The Blandening

Link To Today’s Strip

It’s your old pal Epicus, here to steer the Good Ship SoSF through this most joyous and happiest of all seasons. And you’d better enjoy it now, as the characters are talking about none other than Les f*cking Moore again, which is never a good omen. It’s like noticing that one of the presents under the tree is the exact shape, size and weight of the “Lisa’s Story Trilogy”…”we know you really like that stupid comic strip and it was 90% off!”.

Cayla AND Boy Lisa interacting in the same strip? Whaaaaaaat? He’s really treading on some bland territory here, one false wry remark could create a veritable cataclysm of boredom the likes of which we haven’t seen since last week. Of course one could wonder why Boy Lisa, Tech Wizard didn’t reach out to see if Les would be home before he graciously dropped by totally unannounced but hey, it’s the holidays. And by the end of the arc it’ll scarcely matter anyhow.

Les is still skittering around Ohio signing copies of his “Trilogy”, eh? Perhaps he has some sort of cult following there, with a small army of Les-heads who follow him from signing to signing dosing themselves with Prozac and selling veggie pizzas from their off-brand eastern European robin’s egg blue cars. “I’m buying TWO copies of the Trilogy! One as an investment, the other as a valuable Lisa resource to settle all those Lisa-related bar wagers!”.

Keep Those Goals Manageable There, Cayla

Link To Today’s Strip

Finishing in third place in the fifty-and-over category in a charity cancer fun run dedicated to the memory of her husband’s dead first wife represents a “perfect day” for Cayla? Good God these people are so f*cking dull. Unambitious too. Les can only write about one topic, Cayla is overjoyed after being beaten by two other runners, Lisa wants to jog behind her former husband and his new wife forever…what a bunch of sad-sack-sorry losers. Live slow, die old and leave a weathered beaten corpse, as the old saying goes.

You Should See What They’ll Do For Some Pants And A Nectarine

Link To Today’s Strip

Sure Les, they didn’t participate in a cancer fun run because it was for a worthy cause or because they enjoy running, they did it for a banana and one of those hideous tee-shirts that no sane person would wear again for any reason. Only you may fully appreciate Lisa’s Story, the rest of the peons are no more than animals, unworthy gullible morons. He can’t even be bothered to thank the participants for their time, he’s too busy implying that they’re just a bunch of easily-swayed marks. What a dick.

What a shitty punchline too. The gag would be terrible enough on its own, but what really sends today’s strip over the edge is that artwork in panel three. Seeing Les in that odd annoying pose fills me with a peculiar mix of rage and queasiness I can’t quite define, as it’s unique to this comic strip and the Les character. You know exactly what I’m talking about, that complex combination of sheer anger, stupefying boredom and total disgust that only Les Moore himself can generate. The Germans have a word for it: Lessmoorefruedeschitzen, which roughly translates to “shameful annoyed rage”. While any FW arc can and will be just as bad, when Les is involved it’s just a whole different level.

Quoth Ghost Lisa…”Forevermore”

Link To Today’s Strip

I want it to go on forever too, or at least until Les Moore finally collapses in dehydrated agony, his body cramping so severely that it eventually implodes into a small green globule that gets washed into the nearest storm drain during the next good autumn soaking. Because that would be great. Barring that, blah, this is downright creepy. I mean who wrote this one, his nine year old niece?

LOL Ghost Lisa. What’s her deal anyway? Is she somehow contractually bound to only appear at Les sanctioned events or is she free to move about as she pleases? She seriously wants to spend all eternity following Les and his new living wife as they jog around that crummy park? What a bore, although it does deviate from the typical Westviewian’s eternal dream, that being eating pizza in a structure made entirely of comic books, of course.

In fact it sounds more like hell to me, but then again I’ve always despised Les Moore and all he stands for thus I’m slightly biased. I liked Ghost Lisa more back when she was detecting structural problems in passenger jets and things like that, you know, really USING her ghostly powers. Now she’s another bland idiot whose only interesting characteristic is being dead. In fact if she wasn’t transparent (indicating ghostliness) she’d be indistinguishable from the rest of these dullards. Who’d even notice anyway?

His Mouth Runneth Over

Link To Today’s Strip

Les’ “book talks” tend to run long…BIG surprise there. Once that obnoxious windbag gets going on “Lisa’s Story” there’s just no shutting him up. Reminds me of another author whose name escapes me at the moment.

Although I have to admit, the bearded dick with ears must be in peak physical condition, as he’s been blathering away the entire time. He must have the lung capacity of a blue whale…and none of the charm. And check out that background guy in panel two. I mean no one’s asking for any sort of attention to detail there or anything but at least pretend you put a little effort into that beard, which is just atrocious. Man, the background people in FW are all such weirdos and misfits, with the weird misshapen heads and geometrically impossible bodies and all. Too bad there isn’t a strip about them.