and friends.

Key storylines

The fictional town of Milborough is near Lake Simcoe, described on the strip's website as about a 45-minute to one-hour drive from Toronto, resembling Newmarket or Etobicoke, and placed on Highway 12 near Cannington and Beaverton in northern Durham Region. The Patterson house is on Sharon Park Drive. Canadian elements appear subtly, such as Canada Post and milk bags. A notable exception is Michael attending post-secondary education in London, Ontario, a city 300 km west of Toronto.

Johnston chose this setting because an Ontario native might choose it for its major institutions like Fanshawe College and the University of Western Ontario, while allowing distance from his parents. Johnston intended it as a prank, expecting readers to assume Michael was studying in London, England, and imagining their embarrassment when corrected. However, she received a congratulatory letter from Texas with a strip showing Michael in a cowboy hat, and she realized she had been fooled by the other London.

The citizens of London, Ontario, welcomed the inclusion, with an official welcome from the University of Western Ontario when Michael transferred there.

2007 and 2008 changes

Johnston planned to retire in fall 2007, but in January 2007 she announced a format change starting in September. Storylines would focus on the second-generation family of one original child, reuse older artwork in new contexts, and stop character aging. She cited health problems including dystonia, managed with medication. In September 2007, Johnston said she and her husband Rod were separated and likely to divorce, telling the Kansas City Star she had a new life and that the separation was positive.

Asked if this would become a storyline, she replied, 'No, not a chance. I only want to live through this once.' She said she would continue producing new installments. The changes over the next year were not major, but stories focused more on Michael, Elizabeth, and April than on Elly and John.

In summer 2008, Elizabeth and Anthony's wedding plans culminated in a late August ceremony, marred by Grandpa Jim having another heart attack. Elizabeth visited him and his wife Iris in the hospital. In the final daily strip, Iris advises Elizabeth and Anthony, saying, 'It's a promise that should last a lifetime... For better or for worse, my dears ... for better or for worse.'

The strip ended with a message from Johnston: 'This concludes my story ... with grateful thanks to everyone who has made this all possible. ~Lynn Johnston'.

Reruns

On August 31, 2008, the final panel of the strip’s original run showed a caricature of Lynn Johnston at her drawing board. She thanked readers for their support and wrote that if she could do it all over again, she might do some things differently, and now she had the chance to find out. She invited readers to join her Monday as the story began again with new insights and smiles, adding that looking back looked wonderful. The very next day, September 1, the strip resumed as usual but with Michael now a small boy asking his mother Elly for a puppy.

This launched what Johnston called "new-runs," a mix of roughly half early-strip reruns and half reworked 1980s strips. The reworked strips kept the original artwork, sometimes slightly retouched, but added new dialogue. The timeline jumped back 29 years, making the family younger: Michael about five or six, Elizabeth a toddler learning to talk, and the family raising a puppy. This format lasted 22 months.

On July 12, 2010, the strip quietly switched to straight reruns from the 1980s, with slight changes. Daily strips, originally inked, were digitally colourized. In the December 31, 2012 installment, dialogue referencing the original 1984 date was updated to present-day. Another change showed Michael and his friends playing a Wii instead of a second-generation console.

Some strips altered panels about child discipline due to social opposition to corporal punishment; original spankings were changed to time-outs or had the stars indicating spanking removed. This format continues, with strips republished about 29 years after their first appearance.