Any mother worth her salt would react that way to a sweet, innocent child who asked such a question. I know I would. Little children have not had the chance learn how to not be blunt in their comments and questions. Sometimes that brings out either the best or the worst in adults. In this case I think it brings out the best in Janis.
I just wanted to echo ather's point about Mr. Johnson's writing and his characters. Everyone has something different that makes a work of fiction, be it a play, a novel or a comic strip, "work" for them. For me, I have to care about the characters, I have to want to know "what happens next." My standard examples are the musical "Chorus Line" versus "Miss Saigon". With "Chorus Line", I wanted know "Was the show a success?", "Did any of you become stars?", things like that. With "Miss Saigon", I couldn't have cared less about what happened to the characters after the show ended. Here on comics.com, the other strip where I find characters that resonate with me is "9 Chickweed Lane".
You know, this is all just a testament to Jimmy's superb writing, that we become so attached to his characters, we'll defend them so vehemently.
And no, this isn't child bribing. This is meeting all who Gene loves, and showing that Gene isn't signing on for a total brat and future inmate. If Meg was a female Dennis The Menace, Janis would be dragging gene away by the ear. But a nice, sweet little girl, is something Gene could handle. This visit is about evaluating Gene's decision, and all the players in the game need to interact and mingle. Arlo & Janis need to know exactly what gene is getting invovled in. The better they receive Mary Lou & family, the more approving they'll become.
Excellent point, ursen. Mary Lou is 21 and Meg looks close to 5, yes? When I think what an unformed kid I was at 16 I'd hate to think any decision I made then was one people would remember and hold against me and judge me for - for the rest of my life. People make mistakes, they can either accept the consequences of their bad decisions or not, but if they run away from them they never grow and evolve as people. If one of those mistakes is getting pregnant and having a child, that's life altering. All the more so if the young woman it happens to doesn't even really know what life is all about yet.
