As I wrote several days ago, this strip is human. Unlike Family Circus, Blondie, and other such strips, Lynn Johnston made the choice to let her characters age and all that goes with it ‘For Better or For Worse’. She knew, and was reminded by her sister-in-law who was a vet, that Farley was getting too old so she planned this story for a long time. These are still challenging times but timing was bad for the first publication 29 years ago to this day because that was also when the Oklahoma City bombing happened. But the beauty of this wonderful strip has always been that despite the sad and tough times, there still can be joy and humour in life.
Thought about if the autopilot thing would work as an update the old Rodney Dangerfield joke but no: “I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandpa. Not yelling and screaming like the passengers in his car.”
Nah, I think they’re not worried because the judge already dismissed the jury (he declared them to be delicious).