Nothing could jar someone out of a boring inner monologue like having the corpse of your dead wife pop up next to you on a bench like in today’s strip but Les seems to take it in stride; after all, dead or not, she *is* asking for him to talk more to her. Ghosts, allegories, wistful thinking and nostalgia be damned, no spectral visit it going to shift the focus from Les!
Stropp it to me
It looks like Tombat is getting a little lazy with this week’s strips, judging by the looks of Today’s strip. Is he just going to stare at things all day? Funky’s dad shows more life lately than Les does. I’m not even sure Tombat is creating new content, it’s like he’s just placing existing panels next to each other.
Uh oh! Spoilers for later this week!
Senior Moments
Hey gang! SoSfDavidO here, hopping in here to snark away on Les and Company. Here is a link to today’s strip, which catches Les in a more introspective moment in which he ponders all of the tiny, once-meaningless lives he’s touched, and thus given meaning to. Unfortunately, he’s been standing there for over an hour, zonked out in a daze as staff wonders if they should call for a paramedic or a police officer.
Bully For You
Hey gang! SoSfDavidO here, hopping in here to snark after BeckoningChasm’s most excellent stint! Here is a link to today’s strip.
Whoa, panel one is satisfying on several levels, but what exactly is being slammed here? It looks like Bull just bitch-slapped Les but the SLAM sound effect suggests the locker maybe got shut on his head? Either way, it’s satisfying, even though it screws up the “Bull never really hurt Les” canon we’re led to recently believe.
Huis-clos
So…for Les, life is watching blonde women interact with their lockers while he endlessly walks down a brick corridor. Or some damn thing–who honestly knows what the point of this strip is supposed to be. I’m starting to think that Tom Batiuk is simply trolling us (as others here have pointed out). I’ve read this episode over carefully and I cannot make head nor tail out of it. Is the point supposed to be “High school lasts forever”? Is it that Les hates his job because it makes his life Hell? Is it that hairstyles on blondes are getting shorter? (Panel four must be from a previous year, since Les is dressed differently.) Or is the point that, every time the school year starts, there are blonde women with lockers–only, get this, the women are different each time! Really, that sounds the most plausible but it’s weak, even for this strip.
So, I don’t get this one. I honestly thought we’d get the “bullying” arc started up again, but I guess Mr. Batiuk thought we needed some Les Wisdom(c) dropped on us. Too bad he forgot the Les Wisdom Decoder Ring(c) to go with it. It just looks like a hellscape to me, with a pair of word balloons pasted on. (Look at that dialogue. Tell me than any random sentences couldn’t substitute there and make the same amount of sense.)
Sorry for rambling, but I don’t see this one as an “episode.” Instead I see things like the adult Les’ face in the “Westview Class” masthead image among all the teenagers and I think, Is that supposed to mean something? Les has always been old? Then I note that in the penultimate panel, Les’ hair is all disheveled, and it’s neatly combed in the last panel. Again, is there a point to that?
I do like the Modigliani face in panel five, and I like that someone went nuts with the Scotch tape in panel three. And all those bricks. Endless bricks.
Bricks.
Ah, I get it now. We’re supposed to want to slam endless bricks against Les’ head. Okay!
Thus ends my time in the Les Chair. Tomorrow, the fabulous DavidO takes over the hosting duties…and good luck to him!
See you then, and thank you for your indulgence!
Son of Stuck Funky 