It’s not uncommon to see comic strips done in the format of The Pajama Diaries. Hell, since For Better or For Worse perfected the style, there have been a number of family life strips told from the point of view of the matriarch, that age in real time and are loosely based on the cartoonists’ own biography. But Terri Libenson’s jaunts into the day to day habits and oddities of the Kaplans stands out more than the rest. And I don’t entirely know why.
I can certainly point to what I like about this family strip that’s been running since 2006, and even won a Reuben Award in 2015, that isn’t quite as strong in similar cartoons. Firstly, the artwork, which foregoes the usual relatively realistic, statically drawn look slice-of-life strips like Sally Forth and Between Friends tend to go for. As detailed and organic as For Better or For Worse looked in its later years, some forget it was extremely cartoony early on. And The Pajama Diaries is similarly flexible, having a visual style halfway between Mort Walker and Bill Watterson. It’s a style akin to childrens’ book illustrations, but Libenson is very comfortable
Through one of the strips’ staples in comedic single panel charts, tables, infographics, “Parents’ Glossaries of Terms”, and other creative ways of expressing funny observations on married life and parenthood (each of which fit perfectly the tone of the strip and reflect Jill’s work), we get an insight into Jill’s (and Libenson’s) mind; and it’s really aided in humourous effect by the way she draws.
There’s something really interesting too in the premise of The Pajama Diaries and its characters. In a great compromise of keeping the stay-at-home childrearing material with allowing the protagonist to be a modern working mom, Jill Kaplan is a freelance graphic designer who works from home often in haphazard appearance (hence the title). She has a typically caring but goofy husband Rob, and two daughters, Amy and Jess, who are toddlers at the start of the strip and, as of 2018, a new college student and high schooler respectively. There really aren’t a lot of strips about raising girls, with most family-based cartoons featuring either an even split in the gender of the kids, or favouring boys. Working from home is also a relatively recent concept in the funnies, as it is in most other media, and between The Pajama Diaries and Adam@Home, they’re proving a lot of good jokes and even story ideas can arise from sitting at your computer for a living.
In addition to their middle class lifestyle and average social lives and relationships, a noticeable distinction of the strip is that the Kaplans are Jewish –actually practicing Jewish at that. They celebrate Passover, Rosh Hashanah, Chanukah and Yom Kippur, eat kosher, and the girls eventually go through their Bat Mitzvahs. But it’s never a stereotype; it’s merely presented as another facet of their lives, and one that yields opportunities to explore subjects, traditions, and anxieties that other comic strips don’t. Specifically for Jill, her Sephardi Jewish heritage is an integral part of her identity.
Jill is a very fun character, loving and eccentric in equal measure. Through her, the strip addresses virtually every comical nuance of modern motherhood, including the unattractive, the nitty-gritty and the embarrassing sides. Though the strip rarely employs thought balloons, the captions that substitute for dialogue a lot of the time act as her inner monologue, through which she demonstrates a fair amount of self-consciousness. Self-awareness is a necessity for strips like this, the acknowledgement for example, that the stressed out mother was once one of the troublesome kids herself, but The Pajama Diaries illustrates it often in imaginative ways.
For instance, Jill occasionally talks to her teenage alter ego, dubbed “80’s Jill”, in her reflection like Pepper Ann, where she reconciles her past and avoids the temptation to act out like her former self. Either this proves she’s delusional or she has an imagination and I prefer the latter. This is further proven in some of the scenarios she envisions. Her neurotic/cynical/tired attitude doesn’t wear thin as one might expect, because readers can understand and laugh at the catalysts in her life that cause it, and the fact that overworked though she frequently is, she’s still ultimately positive about the parenting experience.
Rob is a good foil for her, an I.T. guy who’s more easygoing than Jill to a fault. But often he’s best at working off Jill or offering a remark on one of her ideas or issues. And propositioning sex whenever he can. The daughters, Amy and Jess, fill this role too. At first their antics were often the cause of a lot of the strips’ humour, being children, but in The Pajama Diaries’ maturity, Libenson doesn’t rely on them as much anymore. Both girls have developed personalities, Amy being more forthright and athletic while Jess is studious, but honestly for the most part, they’re just typical girls their age -and there’s nothing wrong with that. They’re being presented through the eyes of their mother so naturally there isn’t a complete rounding of their characters; and again, the specific dynamic of the Kaplan family has been largely unexplored in comic strips before this so it still feels new, the kinds of things Amy and Jess get up to, their behaviour, and relationship to each other and their parents.
Though The Pajama Diaries is definitely a comedy strip, it does touch on serious issues from time to time. It never veers into soap opera territory, but addresses a number of topics, sometimes dealing with insecurities and adaptations inherent to growing up and family life, and sometimes less conventional subjects in the periphery of the Kaplans’ experiences. In addition to talking about puberty, body image, dating, menopause, and other ordinary facts of life, the strip has touched on Jewish identity, coping with grief, and even the trials of raising a child with autism in the case of Jill’s friend Nanci.
It’s heartfelt too, and not just in Jill’s moments of pride in her daughters and the usual saccharine stuff that comes with this kind of long-term family strip, though that’s mostly handled nicely (comic strips have a way of making schmaltz work way better than most other entertainment mediums). There aren’t a ton of long-term arcs that characterize similar strips like For Better or For Worse and Luann. But there is just a way the strip relates, how its characters grow and change and grapple with life.
That kind of thing makes The Pajama Diaries a strip I have to keep up with. It subtly invests you in the lives, gags, and experiences of Terri Libenson’s cartoon family while providing some good laughs, keen observations, and even a few life lessons along the way.
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