I actually took a break from New Year’s revelry to see if today’s strip had posted (sad, yes, I know). On my iPhone, I could only see the first panel…
…and immediately let out a groan because I immediately knew the punchline would be something “Thor”. I do like how Funky appears to be sashaying in panel 1 though.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Maybe ending your run at a pizza place is not the best idea. Is there an employee shower in the back? Are they going to change into their work clothes in the kitchen? That doesn’t seem sanitary at all. Or are they going to barge in on Wally and use his shower? There are other places in Westview other than Montoni’s.
So I guess that we’re back to “gag-a-day” strips (sort of).
If there’s anything more repellent than Les in those tights I’ll be damned if I know what it is. Except maybe this joke, which BanTom obviously lifted from someone coming out of anesthesia.
It’s an overused pun, to be sure, but it’s a valid pun which makes it better than about half the strips that get churned out. It’s probably the best start for the year we could ask for.
@Gerard Plourde: I wonder if anyone ever complained about this being a gag-a-day strip? I doubt that TB was besieged with letters from fans who pleaded that he stop wasting his genius by just telling jokes rather than impersonating Thomas Hardy in 3 panels per day.
For me, it doesn’t matter whether the joke is funny or not–if the strip has Les in it, I just think “must punch it. Repeatedly.”
I think he means he’s just gassy.
I’m confused. Where’s the third panel with Rat insulting and/or threatening Pastis?
@Epicus: Les is exactly the sort to run around in yoga pants.
@billytheskink: Even Pastis has SOME standards. Batiuk thinks he’s being clever having Super-Death Guy making the living envy the dead.
The problem with this is less that Les The Punchable doesn’t dig not being the one making the bad pun. That’s to be expected from the Lord Of Languge. The annoying thing is that the pun is so old, Jfff’s comics hating mother can see it coming.
>>For me, it doesn’t matter whether the joke is funny or not–if the strip has Les in it, I just think “must punch it. Repeatedly.”<<<
So there is a punch line after all………………………………
Westview must have a blizzard every day…all that snow. And who runs in that kind of weather?
The god of thunder and the lord of language walk into a pizza joint—stop me if you’ve heard this one…
I feel like its Ground Hog day…..another year of the same old shit
I have no idea how to post an image into a WordPress comment, so here’s a link.
>>So I guess that we’re back to “gag-a-day” strips (sort of).
@Gerard Plourde: I gag more often than not when I read this strip.
There’s something about Less’s big hips and tiny feet that make me want to run over his face with a lawnmower.
@Apauled – I’m sure you’re right that no one complained about the “gag-a-day” format. That said, I’m even ok with the concept of The Author’s decision to switch over to story arcs that treat serious issues, My problem lies in the execution of the task. The last two major arcs concerning Les and Lisa (the “time pool reunion” and the video “Easter eggs”) provide a good example.
Having the “time pool” be a journey into Les’s unconscious as a result of his fainting because of the hired band’s breach of contract to play a gig at the hated rival school (reality check – would a band in the real world expose itself to legal liability and bad press like this?) and his unconscious mind’s willful deception of “time pool Lisa” concerning her absence at the reunion do nothing to enhance his appeal as a character. Likewise, Lisa’s tape to “the other woman” fully reveals her as a narcissistic, controlling harpy. It recasts the “milestone tapes” that she made for Summer in a negative light.
The larger question that this poses is why an author would consistently make his characters unlikable? Trying to figure this out is probably why most of us follow the strip and congregate here.
@Gerald – I think Tom Batiuk doesn’t see his characters as “unlikable.” I honestly think he sees them as wonderful characters, Les and Lisa especially. And that’s really sad, a very sure sign of someone who simply will not see outside the range of his “vision.”
@gerard
Yeah, Lisa was even more annoying on the tapes. Totally unbelievable that a woman would watch a video from her husband’s deceased wife. Like Cayla wants to take advice on how to love Les. Terrible, just terrible.
@beckoningchasm – I agree that he probably doesn’t. It’s why I posited that the view into his mind that the bleakness of the overall strip presents is one reason we follow it.
@Rusty Shackleford – Very true. Also, if the “Other Woman” video is an example of the what Summer was subjected to, then Les would have done well to destroy them unviewed. It certainly wouldn’t be how I’d want to be remembered.
For the most part, the Lisa videos that I recall from the past were mostly generic, bland, sub-greeting-card statements like “Follow your heart.” The Lisa-Cayla arc was really creepy and disturbing, and forever cast one of the more inoffensive characters (Lisa) into a full-blown psychotic.
Thank goodness we haven’t seen the “For Les” one–
–yet.
There are a million variations on the old “I’m mighty Thor” gag. Unfortunately all the funny ones are obscene.
For the most part, the Lisa videos that I recall from the past were mostly generic, bland, sub-greeting-card statements like “Follow your heart.” The Lisa-Cayla arc was really creepy and disturbing, and forever cast one of the more inoffensive characters (Lisa) into a full-blown psychotic.
Nah. To me, it wasn’t an explicit moment, but there was some point where videos became the go-to device for inserting Lisa into the narrative, at which point the whole notion of her recording these in her dying days became ridiculous. It stopped being something relatively believable and just turned absurd and disproportionate. Also, notice how Ghost Lisa pretty much went away once Video Lisa became a thing. I could accept Ghost Lisa looking on proudly as Darin celebrates his 30th birthday. Having her instead make a video to commemorate the moment was a lot more absurd, and it only really got worse as Lisa videos kept popping up for moments of minutiae or moments that Lisa could not have anticipated or safely assumed would happen.
I mean, hell, most of my comments from that terrible week of Lisa lecturing Cayla about loving Les (and notice how those videos differed from the others in that Lisa was all withered, wigless and dying in them) were merely cribbed from comments I had made regarding earlier Lisa sequences from years past. Shhh, don’t tell the Academy.
IMO BanTom should have gone back to a “lighter” gag-a-day type format for Act III. When he began Act III he was still aiming way too high and trying to be way too ambitious with his “little universe”. I don’t think he properly anticipated how much work it was going to be, which is why we’re seeing less and less of his “high drama” and more goofy wordplay, comic books and the like. The challenge of moving everything ten years forward was just too much for him to handle and it shows.
Charles: You’re right about Video Lisa “replacing” Ghost Lisa. After Les got engaged and married, it was somewhat awkward to have him scampering off to the bench to chat with GL all the time, but BanTom wasn’t ready to let Lisa go (finally), so he contrived this video tape idea to keep her “alive”, so to speak. And I agree, it’s even sillier than GL was, way less plausible too. That ridiculous “easter egg DVD” arc was just embarrassing. As dumb as it was to have Les having imaginary chats with Lisa, it was certainly way more believable than the idea that Lisa took the time to record video tapes for every life event her survivors would experience after she was gone. The one where Lisa warned Cayla that Les would call out her name during sex was the lowest point of 2015 IMO.
IMO the funniest thing about it is how unnecessary it all was, as all he had to do was have Lisa survive and recover from her cancer instead of killing her off, but at the time he was obviously desperate for the attention it’d bring. He chose the downbeat ending which led to FW being forever labeled as “that depressing strip where everyone dies” and in the end what did it get him?
If I was married to someone who kept going on an on about how awesome her first husband was, and how she was going to write all these books about him while I served her snacks…well, I wouldn’t have married that person. There’s a point where you can see the memorial service just isn’t going to end, so it’s time for you to leave.
The fact that Batiuk does this to Cayla is really awful. I continue to shake my head that he somehow thinks this is some form of healthy relationship. Hint: it ain’t. Not even a little bit.
Re: Ghost Lisa. I’m not normally a Conspiracy Theory person, but I have always believed Ghost Lisa was supposed to have made an ultra-maudlin, spectacularly mawkish appearance at the Les-Cayla wedding fiasco. We can only guess how nauseating the dialog might have been as Dead Lisa gave her ghostly permission to marry and plow that… that other woman.
But all the forums were way ahead of Batiuk, and were already flaming the anticipated Lisa visitation to a fine crisp. So when the wedding rolled around, there was this abrupt cut to Frd Frrgddd taking Darvon on a tour of the mean streets of Westview in a car the size of a cat food can. It was a meaningless, useless arc that appeared out of nowhere, and… hmm… almost appeared to have been inserted at the last moment. And thus, we were deprived of what surely would have been the most cringeworthy Lisa appearance ever.