So Cayla took one look at the “fear and doom” on Les’ face and was…instantly entranced??? This woman is a true Westviewian, I’ll tell you what. “My dear caught in the headlights” gets my vote as the single worst sentence I’ve ever read, particularly when taken in context. Once again women find the loathsome Les Moore irresistible, even when he’s being a thoughtless weasely dick. It’s not just unrealistic, it’s f*cking impossible. And what it tells us about the whole weird “author/avatar” thing is a topic best left unexplored if you ask me. Even Summer, the blandest college kid on earth, looks bored out her skull by the time Cayla wraps up her story about how being a doormat turns her on. The whole thing is just sickening, I feel like washing my hands after reading this tripe.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Screw you, Cayla. And what exactly did YOU do to remember your first wedding anniversary? You did nothing to show you cared, only some passive aggression. This stupid husband trope is taken right out of the 1990s TV manual.
Typical. Even when Les completely forgets the second wife’s anniversary, he can get away with it just for being Les. It’s not healthy for Batiuk to have this big of a crush on one of his drawings.
That “dear” crap is yet another line Batiuk uses that would make no sense to a listener, who can’t see the spelling.
Of course not. Being mad would imply you actually care about something.
If Les was a multi-trillionaire, this weeks’ story would make a lot more sense. As it is, the idea that any woman, anywhere, would find Les Moore attractive stretches credulity beyond the point where there’s a brief scream and a loud, disturbing “snap.”
Good Lord Above, Tom Batiuk, I try to keep you out of my critiques as a person, but seriously, you should get some help.
I’m betting Keisha has to sleep outside in a tent while those closest to Les can stay indoors after the evening meal.
Cayla finds Les’ thoughtlessness to be touching and amusing. Holly seems unmoved by her husband’s numerous health woes. Donna doesn’t mind when her husband works at a laughably sad comic book store instead of looking for a real job. Becky doesn’t care when her husband spends all day loafing around and loitering with minors. Jessica seems cool with Darin’s nebulous pizza duties. Linda routinely mocks her husband’s stupidity. Dinkle’s wife waited fifty years for a honeymoon which turned out to be Niagra Falls. Ann Fairgood sacrificed her youthful dreams to make a boring old coot happy. There seems to be a definite trend there and I think it indicates that for whatever reason the women of Westview are an incredibly patient bunch.
@Epicus Doomus: The reason seems to be that we’re living in the world of a madman who thinks that a woman’s duty is to patiently allow the men in their world to be complete freaking asshats and love it because that’s what women are for. That and destroying comic book collections because girls are stupid. You’ll note that Funky took to drinking because Cindy did him wrong and refused to put up with his bullshit and his alpha-lummox posturing.
I can never decide whether Tom Batiuk is trying and failing, deliberately baiting his critics, or just phoning it in. Instinct tells me it’s A. Regardless, there’s a Masters thesis in this somewhere. Just not a Pulitzer.
In this case…for TB… Art imitates Life….in his own mind.
Tom’s life is probably much like les’s…where in he thinks himself a great author and champion of cancer awareness with the masses bowing to him…. yet he remains in his attic giggling to himself like a child savant..
Ugh. This week wins the prize for “best depiction of an unrealistic and creepy relationship.” Not anything for Batom Inc. to be proud of though.
I guess after the ten-thousand-twenty-eighth “Oh, Lisa!!” forgetting an anniversary seemed pretty benign.
I’ve no doubt that Les remembers his and Lisa’s anniversary. It was Halloween (night of the dead) which in hindsight makes so much sense. The fact that not-Black Cayla would even consider getting married in the same month as the previous wife says so much more about her than it does about Les…
It’s funny, because we all want to hit Les with a car and he never forgot anything important about us.
Panel 2 Cayla, is she channeling Gary Mitchell or Little Orphan Annie?
@Rusty: Keisha gets to sleep in the cupboard under the stairs, while Summer gets two bedrooms.
@oddnoc: Master’s thesis? I’d go so far as to say this Tom/Les thing could be good for a doctoral dissertation in abnormal psychology. Speaking of which, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the real-life Criminal Minds people already have a full profile drawn up on Batiuk.
Wow, Cayla just jumped up 10 years in the last panel.
“Cancer in PopCulture panel feat Ohio native Tom Batiuk of Funky Winkerbean fame & more!”….wow, that’s gonna be a real barn-burner of a discussion, you know? Coming next month: “Cancer In Comic Strip History” featuring Tom Batiuk and no one else!”.
“Fame”…LOL, yeah, I guess, sorta kinda. Depends on your definition of famous, I suppose.
Cancer in popular culture….like Viagra for Batiuk. He’s probably paying to be on the panel.
I’d think when most people hear “cancer in popular culture” they think Breaking Bad, not Funky WInkerbean. And the synopsis for that thing says “exploring the appropriateness of cancer in comic books”. So you just know it’s going to be a full hour of Batiuk talking about how comics are serious Art and have to deal with serious things.
I’m just glad the panel has more than Batiuk on it, (in fact, he’s not listed as a panelist on the WSU Events Calendar) because otherwise he’d probably never stop praising himself for his bravery in being at the forefront of Cancer in Popular Culture. And it’d undoubtedly be couched in a whole “there’s a lot of resistance in the public at large to addressing cancer. Let me tell you about all those awful people who aren’t willing to…. blah blah blah and think it doesn’t belong in… blah blah blah.”
“I was the first cartoonist to address cancer in a daily comic strip”. “I was the first person to animate a cartoon about dying of heart disease”. “I was the first death metal vocalist to write lyrics about being a ballerina”. Big deal, I wish he’d admit it was mostly for “shock” value and attention instead of pretending it was some sort of ground that needed to be broken.