The More You "NO!!"

(Long post! Click here to jump directly to comments!)

Before we announce the winner…here are the runners-up!

BeckoningChasm
March 22, 2013 at 2:20 am
Let’s have a contest. Who would be the lamest person unmasked as The Lord of The Late? This being Funky Winkerbean, the possibilities are endless. Funky? Frankie? Fred? Montoni? Pizza? Hatred? Chien? Doctor Octopus?

Rusty
March 22, 2013 at 12:25 am
Dead Lisa is everywhere.

Epicus Doomus
March 22, 2013 at 12:41 am
It’d be equally hilarious if LOTL was Batom himself and it’d probably make more sense than whoever it’ll actually be…

O.B. Dan
March 22, 2013 at 2:16 am
Pizza Twat!

Helskor
March 22, 2013 at 6:54 am
It’s the sentient computer from Act I.

Beanie Wanker
March 22, 2013 at 7:22 am
…consider this: LOTL wears a hoodie. Summer wears a hoodie. Anyone seen Summer since she went off to K*nt state?.

saturnino
March 22, 2013 at 7:42 am
Ed Crankshaft.

bad wolf
March 22, 2013 at 10:13 am
I’ll take…Durwood at 1:1. “That’s weird, why am I dreaming about holding down my high school friend in such a homoerotic manner?”

jackson53d
March 22, 2013 at 10:16 am
Come On Guys – It has to be “Evil” “Obama” from the “Bible

Jimmy
March 22, 2013 at 10:20 am
You’re all wrong. It’s Stan Lee, defending quality comics everywhere from the likes of Pete and Tommy.

Bill A
March 22, 2013 at 7:43 am
It’s Colonel Mustard in the library with a hammer…

BeckoningChasm
March 22, 2013 at 10:27 am
I think I’ll go with Dead Comic Book John…

Señor Tortilla
March 22, 2013 at 10:59 am
I’m going with Aquaman.

$$$Westview Oncologist$$$
March 22, 2013 at 2:28 pm
Surprised nobody has brought up Ming the Merciless as a possibility.

As always, your suggestions are more entertaining…and no less plausible…than the actual denouement, which most of you had to have seen coming, even as you suggested/hoped for other scenarios:

TheDiva
March 22, 2013 at 12:04 am
It’s Pete himself–oops! Didn’t mean to spoil this shocking twist to anybody who hasn’t seen The Empire Strikes Back or a single episode of The Twilight Zone.

sourbelly
March 22, 2013 at 1:09 am
Wait, LOTL is basically just wearing a blue hoodie. Can’t Pete already see his face? And yeah, The Diva, it’s probably Pete staring back at himself. If not, well, whatever.

Señor Tortilla
March 22, 2013 at 8:39 am
It would probably be Pete, which makes no sense but it’s a lame way out (“it was me all along!”). Then again, it only makes sense at this point.

The good news in all of this is that this concludes this arc (I hope!), and that we’ve seen the last of the Lord of the Late. The bad news, of course, is that Pete just killed off the source of his “best” story ideas, and the ensuing creative drought will force him to move back to Westview, where he’ll spend the rest of his days playing video games with Owen and Alex at Komix Korner.

Nice Talking to Me

Charles
March 12, 2013 at 3:24 am
Tom…. Dude… Just… You don’t know how to do jocular teasing. Just stop right now.

This is why every single one of your characters is an asshole.

Jocular? Jerk-ular is more like it. Yes, we fellas like to engage in good-natured ball busting with our buddies. In fact, the closer the friendship, the more outrageous the kidding. But it’s supposed to be reciprocal. Sleepy-looking, mopey Pete is always on the receiving end of Darin’s zingers.Even saying hi to the folks at home is too much trouble for Darin. And that twisted smirk on his face for the last three days makes me want to reach through my monitor and Pete’s to punch Darin’s lights out.

The "Batch" -elor

It’s like spring break for band directors…” And for retired band directors, and for the spouses of retired band directors, I guess. Rather than accompany Becky to Columbus, John takes advantage of her absence to “batch it”. Thanks, Inkwell, for looking it up; I was afraid John stayed home to “run a batch“, which actually sounds a lot more in character.

Does Montoni’s even make pizza without pepperoni?

's Not.

While he’s only been back in Westview a short while, Darin’s already got the beginnings of Batiuk Butt

I honestly don’t know what’s been hardest to swallow these last couple of weeks: Fred’s stroke prompting Ann to reveal the bitterness that permeated their married life, or Darin and Jessica, married over ten years, conversing like two newlyweds. Today we get a dose of the latter. The “kids” head to the vendos for some coffee, giving Darin a chance to ruminate on what he’s just learned about his “loving” adoptive parents. He shares with his bride of over a decade what he’s “always pictured marriage” to be like: “…being deeply in love forever and ever to the exclusion of everything else.” “Everything else” consisting of things such as putting your MBA to good use, or getting it together to buy a home instead of crashing with friends or living in a dump above a pizza parlor.