> From: Sandra Steingraber <[log in to unmask]>
>
>
> I strongly suspect that future installments will focus on the comedy
> of early parenthood, with conflicts between characters focused on how
> to best raise the baby.  It's a very loving strip.   And I began
> thinking this morning what a wonderful opportunity the cartoonist has
> to showcase the loving bonds of breastfeeding...should he decide to
> do so.   (I have no idea what his politics or beliefs on this topic
> are.)

The cartoonist is a woman, Lynn Johnston. She is (was?) in Lynn Lake,
Manitoba, way up in northern Canada.  The strip mirrors her own family, to a
point. She has two children so the father, mother, dog, and the oldest two
in the strip, Michael and Elizabeth, are based on her family.

I saw a wide-ranging interview with her once where she said the third child,
April, is the baby she wanted but never had. She talked about how in the
strip, April was born at home in an emergency situation with the neighbour,
a nurse, assisting. She said she took some flack from the midwifery
community for not going all out and devising a home birth. If I recall
correctly she said she chickened out, but was interested in home birth.

She also introduced a controversial theme some time back when one of
Michael's friends disclosed that he is gay.

I can't remember if the cartoon mom breastfed April when she was a baby.

Her web site is at: http://www.fborfw.com/

-- Jodine Chase

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