Ouch! I just got narrative whiplash! For a strip that usually proceeds with the pace of a slow IV drip, it’s really unexpected to go from zombie prom, back to football for a day, and the very next day to Lisa’s Legacy Run. Has our favorite auteur suddenly decided to add cinematic flash cuts and literary techniques like simultaneous parallel subplots? Or is he just doing something incomprehensible like the time he teleported Les off of Kilimanjaro for a day to name Funky’s car?
Ah, Westview! Think of the tropes we’ll see today!
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¼-inch from reality.
Check! Lisa’s Legacy Run, an event that briefly leaked out into reality, exists no more in Real Ohio, but persists like sciatica in Funky Ohio.
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Being a “reality-based comic strip that depicts contemporary issues affecting young adults in a thought-provoking and sensitive manner.”
Check! Cayla’s daughter and Lisa’s daughter are back from college, to help organize the race. In October. During midterms, I’d guess. Of course, we don’t know what’s been going on in these young women’s college lives, because all we’ve seen of that is them moving into a dorm room. You know: the most interesting, most sensitive thing young people do in college—move their stuff into a small room.
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Cayla’s existence subordinated to Lisa.
Check! She’s literally holding Lisa’s name before her.
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A falling leaf.
Check! Can you find it? Panel 2, center of window pane. It’s tricky, because the auteur and the colorist couldn’t be bothered to discuss how the falling leaf should be red or yellow, not green.
Hi! As the great Steve Martin once said (approximately): “I know it sounds insincere to say, ‘Hey! It’s really great to be here!’ But hey! It’s really great to be here.” I hope I shall snark entertainingly during my guest stint!
Son of Stuck Funky 
