For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for January 29, 2025

Will they discover what Candace’s life is REALLY like? Might make a big difference in their attitude.

It is a little unusual to have a retcon story right after telling the story. Nevertheless, this is a comic strip that seems to have nothing to do with the story that just happened.

Candace is accused of dumping on Elizabeth when she tried to be friends with Candace. That did not happen. Elizabeth made no effort at all that we saw. If anything, Elizabeth was working to make sure Dawn did not spend any time with Candace and got extremely angry when that did not work.

Candace is accused of being afraid to be friends, but she did manage to attract both Shawna-Marie and Dawn to be her English assignment partners which would not happen if you were afraid to be friends, not to mention she invited them over to her house.

Candace is accused of not trusting anyone. To be fair, Dawn only wanted to work with Candace so she could hit on her brother, so maybe there is a legitimate reason for mistrust.

Candace is accused of being afraid they would lie to her and steal her stuff. To be fair, that’s what Dawn did. She lied to Candace about why she wanted to work with her and they wanted to use the brother’s computer for free.

Maybe Candace thinks that if she’s friends with those guys and steps out of line, they will trash her behind her back. Where in the world would she get that idea?

Lynn Johnston, trying to portray Granthony as being the wise young philosopher, full of sage insight and advice (eyeroll) :-P

It’s simple: Candace is a narcissist.

A lot of kids growing up never knew how to trust anyone because of having siblings that stole from them (like mine did) or who took things from them and sold it! So naturally, Candace would keep her distance from this crowd leaving them wondering why she isn’t like them.

She’s afraid people will talk about her.

Trusting can be scary. Especially if you feel that sharing certain things might cause others to be so uncomfortable that they’ll become distant.

Or maybe it’s because none of you know her and won’t bother getting to know her until you’re all adults

Taking a look at her big brother would be a good starting place. Hitting your sister’s friend in the head with a pair of hockey shorts and caller her “flatso” makes you wounder how he treats Candace.

Anthony’s losing some of the geekiness he had when he was first introduced.

Doesn’t it turn out Candace has a very troubled home life? Don’t really remember if that’s the case?

A friend is someone you can talk about anything with. If you hold back, they’re not friends

This could be a tough one.

Now we are going to go all touchy feely. We need to understand what Candace is going thru… , no Candace needs to grow up. A lot of people have crappy homes lives and don’t do the same to others. This is just a story line to give a excuse to Candace.

I WANT LIZ’S BUNNY RABBIT!!

I remember this one so vividly, especially that last panel. It stayed with me for a long time.

Looking forward to where this is going.

Also, Candace hasn’t been dumping on Liz and Dawn in this arc. We’ve seen her do it before often enough, but this month it’s Liz’s gang, and mostly Liz herself, dumping on Candace.

When you have a difficult home life, it is very difficult to learn to trust others. Add to that the fact that you haven’t learned to make wise choices, so you often choose people that mistreat you.

Lynn Johnston is a socialist. Check out what she has said before:

Suddenly Silver: When my first husband left me, I was all alone with a toddler. I found a job but it did not pay much. Welfare paid for Aaron’s daycare. I will be forever grateful for that.

Lynn’s Notes: I went to a theatre and was surprised to see they met all their expenses. Unlike most theatres that are in the red, this one was “in the black” and I had to find out how they did it. Sadly, their answer was bingo. Eventually the theatre I volunteered with ended up doing bingo as well. This is unfortunate. If people do not support the arts on their own free will, then they should be forced to do so through taxation.

Sounds kind of wise, especially coming from Anthony, what’s the buzz, tell me what’s a happenin ! ;-)

And it all starts with family. Sometimes for better, but sometimes Not.

Before she became my best friend, M had a friend, D, who would constantly and repeatedly dump on her. D’s tone was often hateful and disparaging, She was never, ever supportive or kind. When I asked M why she hung out with D, she said D was her only friend and she was afraid of being alone. We began hanging around. I introduced her to some of my friends and they got along great. M dumped D and never looked back.

Notice that Shawna-Marie is not around for this trash talking.

Elizabeth should avoid the same mistake as her brother did with Rhetta, who was a coworker at Megafood.

Do not dip your pen in the company ink.