And of course, it’s always a “worse” day when Les shows up. Doesn’t stop Linda’s smirking, though!
Last week was annoying, like a mosquito you can hear humming but can’t find; this week promises to be a whole horde of roaches appearing when the kitchen light goes on. But instead of scattering, they stand right there and stare at you.
But why is Les here? Linda has always been shown commiserating with Buck, Bull’s “friend,” whereas Les isn’t any kind of a friend, airquotes or not. Why would she text Les, instead of Buck? Buck knows what’s going on, Les has no idea.
I suspect the author’s reasoning is something like, I’m not going to waste my New York Times audience on a clod like Buck. If they read the New York Times, they obviously can appreciate the sheer wonders of Les Moore.
Son of Stuck Funky 
So did the bushes beside the door commit suicide too? Finding out would preferable to ANY appearance by these two.
The trees and bushes lost their leaves the other week. These leaves are following Les like lost puppies because they think he’s the Angel of Death.
Les not wasting any time in consummating his work marriage, I see.
Maybe I’m remembering this wrong but I believe it was all the excitement over Les’ original movie screenplay option arc that got Susan Smith all randy and unable to control herself around the then-still unmarried Les, which of course led to her firing and total banishment. So Les had better keep his LS shopping option news to himself, lest Linda loses all control and ends up like Susan, skulking her way out of the strip in shame.
Linda smirks as she delivers her bad-days, worse-days line. Maybe Les’s arrival made her see that some things are far worse than death.
How’s Linda “doing”? Why not ask Funky how his diet is going or Dinkle if he’s heard any good Sousa marches lately or Owen if his hat smells as bad as it looks? Linda is dour, miserable and, as always, wry as all f*ck. In other words, completely normal. One glance at that utterly defeated face tells you that much, at least.
Perhaps Les could offer her a small part in “Lisa’s Story: The Movie”, like “mourner #2” or “mortician’s assistant”. Or maybe they could use a misery consultant, someone to help all that human suffering and woe just pop off the screen and seem authentic to even the most jaded Westviewians. If Les wants LS to be a real downer like in “real life” having Linda around certainly couldn’t hurt.
“Les, let’s talk about suicide. My life is so miserable that I want you to talk until you drive me to it!”
“Les, for some reason I want you to write a book about my husband Bull Bushka who died. It’s got nothing to do with the way you wrote about John Darling and discovered he was murdered by a stupidly-named suspect. I would just feel better knowing that you commemorated Bull’s life.”
“Me?” And Les delivers a smirk that we would have seen on Halloween, if Batiuk had a sense of timing and irony. “Why, I’d be delighted!”
You’re probably right. It’ll be a box set with the Lisa misery porn.
There he is at the door: old, obnoxious, arrogant, dressed strangely and exuding all the charm of an inquisitor. Les Moore is Angela Lansbury in drag.
It’s cute that Batiuk thinks he still has a New York Times bump after last week’s nonsense.
He’s not used to dealing with readers who can count to ten without using their fingers.
To the extent the bump in interest ever existed, I suspect he lost it during The Week Of Opening A Letter.
Why doesn’t Linda have any close gal pals or family? Most adult women I know have confidants who are either female or related. She’s down to two friends, both male. Why would she want Les over? If she wants a man to hold, she’s barking up the wrong tree, and would be better off tackling Buck for the 2 point post-funeral conversion.
I doubt TB is comfortable with female friendships. The only one I can think of offhand is Donna and Holly, and that only seemed to come up so that Donna could lecture Holly about comic books.
As for contacting Les, she (and the author) may be under the common misapprehension that someone who is very expressive of their own griefs and feelings would give a crap about anyone else’s.
A week watching a wildly unlikable woman howl in confused rage because the insurance company won’t pay up just because Bull committed suicide as an eminently punchable man stands there trying to understand why he’s supposed to care. Truly worthy of the Gray Lady of journalism.
“Thanks for coming over, Less. Buck and I need a gimp for our little games tonight and you’ll do nicely!”
“You’re a feisty little one, but you’ll soon learn some respect.”
What the hell is the tone of this strip? We just went from a joke about electrocution, to Bull’s less recent death, which we’re supposed to take seriously. Which the widow Linda has never looked all that concerned about. But, she apparently needs emotional support. From Les Moore, a guy who only cares about his dead spouse, and was openly bitter towards Bull at the funeral.
Just… what?
So did Les stop communicating with “work spouse” Linda when she retired to take care of Bull so that she had to resort to texting him? How else to interpret what appears to be the first instance in this strip of someone not just showing up at someone’s door unannounced?
Les doesn’t just show up. He has to be summoned through the proper ritual. I don’t see a pentacle or human sacrifice anywhere, so Linda’s phone must have an app for that.
”and some worse days”
“Gee that’s too bad Linda – it reminds me of when Lisa died, you know she died right? I was utterly grief stricken for years and years. It’s horrible to lose the love of your life isn’t it. I think so. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten over it. Of course it did help with my writing, have you read Lisa’s Story? If not here’s a copy, I can autograph it for you if you’d like. They talking again about making it a movie, i’m not happy with the idea but what can you do? I just want them to tell the story right, to show my suffering when Lisa died. Oh yes I’ve heard about Bull, he used to beat me up did you know that? That was bad of him.”
“GET OUT”
Talking about tone dissonance, compare how Bull is viewed to how Crankshaft is viewed. Bull mangles one metaphor (putting pants on one leg at a time) and is viewed with amused contempt, but Cranky’s constant malapropisms are (insisted to be) lovable and quotable. Bull does a lot of laundry, orders too many pizzas, and puts the cream cheese in the wrong place – poor Linda, how she suffers! Crankshaft puts butter in the roof gutters, sets things on fire, and saws a trapdoor in the porch – what a lovable old coot!
TB obviously had trouble thinking up really troubling CTE affects for Bull, because he’d used up all the dangerous and deranged incidents as light-hearted gags on his other strip.
Three observations:
1) It appears there is a second front door just to Linda’s left.
2) Clearly, Linda could do with some support given that she apparently lives in the void.
3) Check out Linda’s hand in panel one… So wrong in so many ways.
Her other hand as shown in panel 2 is equally malformed.
Both hands look like they were drawn by a child. Granted it’s a child who knows a hand is attached to the end of an arm and has five digits, but otherwise it’s as clumsy as the usual Batomic Comics house style.
I bet Linda is going to give Les all her diary/journals from the last few years and all of Bull’s papers because she wants Les to write “Bull’s Story” Which will be Les’s next not-a-bestseller that will coincide with TomBat’s real life Bull’s Story compilation of old FW strips
And the material will give Creepy Les the clue that tells him Bull committed suicide. Moral midget that he is, Les won’t keep that to himself. He’ll let Linda know it was her fault she didn’t spot the warning signs of an impending suicide,
Les will let Linda know it was her fault she didn’t spot the warning signs of an impending suicide,
Which I would actually welcome, if he would call out all the flaws in the story.
“Seriously, Linda, you let Bull fix the car? And called him on his cell phone the night he died in it? The week after his NFL claim for living benefits was denied. While never demonstrating any emotion about his death. Now you want us to be surprised that his helmet turned up in the car, without a scratch on it? I’m reporting you to the police for manslaughter and insurance fraud.”
Instead, we’ll get a full week of these two idiots slowly piecing together that the presence of the helmet proves Bull’s intent to commit suicide. And Linda will get a death benefit anyway.
I bet Linda is going to give Les all her diary/journals from the last few years and all of Bull’s papers because she wants Les to write “Bull’s Story” Which will be Les’s next not-a-bestseller that will coincide with TomBat’s real life Bull’s Story compilation of old FW strips