My fellow snarkers have beat me to the punch on this one. Whew indeed! I might add, wow.
Look at Cayla’s face in the panel where she’s thinking “If Lisa were here?” and the following, “Whew!” panel! Yes, gaze upon Tom Batiuk’s vision of a woman.
She is weak, dim-witted, and worthless on her own. Only her relationship to Les Moore enables any worth to devolve upon her. She is the luckiest woman on earth to have hooked up with the greatest auteur the world has ever known.
Feh.
Son of Stuck Funky 
“You know who would have ordered enough T-shirts? Lisa. Lisa would have hung the banner properly, cut the sandwiches diagonally, and healed Funky with the purity of her touch…”
You made this bed, Cayla. Now you’re stuck lying in it.
Now I may just be a simple average everyday FW snarker who enjoys making witty, obnoxious and occasionally insightful comments about our favorite Pulitzer blah blah blah and I’m certainly no “writer”, so perhaps my amateur opinion might not count for much. But I for one firmly believe that a great way to show that Les is finally getting over Lisa would be to NOT MENTION LISA ALL THE TIME! Then one day we’d all say “hey, you notice that Les rarely mentions Lisa anymore? He must have moved on!”. I think it’d be an effective way to get that point across…IF that was indeed the author’s intent (chortle). Otherwise, “Les is, in his own unique way, finally moving on” wouldn’t be such a cheap gimmicky way to keep using Lisa while pretending it isn’t a cheap way to keep using her, like it is now.
This is really offensive.
“(If Lisa were here?)”
“If only we hadn’t run out of t-shirts.”
“(Whew!)”
Because, despite being discontinued in the so-called ‘real world,’ the Lisas Legacy Run is THE. ONLY. EVENT. THAT. MATTERS. In Westview.
I try to make my comments directed toward the strip, and not to Mr. Batiuk personally. But this crap is simply offensive. Can anyone explain why Cayla’s parting dialogue doesn’t read “Yassah, Mars Les! We’ll just make sure we order more for next year, laws ha mercy!”
Tom Batiuk, you are a racist.
just look at our hero in panel two floating over his worshipers .Just wondering but has Caylas daughter said 2 words in this whole arc ??
It’s sad how Cayla is afraid of being shoved aside by the man who is supposed to love her. Has he ever thanked her for her contributions?
There’s like what, twenty of thirty people in Westview and they hold this “event” every year. So even they only ordered two shirts (Les of course would buy one for his shrine) I fail to see how they could have sold out.
I am on my knees, praying that a future FW theme will be, “Les watches, broken-hearted, as Cayla rides into the sunset with a man who treats her like a human being.” C’mon people, pray with me.
In Act III FW, Lisa has been dead for about 14 years? Reality would be not thinking of her at all, unless he never dated again, never mind married. I had some hope that Batiuk left her on top of Kilimanjaro, now that gesture by Les seems like just another homage.
I can’t see a single reason why a real-life Cayla would be with a wimp like Les. All they have in common is hours of watching bad girl’s high school basketball, and failed punning.
What a terrible relationship Kayla has wound up in. It’s her own fault though – well, technically it’s Tom Batick’s fault for being such a bad writer.
Tombat has also apparently made Cayla stupid. If Lisa were there dead, her…remains… could keep people away in droves. If Lisa were there alive, there would be no Legacy Run to begin with. However, presuming Cayla is lucid, her thoughts about Lisa likely represent a desperate unspoken, and probably invalid, hope that Les is not completely mentally ill. Actually, what the run needs is Lisa – in the form of one of those twenty-six foot tall roadside inflatable tube men that whips back and forth. Smirk at that, Les.
How pitiful. Cayla’s whipped dog look and desperation to please. Reward: another year of servitude. Les, you’re a real master. If you worked on a fishing boat, you’d be a master baiter.
@Orbiter: If you look at her face, especially her eyes, you can just see how dead inside Cayla is.
I must also point out that if Lisa was there, it’d mean she didn’t die, thus Cayla wouldn’t be there nor would there be a Lisa’s Legacy run in the first place. Alternate universes and all.
The thing is, there’s no way to spin this strip that’s favorable to Batominc. No beady-eyed nitpicking is necessary to see the evil. A rheumy-eyed nit-ignorer could see it.
Shame on you Cayla! Of course, Les wouldn’t want his dead wife here!
If Lisa was here, there would be no way for Les to canonize her into the paragon of virtue and tragedy that she has become today.
If Lisa was here, Les would have to face the hard cold facts that she was an average woman who without cancer would never have ever payed any attention to.
If Lisa was here, your daughter wouldn’t have no disturbing reading material to find uncomfortable mirthful.
If Lisa was here, Durwood would have no reason to dump his VCR and finally upgrade to a DVD player.
If Lisa was here, Cayla would have nobody to feel inferior to when her douchebag husband reminisces.
If Lisa was here, Les more would be rightly proven to be an inept hack.
If Lisa was here, Frankie the Rapist would have no reason to show up a few months back.
If Lisa was here, there would be nothing to move what little plot exists in this awful comic strip.
So stop thinking ridiculous thoughts like that Cayla, and be thankful that Lisa’s dead. You heard me! Be thankful. Because honestly, the only reason we are able to view this stupid strip is because of Lisa’s death from Cancer!
“beckoningchasm: Tom Batiuk, you are a racist.”
I don’t think that’s the reason Cayla is depicted as a cowering fool. I think TB just feels contemptuous & patronizing toward women, period — all women, except Saint Lisa (& saints are sexless, thus beyond sexism).
The funniest thing about Cayla is that her role as Lisa’s replacement was officially Lisa-sanctioned YEARS ago, yet apparently it’s still some sort of issue between them, at least in Cayla’s mind. Another example of one-dimesionality with FW characters. Cayla = Lisa’s replacement. Summer = Lisa’s daughter. Les = the greiving widower. Funky = the fat, aging obese mess.
Rusty: Seventeen years, if we’re still acknowledging the time jump, that is.
If you’re still feeling this insecure about the first wife, then why the hell did you marry this selfish sonofabitch in the first place?
“The funniest thing about Cayla is that her role as Lisa’s replacement was officially Lisa-sanctioned YEARS ago, yet apparently it’s still some sort of issue between them, at least in Cayla’s mind.”
I remember the strip, but I can’t remember if Les shared that moment with Cayla or not. My vaguest memory is of Ghost Lisa giving a thumbs-up to Les, but I can’t recall if Les whispered to Cayla that Lisa would approve of her or not. Maybe it’s just that Cayla is asking herself the same question we’re all asking: “What is the point of the Lisa’s Legacy Run?” Are there donations that Les is supposed to forward to the American Cancer Society, are sponsorships involved, do people actually run or is the entire event devoted to set-up near-fatal catastrophes? I don’t even want to know what happens if you go to the weblink Batiuk endlessly posts on these strips. I assume there are demented readers who actually send money to that site, but I don’t even want to contemplate what’s going through those readers’ minds.
This is a rare moment of clarity for this strip. It’s almost an acknowledgement that Batuik has finally figured out that the main character is a pompous, self-centered ass.
I’m sure next week will be more adventures with the crazy mailman and some stupid Tarzan thing.
Jeffcoat: I always thought it was kind of implied, like Lisa’s big stupid smiling face was an official endorsement that he could finally “move on”. Then came like two dozen arcs featuring Les talking to her at the park bench and on the airport courtesy phone and interacting with him in ways I’d rather not recall right now (or ever again).
I’m afraid Les won’t officially “move on” until he reaches that volume of the VHS series, which, lucky for him (unlucky for us), wasn’t filmed in time before Lisa’s totally unexpected demise.
For the record: today I volunteered at the Tri State Tough Mudder event, where over 10,000 people over two days covered an 11-mile obstacle course to raise money for the Wounded Warrior project.
There were plenty of t-shirts.