Hark! Saint Les has revealed his halo in today’s strip. He doesn’t want to miss teaching school to deal with the affairs that arise from being a professional writer. How noble!
Here is a list of strips where Les unremorsefully left his students with a substitute teacher:
January 9, 2011
January 31, 2011
September 25, 2017
October 5, 2017
October 30, 2017
November 14, 1997
May 7, 2018
And these are just the ones I could find in 15 minutes!
But this time… how noble!
I’m billytheskink and this is 2020’s first Les Moore story arc. There, you’ve been warned.
I tagged today’s strip with “first world problems”… but even that is far far far too broad a description of any problem that could result from “my friend the movie star is giving us both a free trip to Los Angeles next week.” Cayla seems to have some self-awareness about this, but this is the Act III Funky Winkerbean where Les is a saint, even when he’s whining. We’ll just have to wait a few days to find out what his “righteous” reasoning is.
Also, we will probably add this storyline to the long list of times people in this strip have flown across the country to conduct a meeting that could have been held over the telephone or a videoconference. This seems to happen multiple times a year.
Ugh, this is one of my least favorite parts of this strip. Something ostensibly good happens to someone (Les is getting paid money to make a movie out of their book, meaning there’s at least a chance a story he cares about will speak to people in a new medium, and at the very least more people will read the book, also MONEY, how does that not mean anything to a public school teacher with two daughters in their seventh year of college), and he reacts to it like he just sat on a turd and he’s too crushed with despair to do anything about it but moan.
Even if you want to look at it Les’s way, where he’s worried his beautiful story will be ruined (How exactly do you glamorize “woman dies of cancer”?), he has to just sit around like a wimp about the whole thing, like he’s still the nerd who had his lunch money robbed by Bull (since Batiuk is so clearly still obsessed with high school). Grow a spine and say no if it’s so painful, Les. Especially since you’ve been down this exact road before. “Gosh, I guess three people who have no real role in my life thing I should do something I’m dreading, well okay, what can you do.”
I know Campbell’s idea of the Hero’s Journey can be cliché often, but it’s worlds better than the Batiuk Method. Here’s some famous tales, as redone by Tom Batiuk;
The Aeneid-Aeneas loses his home of Troy, then sits in the ashes of his home until he dies from lung cancer.
Paradise Lost-Lucifer is cast from heaven, then spends eternity laying where he fell moaning “Why me?”.
Star Wars-Luke whines about the droid he bought blowing up, shrugs and just figures that’s how life is and goes home without doing anything about it.
The Lord of the Rings-Frodo hands over the One Ring to the first Ringwraith because clearly he wants it, and it’s a long walk, and he tried his best, but sometimes things just don’t work out, but he does plan to go home and write a bestseller about it.
What on earth is the right way to do Lisa’s Story? True to life, where it just focuses on Les’s reaction to everything, and skips right over the really difficult and interesting part of how he adjusts to life without her? Or focusing on the ridiculous medical paperwork mishap that anyone who saw it in a movie (or a comic) would say is just laughably bad writing?
Actually I think it’s pretty clear what “the right way” means. Lisa Must Die. Because serious art requires beloved characters to die in a very serious, very profound way. Except Bull. Bull you just knock off as quick as possible so you can get to Lisa. Again.
That “Cindy…?” is hilarious to me. “Formerly hot girl I used to stare at in high school and have no real meaningful relationship with, do you think I should make this beg life decision? Because yours is the only opinion that matters to me, way way more than my secondary wife’s.”
I had no idea playing the lead in one (or is two now?) sci-fi movies opens enough doors for you where you can just create movies by yourself. And this is another in the long tradition of Batiuk using “witty” or “funny” sayings that really make no sense, apart from not being funny at all. The doors are already opened, Les. I don’t think it matters what’s on the other side.
Do you think that’s still Cindy there, or just a blonde wig on a stick? They’d both work about as well in their job of sitting quietly while the menfolk handle business, which is all Cindy has done since Les showed up.
Son of Stuck Funky 
