He may be the only Westviewian who’s not enthralled with comic books. But for someone who dreaded high school gym class, Les is…not uninterested in sports. He plays tennis (but only against easily defeated, out-of-shape opponents like Bull and Funky). He’s not real good swinging a bat (except in his mind), but he raised a basketball phenom, and we know he watches hoops on TV with his current wife. Never pictured him as a football fan, though. But Les being Les, he and St. Lisa saw no mere game, but rather “a model for dealing with and overcoming adversity“. Assuming he’s watching the Cleveland Browns, like everyone else in Batiuk’s realm, that actually begins to make sense.
Tag: cancer
Watching the Detective
He’s made appearances in just two strips since last December 4, but the appearance of Les on a Monday signals that our week has been ruined. Especially when we see him in a bookstore setting. At least we’ve been spared a punny name: this bookstore is simply called “BOOKSTORE.” Maybe someone reading this who’s familiar with publishing can tell me: do authors go around still signing a book that was published over ten years ago? And given the target demographic for Les’ dreary memoir, it’s a pretty safe bet that everyone in the room “got the reference ” to Dick Tracy.
Neither can we, Marian… uh, I mean, Lisa
And we’re back to Les’s cameo in today’s strip. I dunno what that golf thing yesterday was about, but it will probably be awful and unsatisfying if it is ever revealed at all.
Having seen more of this scene, I really hope Les’ fear that his cameo will elicit knee-buckling laughter from his friends, family, and assorted other acquaintances comes true. What better time in Lisa’s Story to bust a gut than this maudlin bit where Les recaps a phone conversation Lisa had with her insensitive doctor? That’s the first and only thing about this Lisa’s Story flick that makes me want to watch it.
This strip is a nice reminder that Lisa’s second battle with cancer was full of bumbling and insensitive doctors: always mixing up important cancer charts and exhibiting awful bedside manner. What timing TB has… I cannot think of a time in my life when fewer Americans would be interested in fictional depictions of incompetent and unpleasant doctors.
And that’s it for me. I cannot say I envy spacemanspiff85, who takes over tomorrow. Good luck to you. You won’t have it, but it seems the right sentiment to express.
Snow Job Snore
Cameras are FINALLY rolling in today’s strip, which is take 3 (why?) of the contents of this Sunday strip from January 31, 1999.
Yep, even when it was actually happening, Lisa’s story was pretty much all about Les.
Les didn’t write the script for this movie, and yet, this scene is almost verbatim what was actually said back in 1999. I guess he had nothing to fear after all as the script writer must have been clairvoyant… or perhaps just too lazy to even try to punch up a bland passage lifted wholesale from the Lisa’s Story book.
If Les cannot live through seeing actors recite his own words, he knows where the door is. Even if he somehow didn’t walk through it to get in the soundstage, maybe he parachuted in or was brought in bound and gagged inside of a trunk (my favorite theory), he saw Marianne do so.
The Hook is She Dies
today’s strip
If you told me Batiuk was somehow writing this crap without even noticing what he was writing, I would totally believe you. Who, after being told the movie was about someone dying of cancer, would ask what the hook is and if there’s a good twist? She dies. That’s the hook, for some reason. What’s supposed to hook you in is watching someone die. And the twist is that she dies.
And Mason’s responses have nothing to do with Cass’s question. Darin wasn’t a twist or a hook, he was a boring time wasting plot device to add more melodrama. And “testifying before Congress” is neither a hook nor a twist
And how many more days of Mason being smarmy for some reason and Les being annoyed are we going to get? I know the answer is “far too many”. It’s funny how after years of being presented as just the coolest actor ever all of a sudden Mason is a Hollywood jackass, for some reason.
Son of Stuck Funky 
