Yep, it’s the one with the plaque that says “FOR LISA” with her face on it. Why Lisa has a park bench dedicated to her in Manhattan too is a mystery to me. She sure did like park benches though, that’s been made abundantly clear. Good thing she didn’t have ass cheek cancer or some sort of painted wood allergy, otherwise the entire course of the strip might have been inexorably altered. And so what if Mason sits on the Lisa bench? She died almost twenty-three years ago, countless hundreds of thousands of weirdos have sat on the park bench through the years. But if Mason does it somehow shames and disgraces Her memory? How. exactly? I mean it’s a park bench, what else can you do with it?
Son of Stuck Funky 
Once again, Les is being treated as the Almighty Force of the world. Repellent.
Of course, he’s a completely passive force, never doing anything for anyone but himself, but everyone has to crawl around him like his judgment is valued.
It’d make sense in a perverse Winkerbeanian kind of way if this was “the” park bench, but this one is a park bench Les & Lisa visited once decades ago. I mean I had a delightful lunch in Kingman, Arizona one time but when I die I’m in no rush to memorialize the picnic bench I sat on.
Coming tomorrow: a street scavenger pries Lisa’s plaque from the park bench and sells it for scrap, fetching a cool eighty-five cents a pound.
Oh, you can’t walk 20 feet in Westview without tripping over a Lisa memorial. Lisa’s bench, Lisa’s booth at Montoni’s, Lisa’s bed at the hospital, Lisa’s parking space, Lisa’s desk at Westview High School, you name it. The Valentine Theater did a “memorial brick” program to raise money. Les bought every single one, and dedicated each to a day Lisa stepped on that part of the sidewalk. Didn’t even leave room for people who wanted to commemorate the Starbuck Jones movie that debuted there! Or that baby that was born there!
In fact, when the town of Westview needs to increase revenue, they open a new memorial program of some sort. There’s even a sign shop in Westview that specializes in nothing but Lisa memorials. The townspeople put up with it, because Lisa is indirectly the fourth-biggest job creator in town. It’s the only way any of the profit from the Lisa’s Story industry benefits anyone other than Les Moore. They have to repay some of it as donations to Lisa’s “Legacy Fund” – and they all know where that money ends up – but this sort of tribute is common in small, dying towns with economically powerful people.
But it’s an open secret in Westview that the day Les Moore dies, they’re going to take everything with the word “Lisa” on it, burn it in a massive townwide celebration, and bury the ashes in cement to ensure nothing grows from them. Even Lisa’s adult children Summer and Darrin know of this plan. Neither objects.
Don’t forget Lisa’s legacy run, also known as Les’ ego trot.
Les bought every single one,
I think you meant to say, “Les guilted Westview into buying every single one, without using any of his own money”
Does TomBa know that a bench dedication in Central Park costs $10,000?
https://www.centralparknyc.org/giving/adopt-a-bench
What did you think Lisa’s Legacy was raising that money for?
Cory was the bagman, afterall.
I assumed Mason was saying he wouldn’t include it in the movie, since Les wants this 100% honest film about Lisa to contain none of his memories about Lisa.
I assumed he was asking if the bench was where Les had scattered the ashes. But it’s a moot point since Les gently sprinkled the ashes out through the bottom of his pants from holes in his pocket just like in Shawshank Redemption. He wanted his pants to be the last thing his wife’s mortal remains came into contact with before the cold hard ground.
I actually assumed Mason was saying he wouldn’t sit on it. Seriously, that’s what I thought.
Any of those is plausible. It’s not at all clear what Les is thanking Mason for not doing. It’s called writing!
That makes two of us.
Imagine all the bums who have slept on that bench over the years. Hey, Les, take a nap so you can be one of them!
So, where is the sign saying “For Lisa…No Sitting at Any Time. Les Moore, Author”? Seriously, he is aware that New Yorkers probably sit, eat and drink, sweat, sleep, and change diapers on that bench on a regular basis, isn’t he?
And for that matter, wouldn’t it have made more sense to dedicate a bench in a park in Westview, where people who actually knew her or were familiar with Lisa’s story (not to be confused with “Lisa’s Story,” the Perfect Book) could see it and reflect, as opposed to one in New York City, where the plaque has as much emotional resonance as the park sign that says “No Spitting”?
Someone may have said this before (more than once) but none of this is about Lisa. It’s about Les’s manpain. If you replaced every mention of Lisa with “My Pain” it would probably make no narrative difference and perhaps more sense.
Like, what do we learn about Lisa? Mason is trying to learn about Les, his infinite variety. What about portraying Lisa? What was she like, how did she laugh, cry, smile? What flavour ice cream did she like? What did she and Les argue about? She only matters in that having her mattered to Les. And losing her mattered way way more than anything else, including who she was.
Oooh! The plaque is freshly-polished and, like Les, is pure brass. And the wood is perfect! Les, use Masonry’s rapier wit to carve another Les + Lisa heart in it.
So the new Lisa flick won’t contain the scene where Les and Summer get up from the bench to reveal the “For Lisa” plaque? The scene that makes up the ONLY strip that covers the introduction of this particular Lisa memorial?
Oh darn…
Oh my. Having a world-class licensed Funk-storian on staff just keeps paying dividends! A rare look at pre-“Lisa’s Legacy” cancer fun runs in FW history, an often-overlooked era of the strip. 2007 was one big victory lap for ol’ Tom and he liked it so much he just kept going and going and going. Perhaps one day he’s stop, but I’ll believe it when I see it and not a moment sooner.
Check out the strong leaf action there in panel two. The artwork still had that maudlin Act II attention to detail back then. The dead leaves scattered about, much like how Lisa was scattered about during those dark, dark days before the time jump.
That’s not how Batty tells it on his blog. There he speaks of secret sauce. More like rancid mayonnaise.
This made me wonder who will play teen Summer at the end of the movie. Judging by the artwork I’d say Tom Holland.
And just to piss Les off, this will be the one movie where Tom Holland gets to speak in his real accent!
So Mason isn’t even allowed to sit on this stupid bench? What about other people? Are they even allowed to rest their cheeks on this most sacred of seats dedicated to St. Cancerwife, or would they be struck down on the spot for their audacity?
Fuck Les and his pretentious bullshit.
From now on, I’m just calling it Les’ Story. Because that’s what it is.
I envision the a fourth panel to this strip where Droopy McTrenchcoat here, after hearing the man in front of him curtly tell him a book called Lisa’s Story is about his life, asks Les “So… you’re Lisa?”
LS is “about” $14.95 on Amazon.
See, I thought Les gave Mason that enormous cock look of disdain because Mason was going to take a picture of the bench. And Mason is of course chastened by Les’s withering gaze. I thought this because through this entire thread Mason’s been holding up his phone to take pictures like the touristiest tourist from Nebraska ever.
Not that either of them make any sense.
It’s a plaque! DON’T YOU DARE TRY TO MEMORIALIZE BY TAKING A PHOTO.
It’s a bench! DON’T YOU DARE DEFILE IT BY SITTING ON IT.
Which could only be funny if some loud tourist asshole comes up, takes a picture of the thing, calls out to his appalling wife Lisa how this bench is dedicated to a Lisa, whereupon they sit on the bench and reveal that those burritos they had for lunch at the world-famous Mexican restaurant have really hit them and start ripping massive beefs for the next eight minutes.
The sad thing is, that’s really what Les needs. He needs to be shown how unimportant Lisa is to the world at large, just as the lost loved ones of strangers are unimportant to him. Though I would have it be locals, not tourists, who try to sit on the bench over Les’ objections. Because you do NOT tell a New Yorker how to behave in New York. Les would get an earful he very much needs to hear..
There’s som ass-cheek cancer for you, E.D.
This is all symptomatic of the wider problem: Batiuk is simply too stupid to understand how Lisa’s death would affect anyone who wasn’t Les. Do we get to see the story of Summer? No. We jump right over that so we can see Les pretend he’s moving on. Do we see Les want to really share his story with the world? No. The world would somehow dilute his story.
In the real world, yes. Sadly, this is TomBa’s fantasy world and in it New Yorkers stand in awe of Famous Author Les Moore and the New York Times review of the “Lisa’s Story” series lauds his “timeless prose which bares his soul with skill and depth not previously seen”.
Er, Lisa died 23 years ago? Then shouldn’t Summer have graduated from college already?
Summer began college in autumn 2012, so this fall will mark her eighth year at KSU. Who knew that getting a phys.ed degree was so difficult?
Jesus…Fucking…Christ… Batiuk is straight up trolling us.
1. Right now I really need to see some generic tourist look over their shoulder staring and asking “Who the hell is Lisa and what makes her so special? Was she the Central Park Jogger?”
2. He couldn’t even put a fucking last name there? Seriously??
3. And why is this memorial in New York which they visited *once* instead of back in Westview where people actually knew who she was?? It’s not like Les even visits Manhattan regularly; once every ten years maybe??
4. What’s next? Does Lisa have her own bust in the outfield at Yankee Stadium? Did Les put her name in the rafters at Madison Square Garden? Is it now called “Lisa’s 9-11 Memorial?” Is JFK Int’l Airport now LFM Int’l Airport?
5. I don’t even know what’s going on with this dialogue and I don’t care… Can Les just pull the plug on the whole project and just go back to mourning full time since that’s what he really wants to do?
5a. If Masone had any fucking ballsack at all he’d just walk away and tell Les to make the movie on his own with his own damn money and jam that snippy attitude up his rectum. I don’t know what kind of half-assed Mafia favor Masone feels that he still owes Les, but it needs to stop.
6. Like I said earlier in the week, you’d think some character at some point would tell Les to either move the fuck on with his life, or just eat a bullet and join his beloved Lisa in death… BUT NO — Everyone has been enabling his misery porn and self-pity since day one…
7. Meanwhile back in Westview, people have already forgotten Bull Bushka even existed, except for his widow and some weirdo who refuses to let his high school gridiron glories from 45 years ago die…
8. It’s funny because what little we know of Lisa, it seems unlikely that a regular girl from the generic suburban midwest would have wanted all this ego-stroking in her memory… But then again this whole charade for 20 years has been about stroking Les’ ego instead of memorializing a lost love…
9. I’ve seen some hubris before, but Les making CENTRAL FUCKING PARK into his own private “Lisa Moore Memorial Gardens” and having the gall to act offended when Masone isn’t showing proper reverence by treating Central Park like, you know, a public park really takes the cake.
Less is now elderly. He must die to save the Dow, NASDAQ, and the S&P!
Masone’s cowlick is limp today, not the usual Gasoline Alley spring. A bit submissive. Imagine being Less’ bottom bitch, BWHAWHAWHAHAWHAW!
The Aqualung reference in the title made my day….
If I make even one person laugh it’s Me 1, FW 0 and I win again. Thanks!
I wonder if Keisha asks her mom what she thinks of all this ….