Lynn Johnston on the subject matter of For Better or For Worse

LYNN JOHNSTON: ...For Better Or For Worse had always dealt with relevant subjects. I had always challenged myself to write a story that included both sides. For example, when Gordon's father beat him, Gordon's father does not appear as an ogre, but he appears as a man who can't control his temper and he cries over that. I try to see things from both sides. I tried to see Elizabeth and her smoking from both sides. I try to be nonjudgmental in the stories I tell so that where there is a resolution, it's up to the reader. I try not to use the strip as a platform from which to preach, and I don't think this sequence is a preachy one, either. It is simply a story that happens. It happens every single day in the world. Every day, someone is discharged from the comfort of their home because that person does not conform to the lifestyle that that family planned. And the story doesn't say that anyone was wrong, or that the situation was right. What the story tells is that this is a very difficult lifestyle for anyone to be part of. It's not a life glamorized by partying and orgying. It's a life, and a life deserves to be respected and applauded for whatever it can contribute. So I don't think I was preaching as much as I was telling a very honest and true story. In so doing, perhaps it has run on a little too long, and that has been painful for me, because it lengthens the time I'm under fire. But it tells the whole story, and I can't imagine broaching the subject without telling the whole story, from my impression of it as I felt it needed to be told. And to prove, I suppose, that it's not a matter of choice, because who would choose to go through that?