Comments on: Rasheed Khaleel: “Is Johnson coming out finally?”

By: bAT L.

bAT L. — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 07:59:35 +0000

The violence isn’t funny — not in real life. This seems to be an example of cartoon physics, however. The black eye and missing tooth will both heal not too long from now. In that case, isn’t a little non-permanent pain worth getting away with such a demeaning joke? … Not really, not at all.

By: Kiki

Kiki — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 18:59:33 +0000

Liz didn’t attack Eric with a frying pan. She and the other girl hit him with their fists*. A sauce pan was branished at him when he didn’t leave, but he wasn’t hit with it.

*still not funny, in my opinion. FBorFW has always walked a fine line between cartoony violence (Elly flinging coffee cups at John’s head; the kids getting in violent fights) and real violence (Ruby getting knocked unconscious during a robbery; Dee’s car accident), and Liz attacking Eric didn’t fall into either place. It also made me uncomfortable considering one of the strips that lead up to their confrontation implied that Liz herself was not that far off from being an abused woman (one of her friends hints at the nature of the one-sided relationship by asking, “What are you learning about in your psychology class?” and Liz says, “That domestic abuse stuff does not apply to me.”)

http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComic.mpl?date=2002/4/2&name=For_Better_Or_Worse
http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComic.mpl?date=2002/4/3&name=For_Better_Or_Worse

By: Winter Wallaby

Winter Wallaby — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 17:35:36 +0000

Ditto on Molly. It would never be OK for a guy to hit a girl, just because the girl made an unflattering comment about the guy’s appearance. It certainly wouldn’t be funny. This isn’t OK either.

By: Cidu Bill

Cidu Bill — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:27:23 +0000

Rasheed, she also seems to have knocked out one of his teeth. Eric didn’t fare as badly when Elizabeth went at him with a frypan some years back.

By: Rasheed

Rasheed — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 14:16:58 +0000

Well, my line of thinking was, in reverse order of the strips, she hits like a guy, has a mustache like a guy, and kisses like a guy. Ergo…

As to the double standard of physical violence, I’m pretty sure the jury would call it justifiable for pointing out said ’stache to a girl. He should be so lucky she only punched him in his EYE.

By: Molly

Molly — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 14:05:46 +0000

OK, this always kind of bugs me. Why is it OK for a girl to hit (punch, slap, etc.) a guy but the opposite is abuse? Can you imagine the uproar if - for some reason - he’d given her a black eye?

By: Nicole

Nicole — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 13:05:27 +0000

I don’t think so. What he is saying in the last panel is that ’she has a mustache like a guy, and hits like one too’.