The screaming wheel gets the grease.

[dreadedcandiru2]

Last Tuesday's reprint which led off with Mike just hauling off and screaming at the top of his lungs about the insect problem is an example of a visual image we see far too often in the strip: characters just plain blowing their stacks and hollering at the first tiny sign of a reverse. Doesn't matter what the problem is or how big it is; if it gets in the way, a Patterson's first impulse is to holler like a maniac instead of doing something useful.

As I mentioned before, Lynn's reasoning is that watching people explode all the time is a lot funnier than watching quiet people behave sensibly. The downside is that, as was also mentioned, Lynn never seems to notice that when they do that, it's sort of difficult to really feel sorry for the characters because they look like a group of loud, spoiled children who never learned how to behave in public. This might be okay in a cartoon but since we're supposedly dealing with people you and I might actually meet, what's funny when Donald Duck does it is sort of pathetic and scary when a normal-looking person does it.

Comments

[kazokuhouou.livejournal.com]

You imply that the Pattersons look normal.

[dreadedcandiru2.livejournal.com]

To someone who just met them, they might like like a conventional family.

[kazokuhouou.livejournal.com]

To someone seeing the comic the first time, they look a little uncanny valley.

[(Anonymous)]

That is part of the Patterproblem right there, Lynn insists they are real people with real problems, then makes them act like cartoons. At least in "Foxtrot" or "Hi & Lois" you know where you stand, but Lynn has to have it both ways.

[dreadedcandiru2.livejournal.com]

This seems to apply to her personal life as well.