For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for June 29, 2023

Y I K E S!

Yay! Good for Lawrence. That took courage in those days.

He brought his boyfriend! I forgot his name. Anyone remember?

Rhetta went to a one of a kind party and her dye job really left her black roots showing!

But if you see the original version back in 30 June 1994 Michael’s hair is ACTUALLY colored old man white! His brown hair was actually white back then!

Kinda like the Stevie Wonder classic “Ebony and Ivory”.

BTW, I hope the “chaperones” won’t bar Lawrence and his SO from entering the venue!!

He is… you know…

Good for him!

Thirty years, and finally there has been some progress. In my high school in the sixties, I was teaching high school teachers how to program and run their brand-new IBM computers, couldn’t wait to be graduated and off to university, and had absolutely no interest in any vestige of the “cotillion culture” as it was manifest in a southern high school back then. (Think “Grease”, considering the decade of southern social inertia compared to Southern California.)

My Senior Prom predated the Stonewall Uprising. Lawrence would have been only marginally better off bringing a Black girl to the dance, but there were no interracial couples at mine. Back then, Lawrence and Ben would have simply made excuses and stayed in the closet until they got to college. In those days, we had gender-segregated dorms on campus. Certain pairs of roommates were VERY good buddies. We’ve made a lot of progress in sixty years, but most of it in the last decade.

Its always better to go to a function alone. You can always leave with someone! Plus you do not have to get them a ticket, a corsage or a limo… There will definitely be those that are just out with the girls waiting to be plucked. They always are!

And now we know why this strip is set in Ontario, Canada and not Florida.

And Lawrence comes out of the closet, which will probably cause all sorts of problems for him at home (considering the time this comic was originally written)

Lawrence’s boyfriend is, what, two years older? Wouldn’t you feel silly going to a grad dance at that age?

Still does take courage in much of the country. And going to a prom by yourself is awkward even if nobody else cares.

Oh yeah… with a guy ;-)

Oh no. I feel like I’m being hammered with it ALL the time, and it’s giving me a never ending headache.

In a nice way,everybody will be looking at Lawrence’s date through a magnifying lens

I have so much respect for Lawrence. I love thinking about what life would’ve been like if I lived through the 90’s, but being in a similar situation to Lawrence, I think I prefer the present.

“He’s unpredictable.”

“He’s unique. "

Why do I get the feeling that these are actual euphemisms that Lynn uses for “gay”?

The important part is that Lawrence is always the victim.

Yay Lawrence!!!!

FINALLY! Brave young man! <3 <3

Lynn Johnston has said that her Lawrence story was an homage to her friend Michael VadeBoncouer, a popular radio comedian in Ontario, with whom Lynn had briefly been in high school. Given that Lawrence was an underage man linked up with Ben, an adult 2-3 years his senior, I thought the homage was in questionable taste. In Canada, there are no Romeo and Juliet laws for intimate men, and this did not change when Canada legalized same-sex marriage in 2005. Michael VadeBoncouer was murdered by an underage man with whom he had been intimate.

It is not lost on me that the first time we see Lawrence with Ben in public, it is a point where Lawrence is probably over 18. When he had his coming out story last year, he was still a minor, and anything he and Ben had done would be illegal. I suspect Lynn Johnston was aware of that and waited until this moment to finally introduce them as a legal couple. No one is going to try and arrest Ben this year for the crimes he committed last year.

Everyone in unison…Michael, Rhett, Brian, Gordon and Martha all holler at the top of their lungs “He’s here, he’s queer! Get used to it!”

“Not coming to the grad dance? That’s crazy!” I didn’t have a large circle of friends in high school but I don’t recall any who went to any of the dances. What was your experience?