Amusing teen Tuesday
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Luann, 5/6/25
Luann is perennially on its weird psychosexual bullshit — Luann and Phil, who are college-aged adults, have already smooched but somehow Luann has to come up with weird elaborate scenarios to hang out with him, like “accidentally” making too much lasagna and inviting him over as a companion to their old lady friend to eat the leftovers — but I do enjoy the punchline panel here, in which Mrs. Horner is already sitting down and desperately trying to stop everyone else from babbling about the aforementioned psychosexual bullshit and just eat already. “C’mon kids!” she’s saying. “I’ve lived a long life and one thing I’ve learned is that leftover lasagna doesn’t get better as it approaches room temperature.”
Zits, 5/6/25
Zits is doing a bit this week where Jeremy and Pierce cram for their exams and it makes their heads swell up real big and I think it’s funny. Sometimes comics are just excuses to draw things that are funny to look at and that’s OK!
Shoe, 5/6/25
“Get it, because of the common saying about liars? Anyway, he’s in the hospital in critical condition, the governor is already coming up with a list of potential appointees to his seat in case he doesn’t make it.”
136 replies to “Amusing teen Tuesday”
Zits:
These two look like the disembodied brains who were The Providers in Star Trek’s “The Gamesters of Triskelion.”
Hearing you say “Sometimes comics are just excuses to draw things that are funny to look at and that’s OK!” makes me wonder if you owe Six Chix an apology. Possibly several. Hundred.
MW: “I heard them through the walls.”
Shoe: The Perfesser must have taken quite a long pause between panels one and two. Shoe had enough time to light a cigarette, and to lose his pen somewhere in his shadowy nether regions.
MW:
So now Dawn is confronted with the options of staying at her home and being confronted by murderous Belle, or having dinner at Mary’s and being subjected to prying questions and hackneyed aphorisms. Now that’s what I call a real Morton’s fork, not to be confused with a Hobson’s choice.
Luann:
Is Mrs. Horner already sitting down at the end of today’s installment, or is she simply being exposed to the devastating and unrelenting effects of gravity on the aging in between panels 1 and 3?
@Bob Tice: I bet 15 quatloos that they’ll scrape by with a C.
ZITS: Jeremy and Pierce are hydrocephalitic and require immediate medical attention.
LUANN: Phil is an annoying, judgy jerk. Never cook a meal for an annoying, judgy jerk.
RMMD: Ooh, the defiant dump. Nasty. Now I hope for nothing more than that future day when Kelly wants Niki back and he tells her to pound sand.
MW: Since Mary has spy cameras installed in every apartment, this should wrap up quickly.
Luann: Bernice does the Fuse’s books and dusts? OBJECTION! Facts not in evidence!!
JP: Ah, lovely. It’s bad enough Reena is Sophie’s emotional support person, now we have her sassy mother to provide still more meta-commentary quips! How much you want to bet by the end of the week she’s laying some old-school wisdom on this poor little white child to buck up her spirits and calm her fears?
Luann – Gotta wonder how Phil was the only one who thought this was a Miami Vice theme party.
Being Luann’s friend seems like a small price to pay for free room and board but will Bernice finally realize that “being tarred with the same brush” is a real thing.
FC: Jeffy looks down and sees two socks on the same foot. “Oh”
@Brian: Josh wrote ‘funny to look at’, not ‘nighmarishly disturbing to contemplate until you wish you could rip out your brain just to destroy your knowledge of them’.
@MKay: On Luann: what about serving them day-old lasagna that probably was just left sitting out moldering on the counter while you vegetated in your pigsty of a bedroom? A little diarrhea might be just what they need!
Luann: If anyone in comics would go naked under a little black apron to serve lasagne to an elderly neighbour, it would be Luann.
Zits: Gonna tell my kids this was Beavis and Butthead.
RMMD:
“I cooked your food; I cleaned your house; and this is how you pay me back for all my kind, unselfish, loving deeds? Huh! Well, you just wait, they’ll find you yet; and when they do, they’ll put you in the ASPCA, you mangy mutt!”
I looked at today’s Zits and immediately thought, “Oh, it’s Dweebus and Fuckhead,” and I think that says more about me than it does about Zits, but also, I’m not necessarily wrong.
@Guts Dozier:
That was absolutely one of the best of the original Star Trek series episodes.
Today’s Shoe is actually a clever remark on the tradeoffs of civilization. We grant the sovereign a monopoly on the legitimate use of force out of the fear of violent death that is omnipresent in the state of nature, understanding that we thereby create NEW risks if such concentrated power is misused by an ill-constituted sovereign. And so it is with the birds in Shoe—in the state of nature Senator Belfry would face no risk of falling down the stairs, because he is a bird and can fly, but he gave up that for the greater overall security that comes from wearing clothes over his wings to do stupid bits.
Zits: Reminds me of the short lived 1994 animated series on MTV called “The Head” and also the show “Waynehead” and the villain “Brainchild” from “The Tick”. Now that I think about it why were there so many cartoons about characters with comically oversized heads in the mid ‘90s? There was also the titular Beavis and Butt-Head and the Brain from “Pinky and the Brain”
Mary returns home still carrying the grocery bag prop (with obligatory baguette and celery stalk) she used at her photo shoot for GILƒ magazine.
In “The Head” 1994 animated series the reason the guy’s cranium was enlarged was because it was being used as a vessel for an alien life form.
If “Zits” goes full science fiction body horror it will be a vast improvement over all the stupid “teenagers are different” jokes that it’s been repeating for almost 30 years at this point
Shoe: Senator Belfry’s last words: “Et tu, Perfessor?”
@The Quiet Man:
On Luann, and Bernice Halper doing all the accounting for the Fuse for free : Well, when she first moved in, Bernice helped Luann’s mom reorganise a bunch of folders and files, and it’s possible that Luann thinks THAT means “Bernice does all the accounting now” (it’s also possible WE’RE meant to think that, too).
Of course, if Bernice ACTUALLY did all the accounting for the Fuse, she’d have realised it’s a mob front for Mr Gray by now (well, if this strip hadn’t COMPLETELY dropped the “Mr Gray is incredibly shady and dishonest” storyline, I mean)… This whole having to justify WHY Bernice is now living with Luann 24/7 wouldn’t have been necessary if, over 10 years ago(!), instead of separating the two when they went off to college, they’d have Luann and Bernice be college roommates. Yeah, I know, it’s not realistic for them to go to the same college when Luann is too dumb
to be accepted, much lessfor a scholarship, and her parents can’t/won’t pay for expensive higher education, but all this strip EVER did (and does, and will do) is “Luann and Bernice are in the same bedroom, talking about stupid stuff”, why would you EVER separate the two?RMMD:
“I’ve been dating someone else.”
“Yeah, it’s kinda obvious. Your being pregnant and all.”
GT: Pueblo. So Milford has shifted into the southwest. That toddling town keeps moving around the country, earning its name The Transient City.
@Hibbleton: Nopenopenopenopenope, I refuse to believe that’s celery and all that implies, those are carrot tops as far as I’m concerned
MW: So we don’t even get to see how Father of the Year Wilbur brushed off “Dawnie” pleading with him to make his FWB leave?
Zits:
You’ve got the right string but the wrong yo-yo, as the song goes.
MW: Ummm…so are the colors on my laptop off or…did Mary dye her hair????
Dennis the Menace: What kind of Generation Alpha kids in the year 2025 are playing some kind of physical board game with paper cards and rules? Actual kids would have given up on this after 30 seconds.
Beetle Bailey: Does the US military implant tracking chips into their recruits yet?
MW:
“Niki, I’ve been seeing an anthropomorphized element symbol in the periodic table, bearing an atomic weight of 6.”
“No. Don’t say it, Kelly.”
“Yep. I’ve been carbon dating!”
@Lauralot: Of course not. We were about to have an actual plot development, or maybe even conflict! Can’t have that. Nope, we better stop mid-argument and frog-march Dawn to Mary’s house, to repeat everything she just said. Which we also saw happen the first time.
Luann: You can tell Phil’s hip and stylish because he’s wearing a black t-shirt under a sport coat. Luann? Sleek and sophisticated in her little black dress, with a pop of color! Mrs. Horner is experienced and comfortable in her black cardigan. Bernice, as is his practice, wears the colors of our Savior’s passion year-round. Can you guess which one of these people will die a virgin? (Spoiler: they all will, this is Luann.)
Luann: I’m not sure if Bernice is undervaluing her labor, or if she realizes an actual bookkeeping job would barely pay her enough to scrape by and indentured servitude to the deGroots is the best she can hope for.
Zits: See, I’m not seeing Pierce and Jeremy as calculus types. They’ve got more of a “coast through Trig 1” kind of vibe.
I wondered whether “Garfield” would feel threatened by the intrusion into his domain, i.e. lasagna, but then I realised no one could be intimidated by “Luann”
Shoe: Funny, I was always under the impression that most organisms had two sides to their mouths.
@MKay: Yes, Phil is an annoying, judgy jerk, not to mention socially stunted. Which is why he’s perfect for Luann!
Other strips have shown Jeremy as an excellent student with high GPA, but I will forgive “Zits”, because the inconsistency is not in nature of the writing but the nature of teenagers
FC. Jeffy can get his shorts on straight. Yellow in front, brown in back.
Shoe and MW: Is this the link up crossover we’ve all be waiting for? Explains why Bats in MW is so aggressive against any perceived rival – and due to her nepotism connections, able to stay out of jail – she has a senator in her family.
DT: Now, it takes time to get warrants – so if these frames are running concurrently. by the time Tracy and MCU get their warrants, the baddies should be long gone. So, the obvious thing is for Angry Auntie be bad at driving a stick and flood the engine and she and dumb and dumber are caught along with Uncle Piltdown. But a nice twist would be that Uncle Piltdown never planned on having Auntie and the nitwits with him, and has already slipped out back and is meeting a Uber on the next street – next stop airport of San Theodoros, where we see him later meet the Itemizer. He was the one who helped underwrite a huge policy for him.Uncle has a history of fraud but Itemizer got him through the vetting process. They are supposed to split the take, but instead the Itemizer bumps him off – only for DT to pick him. What gave him away? He itemized everything including the gun, ammo, flight and lodging with helpful comments like “needed equpiment to kill Piltdown”.
MW: Once Dawn unloads her tale, MW the older lady who only late in life started using computers and not the young twenty something girl, immediately starts searching the Interweb and we found out that Bats Belfry is a very dangerous person and that is not even her real name! They run over to Wilbur’s apartment where we see him trussed up with an apple stuffed in his mouth and Bats about to disembowel him.
RMMD: So the whole stalker and murder arc is done?
GT: my apologies to the writers: all of the stuff – Gil getting a bouqet, going to meet Clambake and Marty, etc. all occurred in the seventh inning stretch!
DT: Bringing in a side character on Tracy’s team really points out how reality has overtaken the Tracy-level gadgetry. Poor guy is trying to show them how using a proper smartphone allows quick messages with texting as well as sharing whole documents and reports, while Tracy and his team, to all appearances, are using especially poor smart watches that probably don’t have a weather app installed, let alone one to show news headlines or public alerts
RMMD: Maybe it’s not Niki who’s been avoiding using every bit of modern tech to keep a long-distance romance going, with Kelly ignoring all his texts and videos calls
Luann: Luann and Bernice grew up in the same town and go to Local College. Is there supposed to be some reason why Bernice needs a place to stay and so has ended up living at Luann’s house?
At least Reena gets to keep her family, seems Bernice’s was wiped from the universe upon her high school graduation to make sure she had nothing to do other than being Luann’s friend.
DT: See, THIS is why Dick shoots first and asks questions later! When you do all that tedious due process crap, it gives people the chance to get away!
GT: My baseball is rusty, but I’m pretty sure you have to touch the base in order to be proclaimed safe, rather than hover in its general vicinity. Then again, the infielder looks like he’s busy preparing his grant request for the Ministry of Silly Walks, so maybe the ump just assumed he wouldn’t bother trying to tag.
JP: Special cameo by Dr. Phil as Reena’s dad.
MW: Whoa, back up–yesterday Dawn was yelling at her dad, and now she’s in completely different clothes and running into Mary outside of their building, meaning time has passed and she’s survived at least one more murder attempt from Belle, and we don’t even get a “Next morning…” narration box? I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think Mary Worth needs to slow down a bit.
MW: Dawn could always go stay with her party girl BFF Cathy. Get away from her weirdo father and his weirdass guest. Go clubbing. Have some fun for a change.
But, this is the Worth-o-verse, so she does what no college-age young woman in the real world would ever do and goes to hang out with a muffin and platitudes obsessed old lady.
@treetown: They run over to Wilbur’s apartment where we see him trussed up with an apple stuffed in his mouth and Bats about to disembowel him.
That’s all I want to hear about Wilbur and Belle’s foreplay, thankyouverymuch.
“Did . . . did you just come to me with actual news, Cosmo? Stop the presses! New page one, hed ‘SENATOR STAIR SLIP SEVERS SPINE,’ subhed ‘GOV LOOKS AT REPLACEMENTS,’ art TK if anyone can find Loon and Fishhawk, sit your fat ass down and give me twenty inches of solid reporting on the fall, ten on the potential newbies. Jesus, I’m feelin’ light-headed, actual news!”
“A free ride for doing books,” AKA she’s receiving compensation for her labour. Don’t get too attached, Luann, because when the revolution comes maybe they’ll let you take Phil’s head out of the basket as a souvenir.
***
Okay, Zits caught me off guard and I thought the art style just went in a really weird direction since I last saw the strip.
RMMD-“I know we said we’d wait for each other but I was at a party and I got a bit tipsy and well I couldn’t wait. He’s my first.”
MW-“Oh,” Mary says disappointiedly, “I thought visitor was for you. You know your once a month visitor. If your father is involved I can’t help.”
Luann-Bernice also does embezzling.
Luann – I don’t know a lot about patients in dialysis, but I suspect lasagna isn’t part of the approved diet. The cheese is a problem, for sure. But why worry about Mrs. Horner when you’re busy being Miss Horndog?
Nowadays most senators toe the party line, since very few races are competitive. There is little incentive in appealing to swing voters by switching positions and appealing to different constituencies and there is much incentive in being consistently ideological to avoid a primary challenge. Unfortunately, “Shoe”, having more consumate liars and flipfloppers would actually improve the health of democracy!
Shoe
Perfesser: “I guess you can say Senator Belfry is less Tip “O’Neil than Tipped Over!”
Shoe: “That joke is both in bad taste, and nobody under 50 will get the reference.”
Perfesser: “People under 50 read our strip?”
Luann – Well…it’s no Garfield….
Zits – Poking fun at Hydrocephalus for cheap laughs is pretty low…prit-tay low….
Shoe – His head landed on the left – his feet on the right and his ass…split down the middle….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Luann – Well…it’s no Garfield….
Zits – Poking fun at Hydrocephalus for cheap laughs is pretty low…prit-tay low….
Shoe – His head landed on the left – his feet on the right and his ass…split down the middle….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
@TheDiva:
SOH-CAH-TOA. It’s all you need and it doesn’t even make your brain swell up.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Come into the kitchen, Admiral”
“Oh really? We’re eating in the kitchen?”
“That’s right”
“I think you’ll find the new prices very reasonable”
Wait, is Wilbur’s girlfriend in Mary Worth related to the senator from Shoe? Or are we just approaching the obvious-pun-name singularity? I fear if Crankshaft gets involved too the whole comics multiverse will implode.
@treetown:
we see him (Wilbur) trussed up with an apple stuffed in his mouth…”
Sometimes comics are just excuses to draw things that are funny to look at and that’s OK!
I get it now!
Dustin: Ha haaa, pretty good burn on Dustdad and his hirsute nostrils!
Heathcliff: This strip just recently started running in our local paper, and it’s becoming more and more clear to me that Heathcliff is kind of an a-hole.
GT: So much to love about today’s disaster of a strip! The “POP” of the bat! “Drive into THE right-center field!” The umpire doing the carioca! Someone other than that umpire calling “SAFE!” before the runner even touches the bag! The fans looking on as if they’re watching a funeral! I am really starting to love this strip!
RMMD: “And I’VE been going out with a girl who doesn’t look so much like a pencil eraser.”
JP: Aw, that’s sweet. Reena inherited her father’s hair.
GT: I haven’t been watching much baseball lately but is tagging the runner with a dead raven a thing now?
“Anyway, we had so much lasagna we invited Heathcliff over to have some, but he reminded me that he’s the orange cat that flies flags, not the orange cat that eats lasagna, and I suddenly realized that I don’t even read the comics and I’m in them! Anyway, I’m in a serious existential crisis now, so you want some lasagna and gin?”
MW: “Tsk tsk, I’ve warned your father before that I do not condone or tolerate premarital sexual relations at Charterstone. If Doctor Jeff can restrain his animal impulses, then so can Wilbur. I’m putting a stop to this right now! Meanwhile, here’s some vegan muffin mix. Get it started and I’ll catch up with you in a bit.”
JP: Did Reena’s mother get divorced and then remarry? Who introduces their parents by their last name?
Frazz: Ah, the Internet — nothing more than just another annoyance to disgust perpetual malcontent Caulfield.
H&L: So Hi just hangs around outside in his pajamas and his morning boner?
@Bob Tice: Or TB’s Talosians from “The Cage”/ “The Menagerie”.
@Brian: makes me wonder if you owe Six Chix an apology. Possibly several.
_________________________
Excedrin™headache #66798435 Looking at SixChix “artwork”
@Brian: “sometimes”, not “all the time”.
LUANN: Mrs. Horner looks so short because she has to sit on the floor because “chairs”….what are those? (I guess Luann had to spend so much brain power figuring out how to heat up her family-sized Lean Cuisine, that basic seating arrangements just eluded her mental grasp.)
LUANN (2): “Lets all get to know each other better, people I see pretty much every goddamn day!”
LUANN (3): Luann: “Bernice does all the books for The Fuse, but we hate her which is why we invited an old lady’s medical technician to the staff meeting and not someone who analyzes how the restaurant can pay for things.”
Six Chex And A Cat Named Snowball II In Search Of A Punchline: No wonder she’s depressed, Dr Nick replaced her leg with a ham!
Luann: Okay. Admit it. I’m not the only one who read Mrs. Horner saying, “Shit! Let’s eat before thing get too cold!”
Low and Hi-less: “We refuse your refuse!”
Shoe-Live from New York!
Shoe–Does anyone know where to find good information on how Senate vacancies in East Virginia are filled? Is it by appointment, or do they require a special election, or maybe some weird, complicated avian ritual? I’m looking forward to what is shaping up to be several weeks of trenchant commentary from Shoe on how this vacancy will affect the partisan composition of the Senate and the politics behind filling it, and I want to be prepared.
Luann: In the Luann universe, inviting a bunch of people over to eat lasagna is the closest you can get to an orgy.
Zits: These two are on a slippery slope. Sure, they’re just studying for a quiz right now, but soon they’ll be fighting the Hulk and ranting about taking over the world with their army of gamma-irradiated mutants. Sad!
The Familliar Mucus: At least Jeffy isn’t referring to his hands as his “other feet” anymore.
GT: Shouldn’t we see the base somewhere in that panel before the runner is called safe?
H&L: Sudo collect my garbage.
Dustin: It’s unusual to say something would improve a Dustin strip, but if the character outlines weren’t so thick this would be funnier.
@CanuckDownSouth: To answer your questions, Luann goes to the Community College and Bernice goes to the more expensive Mooney U. She’s living with Luann because her parents essentially gave her room to her long lost brother (and possibly his kids) when she was still in the dorms. For some reason I don’t recall she lost her job as a RA and no longer can afford a dorm room.
BTW, I hope Josh realizes that Mrs. Horner wasn’t really referring to the lasagna when she talked about things getting cold…
Yes, yes, tired wordplay that gestures at political humor without actually indicting any failures of governance, we’re all very impressed. Now what the hell is happening in Cosmo’s foot region? Is he wearing sandals and purple ankle-warmers, but not socks for some reason? Why would you draw such bizarre shoes and then call attention to them by naming your comic Shoe?
FC: Wow. Mary is finally appearing in the strip that bears her name.
RMMD: Suddenly a smoking hot female mechanic walks up, her coveralls unbuttoned to show off a rack like Salma Hayak’s. Niki says while putting his arm around her, “I’ve kind of met someone else myself, stick girl.”
FG: We all know Ukulele Ike’s eyes are going to be riveted on today’s installment.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Best Playmate of the Month EVER!
Luann: “A free ride” is a nice way to say that Borenice isn’t Luann’s best friend but a live in attendant who regularly lets her charge make a fool of herself for a shred of amusement.
MW: Dawn goes from one gaslighting parental figure to another instead of her regular rotation of friends named Cathy (Ack!) which shows just how sad her life is.
@astroboy: I’m fairly certain that Moy is unable to write for any character who is younger than middle age which is why the two youngest Charterstone members—Dawn and Toby—don’t do anything that remotely resembles what people in their twenties and thirties actually do. Dawn is usually trying to get into some strange man’s pants and Toby is trying to drown her liver in box wine until Ian’s ready to trade her in for Dawn as soon as she gets a wrinkle.
@Bob Tice: That was absolutely one of the best of the original Star Trek series episodes.
________________________
What about “The Worrys With Westons”? Who can forget the classic scene when all the Wilbers fall out of the bin onto Capt Kirk after they gorged themselves on the Mayo-tritacalie?
“Sometimes comics are just excuses to draw things that are funny to look at and that’s OK!”
And at other times, it is most definitely not OK (see Thorp, Gil and Trail, Mark).
MW: Meanwhile, in Charterstone’s basement, Carlos Alora fluffs up his bed of excelsior and lies down for a pleasant nap, relaxing to the sounds of passion drifting down the AC vents. He frowns as he tries to identify the couple by distinguishing the different slurping noises he hears.
Luann-“Let’s eat before things get too cold!” I’m sorry but it’s too late for Bernice. She’s frigid.
Hi and Lois-“Alright, Hi, quit holding out on us. Where are your wife’s panties?”
@Charterstoned: Poor Carlos really got hit hard when Charterstone stopped doing their pool parties and locked him in the basement to keep him away from the WASPs.
@Needless Exposition: Drinking boxed wine and slamming ass sounds like a perfectly reasonable way to spend one’s twenties and thirties. What kind of boring shit are millennials and Gen Z doing these days instead?
Luann scares me every time I read it, as the comic looks vaguely blurry and I start questioning if my eyesight is going causing me to rush down to the next comic to reassure myself that it’s not me.
@Old School Allie Cat: Oh yeah, the dialysis! How soon we forget! Well, you didn’t forget at all, and I remember now, but as for the Evansii, dialysis is mysterious magic that allows kidney patients to do and eat whatever they want, whenever they want. Actual kidney patients should be half so lucky.
@CanuckDownSouth: Luann: Luann and Bernice grew up in the same town and go to Local College. Is there supposed to be some reason why Bernice needs a place to stay and so has ended up living at Luann’s house?
At least Reena gets to keep her family, seems Bernice’s was wiped from the universe upon her high school graduation to make sure she had nothing to do other than being Luann’s friend.
Bernice attends the local university while Luann goes to community college. Bernice was originally attending on a full-ride scholarship but that somehow vanished when she was appointed as dorm RA, and the RA job now provided her free room and board. So when she got fired as RA (supposedly due to budget cuts, but I have my own theories) she now couldn’t afford to live in the dorms. Her parents had already given her room away so now she had nowhere to go.
Oh, and her parents have never actually been seen, other than the backs of their heads at high school graduation. As a character we’ve only ever seen her as Luann’s friend. I guess that’s why she feels the need to emotionally blackmail Luann into including her in everything: she has no life outside of her.
Shoe: If this was used in a Bat-Man media, but with a certain District Attorney H. Dent. It might have gotten a chuckle out of me.
Bizarro: Now you’re probably thinking that Ol’ Rex is getting back into the game for the new season – but nope, that’s not him. He considers it “beneath him” to be shown looking for gigs, instead of gigs lookin’ for him! He’s a great talent but sometimes he’s a little full of himself.
That’s one of our new hires, Brody, starring today. His skill set runs more to self-deprecating humor, awkward demeanor, and family-friendly Bear-out-of-the-woods situations…. wait a minute! He’s been biting heads off Salmon!! That’s not very funny! Sorry, we didn’t get a preview of the script! And none of our Piscean clients were involved!
LUANN: I’m wondering what thermostat setting allows everyone to be comfortable in those oddly-assorted outfits. But wait, Luann doesn’t care if she’s freezing her ass off as long as she can display her assets to a man who is, in typical LUANN style, supposed to appeal to readers, but, in the case of many of us, does not, emphasis on not.
@Veronica!: I’m in my late thirties and I don’t drink much due to health issues and far too many alcoholics so the box wine is more for those suburban soccer moms who try to out-beige each other.
@Poteet: One-tenth so lucky, because I know someone on dialysis. His diet is seriously restricted, and his life in general is affected. Really, it’s kind of tool-ish to portray dialysis as just a teensy-weensy blip on life’s big beautiful radar screen. But that’s LUANN.
@Brian: He said “funny,” and I don’t think he meant “disquieting.”
Luann has been in comic papers for what, 40 years? And we’ve never seen Bernice’s parents?
This comic just gets worse and worse.
Zits: I’ve remarked before that the Zits cartoonist is unusual in this day and age, in that he seems to love the act of making cartoons for their own funny sake. The much maligned Roomba Zoomba Boomba panel of Connie dancing from several years ago was an example of making a cartoon just because a funny visual idea occurred to him, and I applaud it, compared to the bland art we usually are subjected to.
@Veronica!:
Please tell me, tell a stranger
My curiosity goaded
Is there really any danger
That love is now out-moded?
I’m interested especially
In knowing why you waste it
True romance is so fleshly
With what have you replaced it?
What is your latest foible?
Is gin rummy more exquisite?
Is skiing more enjoyable?
For heaven’s sakes what is it?
@Bob Tice: @Guts Dozier:
You guys are mixed up. The lads in Zits today look like the alien starship commander from The Corbormite Maneuver. The gamesters were just disembodied brains.
Sheesh. Get your Boomer Trivia straight.
NERDS!!!!!!!!
@Ogre: Funny, “Nerd” hasn’t been used as an insult in years. Nerd and Geek culture has long since embraced the terms.
Do we get to see Dawn yank the rubber Mary Worth mask off of Belle, only to see by the torn skin and blood in her hand, it really WAS Mary Worth all along?
DT: “Welp, looks like other people have discovered a whole bunch of crimes while we’ve been interviewing a morgue attendant about things we already know. Let’s go and arrest someone!”
Luann: TIL that Phil, and possibly the Evansii, are confused about the difference between “freeloader” and “unpaid live-in help”. It’s a pretty big difference!
MW: Okay, this is going to be interesting. Is Mary going to give her usual “everyone deserves a chance” vague platitudes, becauses, of course, she has no way of knowing that Belle is a staggeringly incompetent would-be murderess? Or is she going to suddenly switch to “trust your instincts” vague platitudes, because she can’t possibly be wrong about something?
@Anonymous: “Pinky and the Brain”
Which one was the genius, and which one was insane? Discuss.
@CanuckDownSouth: Re: Luann: Well the actual reason is that Evans realized they screwed up and painted themselves in a corner by making Luann such a dum-dum since her abysmal scholarly aptitude meant she was functionally isolated from the rest of the cast (Lord knows her “friends” would never interact with the feeble-minded woman-child if circumstances didn’t force them do so) And poor Luann, being too distracted by finger-paints and jingling keys like any mature college student, was unable to make new connections on her own (I mean, her other “friends” are a senile old woman and the guy who sponge-bathes her liver-spots or whatever.) Because of those
As a result the rest of the cast drew lots, Bernice got the shortest one, and as a result, she was the sacrifice chosen for a baffling series of plot contrivances that gave her “no choice” but to move in with the Degroots and keep the book from mentally progressing past it’s 1985 status quo.
@Horace Broon:
I’m going to guess: “You should accept Belle’s endearing quirks to make your father happy. You DO want your father to be happy, don’t you?”
@Human-eared Dragon: Luann has been in comic papers for what, 40 years? And we’ve never seen Bernice’s parents?
We’ve never seen Bernice’s house either. Think about it: Luann and Bernice have spent hundreds of strips hanging out, and it’s always always always at Luann’s house. It was the same when Delta was their friend: always at Luann’s house, never at anyone else’s. Anyone else think that’s incredibly weird?
@CanuckDownSouth: LUANN: The remark about Bernice’s family raises a question: what about Delta’s family? It’d be odd for them to move away right as Delta starts college, but Delta has been in college over a decade now and hasn’t come back to visit once. Does Howard University not do winter or summer breaks? Or does Delta just hate her family so much that she refuses to see them between semesters? Or does she see her family but avoid Luann and her other former friends while she’s in town? Nobody’s even mentioned Delta in years, which is jarring considering how close they all were.
@Hibbleton:
Evidently PriceCo does not provide plastic bags to keep your food clean in while you’re driving home from the store.
GT: I don’t know much about high school baseball, but if I read the box score correctly, Milford is at bat in the bottom of the last inning of a game in which they are already leading. WTF?
@Bryan: Just to add some backstory from my somewhat faulty memory:
1) Bernice’s parents got pregnant in college, and gave away their firstborn son.
2) That son came back to reconnect with Bernice, was an army hero of some sort who Luann immediately got wet over.
3) That son later came back (with his wife and kids, apparently) to move into Bernice’s room while she was an RA, and turned into some kind of unemployed hippie.
JP: ok, roomie avoids ‘rents who actually appear to be smart, funny and cool. The roomies decide to switch families, only then finding themselves snared in undertow of family secrets.
SHOE/MW: finally, the gray reveal. Belle is estranged wife of Senator Belfrey. Either she’s on a nefarious mission involving international travel, or the Senator can no longer satisfy her. Come to think of it, Savarna of PHANTOM may be involved.
@Ogre: Also, by calling us nerds, that suggests that we have high intelligence. Thanks for the compliment!
What an opportunity for a cross over! Wilburp smells the leftover lasagna, and trades Belle’s Drain-o™ au gratin for it.
ZITS: my first year in college I did same as Hector and got on Dean’s List. Next semester I emulated dorm mates and did an all nighter. I barely passed
@Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: Which one was the genius, and which one was insane? Discuss.
____________________
Pinky was the genius,Leather guest starred on “Joannie Loves Chachi.”
___________________@Ogre: NERDS!!!!!!!!
______________________________
EVERLASTING GOBSTOPPERS™!!!!!!!!
@GarrisonSkunk: #117: Pinky also drove demolition derby.
@Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol:
I would say that Pinky was the genius.
I mean, with The Brain… wanting to conquer the world, isn’t something sane people do. And Pinky always “accidentally” ruins Brain’s chances. Maybe Pinky is simply the hero, passively aggressively sabotaging Brain at every turn while playing dumb about it.
Well, except for when the plan is ruined by means out of their control… one example is when Bil Keane in disguise sabotaged Brain’s plan solely because Pinky wrote a letter to him at the beginning of the episode, saying that The Family Circus was no longer funny.
UNLESS… Pinky planned that far ahead.
MW: Tomorrow Belle comes to bed wearing a mask of human skin, made of Dawn’s freshly flayed face and scalp.
“Hot damn!” thinks Wilbur. “Now I can fuck my daughter and not violate any societal taboos!”
@Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: LUANN: 3) That son later came back (with his wife and kids, apparently)
Slight correction: just the kids, not the wife. And they’re her kids, not his. She’s taking care of her sick dad in Manila (which after 4 years seems an excessive amount of time to be away from one’s own children.)
Of course, all that is just cover for the real reason Ben returned: to create the contrivance necessary to force Bernice to live with Luann.
@Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars!:
#92. BIZARRO: Sid’s job sounds so easy and glamorous, but his comments reveal just how complex it is. Hope his new hire is immediately covered by his agency’s health insurance as that cast director has dynamite on his exit door.
@Bob Tice:
“one of the best of the original Star Trek series episodes”
It’s also the one comedians love to refer to because it has about every cliche Star Trek trope:
Several bridge officers whisked off and teleported to an alien planet.
Kirk fighting multiple opponents.
Shirtless Kirk.
Kirk romancing scantily clad alien babe.
The Star Trek fight music.
The Kirk bamboozle, where he talks a far superior foe into doing things his way.
Aliens so advanced that they’ve evolved beyond physical bodies.
@Horace Broon: Considering that Mary will enable Wilbur until she manages to get her talons set into that beloved advice column for good, she’ll also likely gaslight Dawn into how she has to do what her father wants. And if she ends up in the drawer of the Santa Royale morgue, then maybe Dawn shouldn’t have been trying to interfere in Wilbur’s happiness.
@Activist:
#116. ZITS, cont. Later the other women admitted they too had been studying every night but hadn’t wanted to admit it. In-the-closet nerds posing as party girls.
So young mudges, beware of “friends” who lure you into bad habits.
Luann: bringing us the Yalta Conference of people too gutless to be passive-aggressive. And Mrs. Horner, who possibly attended the real thing, is there. The half-eaten lasagna is Poland, somehow.
@Guillermo el chiclero: On anyone else it would be horrifying but Dawn and Wilbur have been acting like a married couple ever since she came back from visiting her mother and did a 180 from “Oh, God, I’m turning into my father” to “I love my daddy soooooooooooo much!!!”
@treetown:
#39. Treetown, just read your SHOE/MW comment and see you saw and said the exact same thing I did hours before I did. Please don’t charge me with plagiarism. 15 quatloos enough for you?
Thank you for that, apropos yesterday’s grammar-geek discussion regarding if a question mark belongs after a rhetorical question. I have concluded that I am pro-question mark.
I appreciate what Luann is doing in this strip – explaining what the deal is with their major characters. Why is Bernice always around when “bestie” or not, her and Luann really don’t seem to do anything together? Now I know she gets free room and board in exchange for relatively light work. Would that other comics do similar explanations, like why on earth Wilbur Weston has an advice column or people who talk to him.
Gotta admit, I’m having trouble wrapping my brain around that one.
^LUANN^: The only time anyone in my college friend group gave me a hard time about kissing anyone was the day after a dance when I kissed another girl. And it wasn’t even “a hard time,” really. More like “We didn’t know you went that way.” “Surprise!” So I don’t know what the hell is going on with Bernice and Luann. Mrs. Horner needs to loan them her copy of Our Bodies, Our Selves or My Secret Garden or The Joy of Sex or whatever manual she has. Those girls need *help.*
Oh, and freeze the (*$*($^(^$ lasanga. Save it for when the deGroot family comes home. Jeez.
I know this was off-topic, but I couldn’t take it anymore. My apologies to the thread, and to Josh.
LUANN: Freezing the lasagna would have been easy, and lasagna freezes well. And it’s not hard to make. And even the two halfwit hostesses could have realized that they were about to make way too much lasagna when they read the ingredient list.
I suspect that at some point, Josh will decide, understandably, that he has suffered enough and will resume not reading LUANN. Meanwhile, thank you, Josh, for sharing the LUANN, um, experience.
@EAG46: Great minds think alike!
@treetown: I wish you were writing MW, because that sounds much more delightful than what we’re probably going to get.