For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for November 28, 2023

The first appearance of Lilliput’s bookstore, which was based on a real life bookstore in North Bay, Ontario, near where Lynn Johnston lived, called Gulliver’s.

I’m definitely with Elly on this one!

I do not believe Lynn Johnston has ever revealed how much she got from McDonald’s for this comic strip.

I feel like that every time I go to the bookstore

That’s what I argue when I go to the tool department at Home Depot hardware.

“The complete Idiot’s guide to Book’s”

Or eat “just one” cashew….

I could go into a bookstore and completely lose myself for hours over a single volume. Bookstore browsing was my favorite hobby when I lived in NYC,

Sadly, nowadays, books are rapidly being replaced by high-tech gadgetry, such as Kinder.

I resemble that remark. So does hubby. (One secret to our marriage lasting almost 22 years to forever is that we are book fiends.) Heck, so do several of my relatives.

This is one of my favorite storylines. I’m glad it’s finally beginning

She’s so right. That’s why I love the library and used book stores. And book sales.

What’s a bookstore?

Sadly, our Barnes and Noble closed in our mall.

Indeed.

Read it, before it gets cold!

Did Ay-po just randomly appear in panel three?

Elly is getting a book on animal babies. She is getting the dog.

This is why a real bookstore is so much better than an online bookstore.

Am surprised everything is so large in Lilliput

I know what happens next at Lilliput’s…

Is “Animal Babes” for Jon or April?

Or like going to the gaming shop and only coming out with one game!

What’s a Bookstore??? Just kidding, or am I ?

That’s why I use the public library.

Especially nice, nice art, and sentiment. The environment, the season, the thought.

Stick to the library; there ain’t many books worth buying these days. . .

I agree, Ellie.

So true!!!

Now days, it’s trying to buy just one e-book on an Amazon Kindle Sale.

I have a “library room”. All four walls lined with bookcases, floor to ceiling (excepting the door into the room obviously) A person can never have enough books. (Says all you need to know about my social life)

I’m like a kid in a candy store every time I go up on Kindle books.

Ah yes, the first of the segue comics where Ellie takes a job at the bookstore, she and John buy and expand the book store and later sell the bookstore when she and John retire.

Support your local bookstore! Brazos Bookstore in Houston!

Yep. It’s impossible to leave with just one.

Agreed!

And the next phase of Ellie’s life begins

Like Lay’s potato chips, you can’t have just one!

The rank and file takes it to the cerebral level. Always a good thing.

A small bag of fries costs today what a meal deal with large Coke did in the past.

Trudeauflation.

I assume the Dickens novel she refers to is A Christmas Carol (partly because it’s a vaguely seasonal strip, partly because that’s the only Dickens novel I’ve read). There’s not a lot of beautiful scenery in that one. The description of cold, foggy London in Stave 1 always makes me shiver and is the very soul of dreariness. The description of the newly snow-covered marketplace in Stave 3 is great fun and very appealing, but beautiful? I’m not sure.

So true, Elly, so true. You might as well be talking about me and my love of browsing and buying books in a real book store.

Hey, at least you still have bookstores!

She’s going to buy a what…??

We lost our last local bookstore a year or two ago. I remember malls used to have bookstores, fabric stores, and drugstores.

Since this is a comic strip, it would be funny to see a few strips of Elly bouncing from job to job, like this:

Song{over background as Elly is doing things}: Working 9 to 5, what a way to make a living…

Colonial village. Elly is dressed in a 18th Century dress

Elly: And so, good people, when yon tallow hardens we remove it from yon mold.

Elly pulls out a lump of beeswax, then gives herself a mortified look

Kid{laughing}: What a crappy candle.

Parents{high-strung}: You have ruined our vacation.

Elly finds herself in the pillory

Royal Governor: Goodwoman Patterson, you are hereupon terminated.

Elly gets kicked in the butt by a kid

Elly is walking down the street holding a suitcase

Song: Barely getting by. It is all taking and no giving.

Elly rings doorbell. An old lady opens door

Old Lady: What can I do for you, missy?

Elly: Madam, you have been selected by the good people of Slash-Co to reap the benefits of their new Nev-R-Dull knife. Prepare to shake hands with Slash-Co.

Old Lady: AAAUUUGH

Elly{talking to herself}: Handle first, handle first…

Elly is wearing a leather padded suit standing in a dog pound

Song: They just use your mind and they never give you credit.

Sign: Pitiless Pup Attack Dog Training School

A bunch of Dobermans tackle Elly while barking nonstop

Elly: ACCCKKK. I quit, I quit.

Man: I thought you said you liked dogs.

Song: It is enough to drive you crazy if you let it. 9 to 5.

Elly is seated with several others in a conference room. A man in a suit comes up to stage

Sign: Million$ for Nothing Seminar

Audience: Me.

Elly: Me, me, me. I said it first.

her next job

I’ll drink to that!

Now that I’m retired, my New Year’s resolution was to read all the books I bought over the decades while I was working that I never got around to reading. So far, I’ve read and donated to the library thrift store two full shopping bags of books, and I have another two bags almost ready to go. This resolution will continue into next year…

The last time I went to a vintage bookstore to buy a particular Zane Grey novel I ended up buying ten of them, and a book on Thomas Jefferson.

That’s why there are libraries, good lady.

I empathize with that feeling Ellie & my house looks like it too!

But a book is oh so more nourishing than a McDonald’s French Fry.

My Mom exactly!! She has so many books she could open her own little bookstore. She thinks “library” is a 4 letter word ;D

Dover, the capital of DE, did not have any bookstores at all, for at least 5 years. There is finally a very small one, now. I will support it (rather than chinese-owned amazon) and hope that it grows.

Is this the same woman who elicited all kinds of sh*tty comments when her son asked for money? Where are those commenters? Only one person brought that up :-(