Oh THANK GOODNESS. We don’t have to sit through airport shenanigans, car rental shenanigans, or any other kind of travel nonsense. Someone gifted Cayla a Mother Box straight from Apokolips and they travelled halfway across the country via Boom Tube.
Apparently someone also gifted Cayla some cut-rate plastic surgery, because she’s got a late-stage Michael Jackson nose going on in panel 3 here. With the weird lines under her eyes, she looks like some kind of internet horror creepy pasta.
I hunted around a bit an was able to find a picture of the front desk of the Marmont. Decent enough approximation in the DRAWING. But I don’t think the entire interior of the lobby is painted in graphite grey like the interior of a parking garage.
Any guesses as to who Cayla is gawking at?
Summer? Cayla hasn’t seen her since Christmas, and even then, she quickly shipped the girls off to minimum wage it as Santa’s Helpers at the mall.
Son of Stuck Funky 
Cayla is gawking at Broody McBlackenshirt, Hollywood’s brooding golden boy. No one broods like Broody does. Rumor has it he’s up for the role of young Les Moore in “Lisa’s Story 2: The Saddening”. It’ll cover Les’ college years, which featured a shitload of brooding, believe you me.
Awkward, clunky, moronic, insulting AND it totally ignores continuity, too. I now have to assume that during his first (lengthy) stay at the CM the bearded dick with ears walked around like he didn’t belong, then Cassidy set him straight on proper CM etiquette several years later. At least that’s what I’m getting from this one.
You’d have to assume that a woman Cayla’s age would most likely know how to properly behave in a nice fancy hotel. Then again, she did voluntarily marry Les Moore, so who the f*ck knows really? It’s been quite a while since Cayla had any sort of individual personality and even then it was real iffy. You had Original Cayla, then Rasta Cayla, then Mary Tyler Cayla Moore, which is where we are today. The ditzyness kind of increased exponentially there until now, where she’s basically comic relief, if that.
Once a trailblazing FW character in a massive mega-prestige arc, now Dick Facey’s materialistic shallow sidekick, a mere prop for the Delicate Genius to crack wise and perpetuate gender stereotypes with. One of Act III’s sadder character arcs if you ask me. Although at least she’s still in the strip, unlike Les’ daughter, whatshername, and Boy Lisa’s wife, who pops up every two years or so. And don’t even ask about Cayla’s daughter, wherever the hell she is.
For reference, this is a callback to the 2020-05-11 strip.
Link to strip
Link to post
Good catch. So now we have more recycled material.
We start out with one of my most hated Tombat writing tics: “The Producer Cassidy Kerr.” Nobody talks like that, not even 1/4 inch beyond reality! Then we get this Westworld robotic version of what I guess is supposed to be Replacement Wife Cayla. She looks nothing like the original Cayla. And she acts nothing like the original. This…thing is just a vehicle for a joke that was stale in the 1950s. Oh, and the coloring of Voldemoore’s sideview glasses is all fucked up.
At least we skipped the minutiae of booking the flight, checking in luggage, boarding the flight, and getting an Uber to the hotel. So at this pace, maybe this arc will end before November. Fingers crossed!
What about the “here for lunch at Chateau Marmont” part? Les, the odds are that Wife-Not-Lisa knows you’re in the Marmont; no need to keep repeating it. I guess Battyuk couldn’t figure a classy way to hang a sign with the hotel’s name on the front desk.
And would it have been that hard to make Cayla’s phrase “Hey, is that….” to match Les’ gawker comment from last year? A little continuity bit like that would help to explain why these two put up with each other.
Not that we’ll ever see who the mystery celebrity is, but I’m going with Robert Smith of The Cure. Don’t know why.
Johnny Derp?
Hi, William.
Johnny Depp’s Chateau Marmont claim to fame is he and onetime girlfriend, Kate Moss, had sex in every room of the hotel (63 rooms).
We’re proud of ya, Johnny. (Not really)🙄
Well that’s a relationship goal…
Hershey Barr.
The Rapper?
This is the sort of stuff that would have featured in an episode of “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” or almost any sitcom from the early 60’s. The major difference, of course, is that “The Dick Van Dyke Show” was pretty funny. This…isn’t. It’s as if Batiuk’s sense of humor has been fixed in amber for decades.
More like a failed sitcom pilot from the early 1960s. Only the oldest, moldiest and most stale gags of the era will whet BatYam’s appetite.
I, for one, cannot wait for Cayla to get her toe stuck in the tub faucet.
Yep, that’s Stephan Pastis, Cayla. Don’t you wish you were in his comic strip?
1. The Marmont for lunch again?? Okay I’ve only been to Los Angeles once in my life… It was 1980 and I was four years old. But I’ll go out on a limb and assume there are other high-profile exciting places of fine dining somewhere in the city??
2. And it’s a shame that Les didn’t think to give his wife a Hollywood etiquette briefing earlier, like when they were on the plane?
3. Not a single mention of the city rebuilding after last summer’s wildfire… Because of course.
4. So after raising hell with *two* shopping sprees, the best Kayla can manage is a plain-jane “Cindye Sommers-Jarre Signature Collection” little black dress? I hope some A-lister mistakes her for a cocktail waitress.
And given the trajectory of the fire the Chateau Marmont would have been directly in its path.
I’ve been there often. I like Angelini Osteria on Beverly Blvd. But it’s not a name drop see and be seen place…admittedly I would not recognize many Hollywood people anyways.
5. I don’t give a rat’s ass… I’m going to keep asking why Les didn’t drag along Darrin and Summer (aka keepers of St. Lisa’s sacred DNA) to Hollywood as well until I get an answer… I mean for fuck’s sake, they’re both portrayed in the movie in some manner, right? Isn’t it in the studio’s best interest to wine and dine them as well? Last thing the producers want before the premiere is Lisa’s kids screeching to Page Six or Vanity Fair or Eonline.com or the Daily Mail that “This movie was made without our input and is a gross misrepresentation of our dear mother’s life, blah blah blah…”
I mean, it’s happened before on how many biopics before? I’ve lost count.
6. I don’t give a rat’s ass — I’m going to keep on mentioning that dumbassed fire until Batiuk acknowledges it happened, since he wasted our entire 2020 summer on it…
they’re both portrayed in the movie in some manner, right?
Les wrote the story, and he’s such an egomaniac that they might not be. And they’re probably fine with that. If you asked them, they’d probably say “Oh, I would never want to distract from Lisa’s Story with anything trivial like my feelings about my own mother.” Summer knows where her 10th year of Kent State tuition and her dorm room with her “close friend” Keisha comes from.
Summer knows where her 10th year of Kent State tuition and her dorm room with her “close friend” Keisha comes from.
I’m amused at the idea of a pair of 28 year-old women still living in a double at the freshman dorms at Kent State.
Hey, you know what would have been funnier? Especially because it would have disrupted the stupid trend line of the jokes this week?
Les: Now we need to remember what Mason told me: act like you belong, not like a tourist.
Cayla: Okay….
Les: OH MY GOD IS THAT ROBERT DOWNEY JUNIOR?!
Plus it would fit since Les is a complete douchebag who tells people how to behave but never follows his own advice.
“Ohmigawd that’s Owen the Idiot! When did he lose the asshat and dye his hair?”
Or just transpose Les’ advice with the way he’s acted this entire movie. He’s done nothing the whole time but pout, whine, mope, and act smug. With no regard to what the situation is, or who he’s with. And he’s afraid SHE’S going to embarrass HIM? Fuck you, Les.
It says a lot about Tom Batiuk that he calls Les “the character he relates to the most.”
It sure would be nice if Cayla had a pretty necklace to go along with that dress. After several years of marriage, you’d think Les would have given her some jewelry by now. Pearls? Gold/silver/platinum necklace? Mardi Gras beads? Something out of a Cracker Jack box?
Les apparently can’t give Cayla any of the Dead St. Lisa’s jewelry. DSL’s jewelry has reached holy relic status and is untouchable. Sorry Summer, mommy’s jewelry is for nobody.
No real surprise. Cayla’s dress of choice is the obligatory little black dress. Almost every woman has an LBD but let’s try to have a little variety, huh fellas? Something with a pretty pattern perhaps?
Who wants to bet that ‘Old Miserable’ isn’t even wearing a tie?
Les looks like he’s going to a job interview to manage a call center. For comparison, look at the unnamed celebrity in the third panel: he’s wearing a long-sleeve shirt with the sleeves rolled up, some kind of wristband or bracelet, and no coat. In this environment, Les probably sticks out like Jim Carrey and Jeff Bridges in Dumb and Dumber.
Jeff Daniels. We know who you meant.
😉
Now you have me imagining a gap-toothed, bowl-cut Les in an orange tux.😄
“Why did Mason Jar give you a tip? You’ve never dressed well enough to be mistaken for a waiter.”
Mason only gave Les the tip because the thought of putting it all in disgusted him too much.
I’ll show myself out.
The “celeb” is drawn in such a way we can’t even tell if it’s a man or a woman. It’s irrelevant. We’ll never see them again anyway.
It’s Batty in a wig.
Regarding the destruction of LA…it occurs to me that Batiuk must have seen the recent DCEU movies, since he’s a big DC fan and all.
And after seeing “Man of Steel,” in which Metropolis is largely annihilated, he then watched “Batman V Superman” which we are told takes place 18 months later. In that film, Metropolis looks as good as new.
“If it’s good enough for DC, whose only flaw was not hiring me, then it’s good enough for me. Only I’m shaving a few months off, since I’m better.”
The DCEU doesn’t claim to be a “quarter-inch from reality.” Nor did it make a dog and pony show out of fixing the gender of a walk-on character.
I’m not saying the mystery celeb is Com Truise but if tomorrow’s strip takes place in the Hollywood Scientology Center don’t be surprised.
Les would never join Scientology. He’s got a LOT of overts and withholds.
Hmmm… Chateau Marmont is looking suspiciously unburned. But we are only seeing the inside of it today…
I’m going to say that the celebrity is Criss Angel, the MINDFREAK. Hopefully he doesn’t turn to glance at Cayla today, or he’ll be turned to stone.
My guess is that Batiuk’s comicbook obsession has transcended the Silver Age Flash and the pale blackclad being Cayla is gawking at Dream of the Endless.
“He thinks he’s so cool,” says Thessaly disparagingly at the end of the *A Game of You* arc.
Why it’s Gene Autry! Back from the dead
Well if you’re going to be stupid you might as well go all the way.