Though they’ve been married now for six and a half years (!), we haven’t seen Cayla doing things with Les so much as she does things for him. We know that Les finds time to teach a class or two in between book signings, but Cayla’s employed by the Westview Schools too, or at least she was when we met her. Or did she, as Linda is preparing to do, retire in order to care for her helpless, hapless husband? If her dead-eyed look of contempt directed at Les is any indication, maybe she’s finally getting fed up with the jerk.
Advertisements
I’ve been reading some works on the Civil War, and in a twisted way I keep thinking about Batiuk’s syndicate with all the criticism of just how horribly dull Batiuk’s works are.
“I cannot spare this man, he bores.”
“Fellow cartoonists, we cannot escape history. We of this comic strip and this syndicate will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery book signings through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. We, even we here, hold the pens and bear the books.”
“Women folk and shopping…so what’s the deal with THAT, eh? (scattered laughter). You know how when you’re out shopping with your wife, you can’t just try on ONE thing (laughter), you have to try on EVERY thing…amirite?? (applause)”
“TomBat, TOMBAT…you told me to wake you up at seven, you said you had to send out next year’s strips by Friday.”
“Whaa? Huh? Oh….yeah, uh, OK. I think I have something here!”
Hey, Tom Batiuk, the eighties called, they want their stand-up comedy back.
Well I wouldn’t mind Gallagher coming in and smashing a watermelon all over Les and Cayla. Or better yet, Sam Kinnison screams at both of them: “AGGGGGH. YOU’RE BOTH SO PATHETIC AGGGGH”
“Les and Cayla went up the hill…
Each with a buck and a quarter.
Cayla came down with intense ennui and low self-esteem.”
Salesman John Moschitta here isn’t getting paid enough to have to deal with these two, not even if he earns commission. You can see that he finally realizes this in panel 2.
Boy those expressions in the last panel do not speak of a loving couple. I’ve seen warmer looks on strangers riding the subway who are arguing over a seat.
This FZ reference made my day!
What’s this? Cayla has been allowed an opinion AND an exasperated look at Les without a single comment from him about how she differs from Lisa! Ever since Monday! Is there a misalignment in the stars, or what??
Thanks for including Cayla’s debut, by the way. It shows how much she’s been watered down.
Changing her hairstyle is one thing, but I would love to see how Batiuk told the artist to stop coloring her so dark, because that absolutely happened.
I think changing the hairstyle is a big deal. If she had originally been shown chemically relaxing her hair that would be one thing. But she started out with a short afro, then had braids or twists for a while, and now she’s a straight and flat as she can get. And it is during her relationship with Les that her hair changed. She chemically treated her hair to make it resemble white people’s texture for Les, or to assimilate into his whitebread world.
I’m just picturing a conversation where Batiuk told the artist to stop coloring Cayla “too black” or something along those lines. And that whole changing her hair just so she could impress Les still turns my stomach.
So we’re to believe that this is the first time in their marriage that Cayla has gone clothes shopping with Les?
And, from what was shown yesterday, we can surmise that the salesman, looking at Les’s appearance, tried to unload the brown suit in his inventory that hasn’t sold for months and would have gotten away with it if Cayla hadn’t intervened.
This leaves me to wonder just how long he’s been saving up this dislike for being told by Mrs Batiuk how to shop.
“What’s wrong? The jacket fits…it looks good…Lisa would have liked it!”