For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for September 14, 2023

She still looks like someone who is in 8th grade? What a cutting remark.

Sorry, Candace, but you look about the same as last year. However, I will agree that Elizabeth does still appear to be raiding her brother’s closet for clothes. The one I see who has changed since last year is Dawn. She has let the hair style she got from Candace grow out a bit and she is no longer wearing the same kind of formless, shapeless outfits she wore last year.

Well, Candace, she is taller.

How did Anthony get braces? I don’t know about Canada. But here in the states braces are expensive. And Anthony has left his family and supporting him self.

And what’s wrong with that?

Poor Lizardbreath…

This must be the arc where Liz decides to get her hair cut short—and suffers teen-angst for it.

As a mother of two and a 15 yr Girl Scout leader, I can tell you, the first week of school, especially around middle school ages, the girls all tried to look older and more eye catching, shall we say. After that, they settled back into their more comfortable attire. But for the first day back at school, poor Elizebeth looks almost frumpy here. Like she’s ready to give Farley a bath.

Liz needs a makeover.

Something going on that isn’t publicly known right now: Candace’s mother has a live-in boyfriend named Luke. He is a manipulative con-man, a moocher, a bum, and basically just a rotten person. He’s also a predator. It’s around this time that he starts creeping on Candace. Her mother, being desperate for male attention, refuses to acknowledge this or protect her daughter.

Frenemy.

Excellent Barenaked Ladies reference. “This is me in grade 9, baby.”

Oh-oh…

Ninth grade? Either they’re the royalty of junior high, or the scum of high school…

Ah, grade nine in 79, our grade 8 physed. teacher warned us that we will be hunted and humiliated, worse than what he did during his gym classes.

don’t worry, that’s not a bad thing. ;)

Elizabeth’s first sign of peer pressure

I know that some females of all ages can be pretty snarky and downright mean, even to their friends. Junior high girls are among the worst. Was she actually making a cutting remark about Elizabeth’s chest?

Freshman in high school. All I can remember about being a freshman is hoping I would forget all about it someday. Well, someday is today. Good riddance.

The other two don’t look different either. What gives? I do like where this is going, though! It’s good to change things up!

Wait until they realize that now that they’re at the top of junior high, next year they’ll be at the bottom of high school. Like I did in sixth grade.

a perfect example of how girls are cruel to other girls . . . she could have said it in a kinder way if it even needed to be said at all

Huh, Candice has shown up, I guess that means she’s about to come out of nowhere and say something cruel and cutting.

There was an actor in the 1950s named Ben Welden (yes, spelled differently than the one in the strip above), who was bald and was known primarily for playing various crooks in the Adventures of Superman TV series during that decade, although I saw him in a couple of other things — a Three Stooges short where the trio campaigned in support of a politician named Hammond Egger, and later, in a 1966 Batman episode wherwe he played one of Egghead’s henchmen (I think he was called Foo Yung).

Reminds me of one strip about Michael:

Lawrence: “Today is our first day of junior high. Even so, I can’t help feeling strange. We have been going to the same school for six years and now we are in a whole new environment.”

Michael: “Fine by me. I am glad to be away from the little kids.”

Michael and Lawrence walk by some football players who look down upon them literally, then some girls who look gigantic

Lawrence: “Something tells me we are the little kids.”

And those are friends??

They all look like eighth graders to the 12th graders

Nice … a Barenaked Ladies reference. Partial lyrics from Grade 9 from the Gordon album

I found my locker and I found my classes

I lost my lunch and I broke my glasses

That guy is huge, that girl is wailin’

First day of school and I’m already failing

This is me in grade nine, baby, this is me in grade nine (this is me in grade nine)

This is me in grade nine, baby, this is me in grade nine

Grades 7-9 are a supremely awkward time. Kids are maturing at different rates, and this is inevitably going to have a big impact on socialization.

Well here we go, that moronic peer pressure time of life where kids forsake themselves to listen to the ridiculous advice of their peers.

Braces are the thing that makes sense.

I remember way back in the early 1970s, when I started at our town’s Junior High School (grades 7, 8, 9). Back then we had two 3-year Jr. Highs before we got to the High School.

The 9th graders all looked so much older than the 7th graders, but by the time I got to 9th grade, all the 7th graders looked like little kids. I wonder if that’s how we all looked in grade 7?

Grade 9 was freshman in High School. A totally different school and I didn’t know anybody in it to compare with the previous year

Yep. She looks like a normal human being……… not something in a freak show.

Don’t ever change Liz, and if you do…. make sure it’s only the inside which changes.

Talk to Lynn, she can update Liz ;-)

I’m confused. When I was in 9th grade we were like seniors in high school, but soon after that 9th graders were the freshmen. Are they still not in high school in the 90s?

At the high school reunion will bet who gets these awards

Most Weight Gained: Gordon

Shortest Distance Traveled from Home to Reunion: Lawrence

Lowest Salary: Michael or Lawrence

Most Offensive Odor: Michael or Brian