The worst of times for haters of comic strip

For a long time you could live under the delusion that only you and your mom were reading it (and groaning at it). Once in a while you'd let it slip into conversation and discover that the whole world was reading "FBOFW" too, and had been for decades. Brilliant economists, security guards, cool Web designers, punk rockers -- all read it, and not only read it but can remember when Farley the dog died after rescuing April from drowning, and when Lawrence came out of the closet. They can tell you why Paul was wrong for Elizabeth but Warren wasn't, or vice versa.

Readers can take their Foob fascination and ire as deep as they want. Online, there are pages and pages of disturbingly funny psychoanalysis. The Comics Curmudgeon routinely eviscerates it, hammering Johnston for its overly simplistic worldview.

Yet you can sense the love, even in the Curmudgeon's recent observations of the ghostly reappearance of Grandma Marion. She appeared as the wedding preparations came to a froth, invisibly "helping" Lizardbreath at a fitting of the same dress she wore to her own wedding:

"Grandma Marion is learning the sad truth about the comics afterlife," the Comics Curmudgeon observed. "Despite the fact that you no doubt remember yourself as the ravishing young bride who actually wore the dress that you're ectoplasmically helping to mend, you instead only get to come back as aged and potato-nosed. You're also wearing an apron, because even in the Great Beyond, you're expected to cook."

True Foobsters loved to underscore their particular peeves: The way the characters ate ("smork, chomp, chew, smack") or laughed with their mouths open and tongues out. Some loved to hate Elly's obsession with housework or Deanna's blankly pretty face and lips. Little things can cause a Foobster to hurl the newspaper to the floor -- especially the bad puns in the fourth panel, with those little bon mots about life. Lynn Johnston may think she has fans, but does she know she has such devoted anti-fans?

"I save up all my vitriol for this piece of . . . art," says a woman named "Lia," seen on a YouTube video posted last week, in which she ponders the end of a very long era: "I predict (Elizabeth) will become a binge drinker, get a raging case of herpes and will eventually have to leave Anthony."

So here's a question: Why did we spend the last three decades absorbed in the lives of the most boring people in Canada? Maybe it's meant to be a puzzle, an emotional Sudoku. Truly understanding "For Better or for Worse" requires more subtextual skill than, say, loathing "Cathy" or "The Family Circus" -- where nothing ever changes, where nobody ever ages. "FBOFW" kept evolving, as did its magnificent ability to irritate.

On whom can we now direct our darkest wishes for tragedy? (Jeremy from "Zits"?) Who is worthy of both our love and our scorn?

Farewell, sweet Lizardbreath.