I want it to go on forever too, or at least until Les Moore finally collapses in dehydrated agony, his body cramping so severely that it eventually implodes into a small green globule that gets washed into the nearest storm drain during the next good autumn soaking. Because that would be great. Barring that, blah, this is downright creepy. I mean who wrote this one, his nine year old niece?
LOL Ghost Lisa. What’s her deal anyway? Is she somehow contractually bound to only appear at Les sanctioned events or is she free to move about as she pleases? She seriously wants to spend all eternity following Les and his new living wife as they jog around that crummy park? What a bore, although it does deviate from the typical Westviewian’s eternal dream, that being eating pizza in a structure made entirely of comic books, of course.
In fact it sounds more like hell to me, but then again I’ve always despised Les Moore and all he stands for thus I’m slightly biased. I liked Ghost Lisa more back when she was detecting structural problems in passenger jets and things like that, you know, really USING her ghostly powers. Now she’s another bland idiot whose only interesting characteristic is being dead. In fact if she wasn’t transparent (indicating ghostliness) she’d be indistinguishable from the rest of these dullards. Who’d even notice anyway?
Son of Stuck Funky 
Today the role of Captain Obvious is being played by Cayla Moore.
Yeah… the fact that Lisa wants this 5K to go on forever really doesn’t speak well for where her apparition is spending time when not following Les in 5Ks.
Indeed, you’d think that perhaps she could be running forever with her dance partner, Masky McDeathface.
AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! A G-G-G-GHOST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“”Run in my charity race and get chased by a ghost” is a weird way for Batiuk to promote his run.
Speaking of Ghost Lisa appearances — Do you remember the epic Les vs Cayla wedding? Many of us predicted that Ghost Lisa would appear, and in a scene maudlin enough to gag a maggot, she would give “Spanky” (ugh) her blessing to marry old What’s Her Name. We joked and snarked about that possibility for weeks. When the time came, there was no magical appearance by Ghost Dead Lisa. Instead, what DID happen was Batty cut very abruptly from the wedding to a ridiculous mini-arc where the Frrgdds drove Duhhren around all the bad neighborhoods in Westview to show him where they used to live. It seemed bizarre, even by BatHack standards, to cut from this rather important (In the Funkyverse, anyway) wedding to such meaningless filler. My theory was, and still is, that Batty DID originally write a Blessed Saint Dead Lisa Gives Her Consent sequence, but scrapped it after so much ridicule was heaped on the idea. The filler went in its place. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ with it.
Batty might as well just make Ghost Lisa a recurring character. Have her hang out at Montoni’s. She could give sage, other-worldly advice to Les and Cayla. Hell, they could even have Glorious Three Way Sex. I’m sure there’s a Disney movie featuring a comical ghost that Batty can copy.
The way I remember it……
He actually did do a “Lisa gives her blessing” arc, as I recall her somehow being involved when Les first started dating Cayla. That was one of his big post-Lisa prestige arcs, back when he still did those.
Lisa kind of was a regular recurring character back then too. While she wasn’t a regular at Montoni’s or the Korner, she was hanging around on that park bench all the damn time. At least a few Les arcs ended with him scampering off to that park bench to beg Lisa for advice on this or that. Plus you still had Summer around all the time too, the less said about that the better.
As soon as he brought Les and Cayla together it was obvious they’d end up getting married eventually as Batom would never have the guts to break them up, but he did his best to marginalize her there for a while (like years). Then after the Susan Smith debacle Cayla threw down the gauntlet (so to speak) and Les finally popped the question in the most Lisa-centric way possible. I likewise assumed that Ghost Lisa would pop up at that ghastly wedding but you know how this guy is, trying to predict what he’ll do is always folly.
Yeah, i know its difficult-to-impossible to see ahead when nothing has a logical direction, but i don’t think “Batiuk suddenly listens to his audience” makes any more sense than what we saw.
Anyway, yep, Lisa’s Legacy Run is on Les & Cayla’s 5th Anniversary. Wonder which one will get mentioned? I’m no Karnac but…
I could get behind a haunted booth at Montoni’s, shunned by the other customers. Or maybe perch her on a diner stool, drinking coffee with Crazy Harry.
Oh, don’t worry, Lisa. While the run may end, your widower’s obsession with you is forever.
Sadly, yes.
Does the casual reader understand the context at all? If I popped in an out of FW like a normal person, I probably would have no idea what’s going on here.
You would think it was some Friday the 13th gag. Then gag after reading it.
Anyone else hoping that Ghost Lisa gets revealed to be the greedy real estate developer using some gels in front of a flashlight and other stage magic to scare everybody off, and Les has to thank some bunch of meddling kids?
This is all in Cayla’s head, of course. She feels haunted by Lisa’s presence (“Don’t hurt our Les, Other Woman! OoooOOOOOoooOOOoo~”) and as though she’s moving mindlessly through life alongside her distant husband, trying to please him but going nowhere.
Hey, how symbolic! There could be a book deal here!
Les: DID SOMEBODY SAY BOOK?!?
Me: Oh, no, wait, I DIDN’T MEAN – (*bashed in the head with a hardcover copy of Lisa’s Story*)
On another note, Ghost Lisa has reached that point in which something crosses so far over the line of “horrible” that it becomes hysterically funny instead.
A major problem with Ghost Lisa is that her “powers” are portrayed so inconsistently. Can Les hear her or not? Why couldn’t she have talked to Les directly when he was at the airport? She did earlier. Why wasn’t she at his wedding, perhaps the most important day of his post-Lisa life–or it should’ve been. Whenever he brings back Ghost Lisa, it just seems tacked on, with no forethought.
And doesn’t she have better things to do, like keeping kids from getting killed or helping THE FAMILY CIRCUS’ Dead Grandpa help PJ find Easter eggs? Are their other people in the afterlife, and when will we see them. This is just garbage.
He is trying to be sweet and sentimental. Be funnier if Lisa were yelling “Les, don’t go on that run! “. And then in the last panel Les collapses due to a heart attack.
What I’d like to see happen is ECTO-1 showing up and the Ghostbusters putting her in a containment unit. This is just getting absurd.
2 random thorts: I’m thinking Lisa and Cayla pull a Blade Runner on Les to allow him to have holo sex with his dead wife. Also, whenever one of my writers at the magazine tries to “do poignant” I send the copy back, and would have done so if Batty had submitted this as a draft.
Today’s episode proves that Lisa is every bit the egomaniac that Les is.
I think today’s strip merits another link to this classic.
Willis was, of course, was referencing these strip that were printed a few weeks prior.
Good grief, TB was tossing around Valentine references in 2009 too?
Geez, I almost forgot about that one. So there’s no “thought bubbles” around Ghost Lisa’s line. Does that mean that Les heard her, and his smirk is a nod to Ghost Lisa (and he’s completely unaware of what Cayla just said) or is he smirking approval of Cayla’s fandom of an old white movie director?
Was this the very last time Cayla ever said something about her herself, it seems so. And oh yes was Lisa’s unfinished business was the desire be a voyeur ?
Wow, I forgot that Les was dating an African-American woman before he met Cayla.
OMG, what crap. Yeah, all the cool people love Woody Allen. Especially dead white girls. Batty is sick.
How the hell did I ever miss that? Extra credit for depicting the love scene!
Lisa’s g-g-ghost:
O Less, what a falling-off was there,
From me, whose love was of that dignity
That it went hand in hand even with the vow
I made to you in marriage, and to decline
Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor
To those of mine!
But virtue, as it never will be mov’d,
Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,
So lust, though to a radiant angel link’d,
Will sate itself in a celestial bed
And prey on garbage.
With apologies to Willy S.
If the Lisa’s Legacy thing has actually done some good, then Batiuk has a right to be proud of it. But this endless “…and it’s the most fun you can have, too!” stuff is just pounding it into the ground.