SoSFDavidO here, and I’m not kidding! The good news is, after seven or eight solid hits it kinda stops hurting and just feels numb.
Snarkers, Les in panel 2 is so utterly punchable with his “High Road” attitude in today’s strip after all but turning his dead wife’s cancer story into a damn *musical* that I’m just going to have to cover my eyes like a 12 year old girl watching a horror movie and focus on Lisa’s journal in Summer’s hand, which is growing at such an expodential rate that the good news is it will soon be the size of the room, crushing everyone inside within the next few days.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Actually, you shouldn’t look, Les. That’s Lisa’s private journal, for which she intended no other eyes to view — not even yours, otherwise she would have already shown it to you and read passages from it to lure you to sleep each night. It would be a total jerkass move to read a long-dead broad’s private journal… which means you’ll probably do just that after weighing it through your morally-corrupt conscious until Saturday’s strip.
Les is disgusted at the realization Lisa wasn’t a virgin when they married. Even though he saw her pregnant with Durrwood. What a douche.
Nice cameo by Mopey Pete today, BTW.
The ultimate irony: he physically can’t. All this time, their English teacher has been illiterate.
Brilliant deduction, Summer. But better thumb through it to make sure it’s REALLY her high school journal and now one of the many other long-ignored journals scattered haphazardly throughout your house. You have to have your facts straight when you’re trying to foil a plan this complex and meticulously executed.
Sitting through Jeff’s eyewitness testimony was OK with Les, but pawing through Lisa’s journal (which he apparently was stepping over every morning for a decade and a half) is where he draws the line with his Lisa wallowing. Given the fact that the Les character is often assumed to be TB’s “real-life avatar” of sorts, it makes his sad-eyed wariness about re-visiting Lisa’s tragedy-filled life again (emphasis on again) even more hilarious. What a dick.
Obviously Summer is the only one there with the courage, maturity, emotional stability and yes, grit, to open the doors to the past and wade on into Lisa’s dark, tragic high school years. Of course, it’s bound to be a lot less dark and tragic than her later years, but still, it’s probably pretty bad. All I know is that there’s a reality TV show being filmed, right now, that has the potential to upset, embarrass and hurt Darin’s feeling pretty badly in the unlikely event anyone ever sees it, so there isn’t a lot of time to worry about Les’ feelings right now: it’s time for the man of the house to step up and deliver.
Lisa wasn’t hit by a truck: if this journal was something she wanted kept private, she had a long time to get rid of it.
Epicus, Summer’s the only man in the room.
What the Moores have failed to realize is that every book on every shelf (except for the shelves dedicated to remaindered copies of Lisa’s Shoe: The Other Story and tattered typescripts of John Darling: A Book That Les Moore Wrote About Him) is one of Lisa’s journals. It’s just that Les reads nothing but his own work; Cayla is in a dull stupor from all the whitening drugs Less has been slipping into her coffee; and Summer is an incurious imbecile.
The diaries reveal every detail of her seduction and extortion of Frankie, as well as details from the 18-minute gap and a complete translation into Latin, French, and English of the Voynich manuscript.
Yes, Summer, IF this really is the Journal. There have been some excellent forgeries coming out of Austria recently, fooling some of the most brilliant minds in Westview. No, this one may just be the real Dingus. It still reeks of Tabu. No, this is no forgery – look how Les recoils in horror, he can sense it. *smacks Les across the mouth with the book* That’s for you, ya douche.
As the guest page-turner author of new books, I must say that I am floored by the fact that Mr. Moore seems to have not realized that his late wife, in addition to making all of those dated video tapes, has also kept a handwritten journal, and it has gone unnoticed by most, sitting right atop all of her other dead lady stuff, If I was to write another guest page-turning authoring new book oh crap! Now I am all caught up in horrible, unedited semantics!
Why do I get the feeling that the great author is about to retcon this and make Les the father of Darin?
I like to think that Tom Batiuk himself is finally poking through the skin of his avatar, and that the second panel is Batiuk’s sudden realization of just what his work has become. “My God! When did I turn into such a terrible, unimaginative hack? I just can’t go on with this! I can’t!”
Ha ha ha, I kill me.
I never expected Les to want to read the thing right off the bat. This is because I KNOW that Bathack HAS to draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag this nonsense out all summer long. It’ll take till Labor Day for him to read it.
“I can’t… can’t wait to read all this delicious dish!” You know who would make a great retcon father of Darin? John Darling. Look, we know he’s a slimeball, he was around at the time, it ties the ongoing storylines together (Jessica’s search is a ‘story’, right?) and Jessica and Darin look too much alike.
“Dear Diary, well, broke up with Frankie finally. Couple a douches name of Murdoch stuck their noses is my business but later one of them introduced me to a new guy. Sure, he’s married, but he’s on TV! I’m going to get an afterschool internship at the station and see where this leads…”
June 18, 2013. Mark it down.
For once, I agree with Les. Different reasons, of course, but I’d be saying “I can’t…” after pretty much everything if I was present in this storyline.
Since the epistle of Lisa was found in an old shoebox, does that make it the other Other Shoe?
You’re misreading it. Les isn’t experiencing a sudden bout of conscience, he’s making a falsely polite demurral. “Oh no, I couldn’t…well, if you insist, I will help you pour obsessively over this newly discovered relic of my beloved dead wife. Oh, you want me to write a revised updated edition of Lisa’s Story? Well, I personally think we could leave well enough alone, but if you’re certain it will be to the benefit of society at large…”
“I can’t…” Can’t have Lisa’s true voice bubbling to the surface as he is trying to write the film script for the most unlikely to ever get optioned piece of cancer porn.
“I can’t…with all of you in the room. Get OUT! Get out and leave me with my pr-e-e-e-e-cious!”
Guest Page-Turner Author: Seriously, this is one coincidence too far. If this journal had been in as obvious a place as we were told it was, Les would’ve either burned it by now or stuck it in his sock drawer, where differently-broken men keep their porn.
Summer: “If this is really Lisa’s High School Journa-”
Cayla: “It’s not. I was just screwing with you. It’s a collection of her favorite cookie recipes.”
Summer: “….oh. Hey, Pop, want to make us up a batch of her famous Snickerdoodles?”
Les: “…I can’t. That’s WIMMIN’S WERK!”
“I can’t!. I mean I only just finished the screenplay of a book I wrote myself and lived through in 2 months!!! Now I have to write a sequel to a story that is already written in a diary. Now my feeble writing skills can’t handle this level of creativity!!!
This journal is CRAP, because it’s written in Lisa’s voice and told from her point-of-view, not Les’s. After all, Les is the ultimate authority on all things Lisa. What would Lisa know about Lisa?
TF, that’s hilarious! 🙂
OK, what are the odds of non-Frankie fathers?
– Mr. Fairgood: rather roundabout way of doing it but Fred is damaged goods now in more ways than one. It would restore the status quo somewhat, but he can’t date Kerry now.
– John Darling: funny but that would mean he just had sex with his half sister. Eww.
– Jeff Murdoch: would make Jess and him cousins. Also eww.
– Funky: be completely out of left field, but why?
– Les: it would be funny if Les had shacked up with Lisa a long time ago–it would explain why he helped Lisa through her pregnancy. Batiuk wouldn’t do that, though.
– Virgin birth: Worst Christ analogy ever.
Don’t forget Benson!
KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
S.P. Charles: my point exactly. Only Summer has the testicular fortitude to be able to handle Lisa’s journal of tragedy and misfortune. She’ll once again save the day because, as you all know, it’s the kind of fine young woman she’s become. Plus, it’s not like she has a date to prepare for or anything, at least not until Cory returns from the army.
Can’t wait until she confronts Frankie with her game face on…”grrrrrrrr!”.
Sr Tortilla – my vote is for Fred. It has always struck me as way, way odd that when the others were “How do we stop Frankie?” – “Ida know” “Not Me” and such, he immediately thought of “Pm and Jff.”
Frankie’s oh so interesting reality show might make it onto YouTube. But will soon be deleted because it won’t get enough views.
That Frankie! Do be do be doo!
Oh man, if John Darling was the real father, all pieces would fall into place: Darin was attracted to Jess originally because he was her sister. That’s also why their marriage was awkward. And then that ties into Jess’s baby–quite a different situation when that kid’s mom is also his aunt. We will then get a hackneyed story on ethics of abortion.