What, Moore, Could You Ask from Life?

“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.”–George Eliot

A famous use of the phrase [“Indian Summer”] in American literature is the title of Van Wyck Brooks New England: Indian Summer (1940), chosen to suggest inconsistency, infertility, and depleted capabilities, a period of seemingly robust strength that is only an imitation of an earlier season of actual strength.–Wikipedia

Hi folks! Not a heckuva lot to be said about today’s strip. Credit TB with getting around to portraying Les and Cayla actually doing couple stuff and enjoying one another’s company. Of course, Les has to ruin everything by expressing his desire to live another 5,490 years.

The strips for the rest of the week have not appeared online, so Monday’s post will be a placeholder. going live at midnight. Pray for a Les-less story arc!

Don’t Hang In There, Dingus

Link To Today’s Strip

He who last leaf’s last laughs…laughs last? I forget how that old Westviewian folk saying goes. Anyhow, today we learn that a truly healthy marriage is based on a strong foundation of subtle threats and emotional extortion, with lots of crippling anxiety, some neglect, a degree of guilt and shame, extravagant make-up gifts and possibly a fear of heights thrown in for good measure. Cayla is thrilled about the opportunity to visit a Chinese publishing mill to get the very first benzene-soaked copy of Les’ new book where he apparently compares her to the last dying leaf of dying leaf season, which is just too touching for words (unless the word is “yuck”). She can read it on the flight home and kill a healthy six or seven minutes if she takes it slow and appreciates the (chortle) “artwork”. Hopefully Summer’s absence indicates that she put her hoodie back on (hopefully) and went back to KSU to continue her studies in inanity which is fine by me as she wore out her welcome as soon as she ambled out of that car of hers. The guy does a ten year time-skip to accommodate the Summer character and she never adds anything to anything. Nicely done there, Pulitzer (nominee) Boy.

You can be sure this isn’t the last we’ll be hearing of this “Last Leaf”, you can bet your Funky ass on that. Maybe it’ll all lead to a collection of Les & Cayla strips. He can call it “Ebony and Irony…The Other Shoe Meets Its Foot” and it could feature all the big Les & Cayla moments, like the time she stood there when he did the thing or the many other times she was featured in the background of the strip. And a bunch of other crap to fill it out to book-like length. Maybe even a launch-party at Montoni’s…(shudder). It could potentially generate tens of dollars of sales, some of which could be donated to charities devoted to helping anniversary-forgetters. Everyone wins.

Man, just a few weeks back we were making fun of Owen’s head injury. Seems like a lifetime ago. Les just swoops in and dominates all with his smug eyebrows and annoying facial expressions that are always more fully realized than any of the other characters. It’s all so frustrating and rage-inducing and once he settles in he never goes the f*ck away. The whole thing read like a pitiful attempt to compensate for all the times BatTom inexplicably left Cayla out of his little “stories” because he can’t really ever draw her hair consistently. Just pathetic.

And on that note, I am outta here, off to the Les Moore recovery suite with a gallon of rock & rye and some pills I found on the floor. Stay tuned for your next snarktacular guest host…the legendary TFH himself! See you all in the comment section and stay Funky!

The Least Laffs

Link To Today’s Strip

A semi-surprisingly novel turn of events here today, as Les isn’t just authoring a crappy graphic novel with a really dumb title for Cayla, he’s taking her to some godforsaken Chinese industrial plant to actually see the book be made. Pretty clever! And pretty strange, too. By the look on her face we can conclude that seeing an actual sweatshop was way up there on her “bucket list”. The startling revelation sends Cayla into throes of passion so great she immediately begins devouring Les, right there in front of the kids. Look at the smug look on Dickface’s puss as he springs the news upon her, what a dick. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to kill him more. And a Chinese printing firm? Way to support Ohio there, “Comrade Moore”.

Speaking of those kids, blech. Talk about useless and easily impressed. And what does Summer know about “personal growth”? She’s worn the exact same outfit for seven years and even her new breast implants don’t make much of a difference. I guess TomBat thought those were necessary least we mistake Summer for the dude who came by to fix the water heater. I mean geez, no wonder she sucks at basketball now. Poor kid’s back must be killing her.

Bad art alert: Cayla’s nearly perfectly-square head in panel one, plus those creepy bug-eyes. And Les’ arched eyebrows…gak. The only remotely positive thing I could say about this one is that it really is wildly imaginative by TB’s usual standards. Not saying much, but still. “Going to a Chinese printing plant to see the book he wrote for Cayla be printed” was no one’s guess for where the anniversary arc would go.

Yes, my post title is a re-hash but I flipped the words around so it’s slightly different, see? Hey, if FW can do it so can I.