Here, you can discuss those crazy Canadians in a safe, LDS-friendly environment.
You'll never need to go to another FBORFW message board again!
So . . . who do you think Liz will end up with? Who should she end up with?
Does Gerald have any redeeming qualities?
And last but not least . . . wasn't Granthony's desperate plea to Liz to wait for him creepily similar to missionaries begging their girlfriends to wait for them?
My interest in FBOFW has actually waned. It used to be a comic, but now it's a qusi-soap opera strip. It's part Baby Blues, part Mary Worth. But I've always respected the strip because it faithfully kept an accurate timeline, something almost unheard of in the comics. But now that it's going to freeze next year, I think it's completely jumped the shark.
That said, I still read it daily and it's pretty decent. I like Frazz better. I guess I'm also still mourning the loss of Calvin & Hobbes and The Far Side.
I think Liz needs to decide what/who she wants pretty soon or she's going to end up alone for quite a while. I hadn't thought of the similarity of Anthony and a missionary asking someone to wait, but it really does fit. And as a teen you just KNEW they were going to end up together. So, I would really probably be okay with Anthony. I have mixed feelings about the pilot guy whose name I can never remember. He just seems really nebulous. And as for Paul? She got what she asked for there. Doesn't make it easy, but they can both be happy otherwise.
I can't believe how wrapped up I get in their lives. And when grandpa had the stroke... Wow. See, my mom had a stroke a few years ago and it's been so, so REAL. That's what I probably like best about this comic. That it sees the funny stuff in life but that's what it is. Life. Not vignettes.
I guess a big (and important) difference between Anthony and a missionary would be that Anothy was married when he asked Liz to wait for him. That' just wrong!
I don't like how Th'ere`se is such a flat character. Why did Anthony marry her in the first place? Why would she give birth if she despises shildren so much? Shouldn't she have some redeeming qualities?
I'm not sure that Liz and Anthony's compatibility as teenagers is a good predictor of their happiness in married life in their late 20s.
I've wondered on occasion if the strip isn't mostly biographical and perhaps they don't know much about Therese. Maybe she's just some sort of anathema. And she wouldn't be the first person ever to do something against what they really want out of life because it's what their spouse wanted. Or to later decide it just wasn't worth it and just give up and leave.
Oh, and good point about being married at the time. However, a missionary is completely committed to something else for two years, too, so there is a commitment parallel. And as morally reprehensible as I find it, the country in general sees marriages as disposable and/or temporary.
First of all, Liz just bugs the heck out of me. I don't know if it's that she doesn't have enough dimension, or what - she just seems so self-satisfied so much of the time that it's hard for me to really like her. So, I kind of rejoiced when Paul dumped her, because I guess it kind of destroyed her fairy tale life. Maybe that's really mean of me, but I don't feel too guilty considering that she's a comic strip character. Also, I've also been rooting for Granthony just because I think Lynn Johnson wants me to, so I was happy to get Paul out of the way. He seemed too exotic for Liz, anyway - I wasn't really feeling any real connection with their relationship (not that it seems like Liz and Anthony have much now, either.)
I'm a little confused right now about Warren, the helicopter pilot. So, at Mike's big I'm-an-author party, Warren is checking out all the models in the pics on the wall and wondering how he can get hooked up with them, and a strip later he's back googling over Liz. Is LJ just trying to make him seem fickle and foreshadow how he could potentially cheat on Liz? (Granthony, of course, would be incapable of such a thing, since he was pretty true to Liz even when he was married to someone else, who conveniently turned out to be a shrew.) Pretty much, I think that Warren and Liz will go out and Liz will discover that Warren is actually fallible and will dump him, or Granthony will rescue her again somehow.
My main problem with Granthony (besides the universally hated weasel mustache) is that, like Liz, there's not much to him. As a father, business manager, and ADULT, how is it that all he ever seems to do is moon and spoon over his high school girlfriend? It just seems like he follows Liz around and waits for her call, but if he's as good a guy as LJ wants us to believe, why doesn't he DO something? "Sorry Liz, I can't ditch work and go out to lunch with you right now, I have to run my business/take care of my daughter/go out with someone else who actually appreciates me" would make more sense, and I think it would help Liz like him better, too--kind of the hard-to-get deal. That's why she wanted Paul so bad--and didn't really want Warren.
So, in summary, I think Liz is destined for Granthony, whether she's actually good for him or not; LJ just needs to figure out a way to get Warren out of the way first. Any predictions on how she will do this? Will he cheat on her? Will Liz catch him doing something unsavory? Will he try to jeopardize her virtue, and get slugged by Granthony? Or will Liz actually take the initiative and say, "Eh, you know, I'm just not interested - I much prefer spineless men with weasely mustaches"?
I think any satisfying resolution for me would involve LJ actually changing (or developing) some of the characters.
