In the hands of any other writer, Les’ remark to Cayla would be taken as sarcasm. Your high school English teacher (and high school was how many years ago?) wrote a single comment (and not a very scathing one at that) on your paper, and you’ve been scarred by that? Well, clearly she has been: to this day, Cayla can’t sit down and compose an email to her daughter without being seized by flashbacks. “Careless”? This from the most careless “writer” working in comics today. Can you imagine the withering critiques that Les must give to his students?
25 thoughts on “Post-Grammatic Stress Disorder”
Comments are closed.
Son of Stuck Funky 
I must admit that today, Les has it right about high school scars lasting forever. Graduation from high school felt just like getting sprung from the big house after 12 years of hard labor.
First of all, WHO THE HELL IS THAT IN THE LAST PANEL?? Crayola’s grandmother?? Also love the hair helmet and the head skinny enough to fit into a coin slot. Tommy, would it help if we raised money for that art class you need so badly? We could all sell our comic books if necessary.
“Oh, Lester! You’re such a masterful WRITER! Little old careless me can’t even write an email or a shopping list without banging my head against a brick wall. But, YOU… you could write a best selling novel in your sleep! Please, please give me a smug, empty platitude to turn me into a content, fat elderly troll-woman!”
Well, in the case of sentences like the one Cayla spews forth in panel four, perhaps that mean ol’ English teacher was right. But “clumsy” would be a better adjective IMO.
It’s Westview, Cayla. Everyone has scars. In fact some of them are missing entire limbs. So deal with it, OK? It’s an email, it’ll probably go straight to the spam folder anyway.
By the way, I’m not even going to bother to ask what the fuck is going on with Goatee Boy’s head in the last panel. Looks like it’s filled with helium and he has a Mohawk. Christ, what a disaster today.
Let’s say we were stuck in a paper bag, and the only way out was for someone to write our way out of it. And let’s say the only writers we had were Les, Cayla, and Batominc. We’d be screwed.
But then I thought to myself, oh, come on, you can make Les much, much creepier than that.
Apologies in advance to everyone, ever, in the entire world, now and in the past and future too.
Ahhh…The Grounded One said something that, in one fell swoop, comforted his often-edgy wife and reminded us all why he is indeed The Grounded One.
Too bad nobody gives a rat’s ass any more…
Get over it, Cayla!
Y’know, “careless” perfectly describes the last several years of this strip.
“And that’s why I came back to this dumpy little suburb to teach high school English, Cayla- to inflict SCARS on the descendants of the rich, beautiful creeps who LAUGHED at me hanging from the rope in the gym!! No matter if they go to college out of state or get jobs in the big city, they will carry the SCARS I gave them FOREVER! Bwah-hahahaha!”
Yeah, it makes sense that a guy who sees wedgies as the thing bullied kids are most scared of would see a single red ink “Careless” as a horrible scarring trauma.
Ye gawds, could Les look anymore self righteous, smug, and condescending in that last panel?!? Internally, he’s already anointed himself for sainthood.
Missing last panel: Les thought balloon “Note to self, use red pen and write CARELESS across tops of pages when grading from now on.”
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: people who dwell on their high school careers have completely squandered their adulthood.
@Beckoning: Outstanding work. I laughed out loud.
@TFH: IMO, Beckoning’s P1 is masthead-worthy.
Today’s strip ALMOST seems like a normal interaction between a married couple, where the husband listens to his wife, shows empathy, and rubs her shoulders in a show of affection. Alas, this is LES we are talking about. He’s smirking and fantasizing about getting even with his high school tormentors by scarring their children. There’s also the unseen thought balloon thinking “Lisa would know how to type an email! Who is this loser I married?”
Thus speaketh a man who spends his days putting young people down because they aren’t as wonderful and as bright as he is. Has Les ever nurtured a young person? Has he ever inspired in anyone a love of reading and literature, something that can last a lifetime and give comfort and pleasure even in the darkest times? No Les is all about Les’s pain; his writing is an act of revenge against the unnamed teachers who put him down and his constant bullying of his students is revenge for his being bullied in high school. He has no comfort or empathy to give, even his to Cayla comment is leaded with self pity.
he’s a shit.
And oh yes Cayla you’re probably trying to say too much all at once – start small, just pick one thing, say the last time you belted Les and tell your daughter about that , you’ll be up to 15 pages and still going in no time.
TheDiva: The only thing worse is someone who spends his entire life obsessed with the college professor who -dared- to fail one of his papers. Then pats himself on the back for not verbally assaulting an old man decades later.
I’m sure Maddie and Owen felt great about having “Wikipedia” written in large red letters across their papers.
And, for cryin’ out loud Cayla, “Writing isn’t easy for me like it is for you”? If every email was the author giving himself a pat on the back that turns into a full-fledged handjob the way this strip does, Keisha would just block them automatically.
(By the way, is Keisha avoiding you? Maybe saying in front of everybody that marrying Les was the best thing that ever happened to you might have something to do with that?)
Here’s something I posted on the Comics Kingdom site that “mysteriously” disappeared:
“When I was in high school, my English teacher wrote ‘careless’ in red ink on one of my papers.” There, Tomboy. I fixed your clumsy “writing.” You’re welcome. Maybe when you sign up for that art course, you can also take Freshman Comp. You need it.
Hmm. Nothing dirty there. Must have been a mistake on their part. Did them a favor and reposted it. Happy to help.
Loneliest job in the world: policing/editing the comments on the Comics Kingdom site.
Les to Cayla: “Aha! So you were one of those that were left behind!”
“Careless” is the manner in which Cayla entered into this whole relationship with Les.
Careless is the manner in which Tom Batdong writes this entire strip.
Careless is the manner in which Comic Kingdom writes paychecks.
Why do I get the sense that Les is beaming with pride as he speaks his line in the last panel?
@ BeckoningChasm: Talk about scars lasting forever! I need brain bleach, STAT!
Does Cayla (or Batiuk) understand what an e-mail message is? It’s a brief grammar-and-spelling-optional message. A step up from a text message, to be sure, but still nothing any semi-literate person should be obsessing over.
And if she’s convinced Keisha’s deliberately ignoring her phone calls, she probably has her e-mail account set up to route Cayla’s e-mails to the spam folder anyway.
BeckoningChasm: It’s a tough task to out-creep the original…well done!