Gym Jam

The red and blue balloons (though the school colors are red and white) have been filled, and the kraft paper and tempera paint banner has been haphazardly Scotch-taped to the folded up bleachers. Everything appears ready for the coming reunion. You’d expect Reunion Committee Chairman Les to be displaying his base-running, smugly satisfied smirk. But Les implies that the reunion planning has been fraught with problems. OK, well, his committee did forget to choose a venue, though this issue was easily resolved (albeit to the detriment of Westview’s basketball-loving youth). Les has overcome his lack of a Facebook page and a suitable high school portrait, and has managed to delegate the setting up of the Lisa shrine, yet he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. And here comes Barry Balderman to drop that shoe…

19 thoughts on “Gym Jam”

  1. Oh NO! What’s the problem THIS time? Is Lisa’s memorial photo not centered perfectly on the board? Is it slightly askew? Did someone forget to genuflect while passing her picture? Is the photo from Act I when she had the ugly hair and the asymmetrical face? What else could it possibly BE???

  2. What is it with Batiuk always drawing exteriors and bricks? He could have drawn more of the gym, so we’d actually see why it looks great. Instead we get yet another shot of Westview High, and a reminder that it’s the reunion (even though Les points out that it’s the reunion in the very next panel), and then a close-up of Les looking like a jackass.

  4. July 6th: Gym Closed For Fumigation. Check out the tape job on that banner, classic. It’s like Batiuk REALLY wants to let us know that the banner isn’t merely hanging there in defiance of the known laws of physics, he MUST make SURE it’s readily clear that tape is being used to hold it up. I assume he’s concerned that if he doesn’t clearly show the tape, we here at SoSF will go off on a five paragraph rant about his lack of attention to detail regarding the properties of adhesives. And I mean sure, I might, but probably not.

  5. @BeckoningChasm:
    That’s pretty much exactly how I was describing it in my head. 😛
    What I wish the problem would be:
    Funky, piss drunk and making out with Cindy while sprawled on top of the Lisa Shrine.
    What it probably is:
    The DJ’s laptop crashed, because stupid technology.

  6. Life is going great, in our Sunday evening of a holiday weekend Class Reunion.

    Nope, this is going to be a disaster.

    Uggh. No one wants to sheep themselves over to the high school gym on a Sunday night to face these idiots. And jackets and ties? Has Les arrived in the 21st century yet?

    NOBODY is coming! should be Barry Baldguy’s refrain.

    All the venues were booked, my ass! On a Sunday evening of a holiday weekend? !?!

    Get yourself a Facebook account Tom/Les. Then you can actually reunite with the people you care about reuniting with.

  8. “Les, we’ve got a problem! Someone at King Features just realized that this strip doesn’t display contemporary issues affecting young adults in a thought-provoking and sensitive manner!”

  9. @SpacemanSpiff85:

    What is it with Batiuk always drawing exteriors and bricks? He could have drawn more of the gym, so we’d actually see why it looks great. Instead we get yet another shot of Westview High, and a reminder that it’s the reunion (even though Les points out that it’s the reunion in the very next panel), and then a close-up of Les looking like a jackass.

    Tom Batiuk’s fascination with bricks should surprise no one. He is literally the Hack-A-Shaq of newspaper comics.

  10. Well, as SpacemanSpiff1985 says, evil technology failed Les so he must resort to hiring Harry Dinkle’s Senior Citizen Band. Ah, well. At least we’ll get more “Cindy is a stupid, self-centered assemblage of punctuation who needs to be slapped down hard” stuff to talk about.

  11. Hmmm, what could it be?

    Funky showed up drunk and smacked Cindy with a baseball bat?

    Crankshaft finally lost it and is driving his bus into parked cars?

    Dinkle’s community band has a concert tonight and the old timers want to beat Les up?

  12. tomorrow’s strip

    Less: “What is it Barry, did Timmy fall in a well?”

    Barry: “No, that author that we hired to read excerpts of his best-selling book as guests arrived didn’t show up! Ya know, cause that’s a thing that they do at reunions in Ohio.”

    Less: (grabbing his tattered copy of Lisa’s Story he always keeps on hand for just such an emergency) Follow me, I know just what to do!

    Cayla: (swoons)

  13. So this is a costume reunion party? Otherwise, why is Les dressed like Fox Mulder?

  14. Les looks more smug than worried. Like he knows no matter what happens, he’s going to come out of it with the universe kissing his ass as per the norm.

  15. I’m guessing the Wicker Woman replica of Lisa is not ready yet.

  16. If you’ve ever wondered how Les failed for years to get any of his work published, you can start with the fact that he (and everyone else in this strip) wears his name tag on the wrong side of his sternum. A serious blunder for anyone trying to seriously network.

    You can finish with a list of facts too long for me to type this morning.

  17. @JerrytheMacGuy: Either that or they bailed at the last minute. Thus, opening the door for Funky to save the day by whipping up a batch or his world famous “crap-on-cardboard” pizzas.

  18. “The next plot complication will be a contrivance executed in the stupidest possible way” is my easiest prediction possible.

  19. Perhaps they’re using the same caterer that supplied the fish and chicken for the Airplane movie. Remember to eat the lasagna.

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