Don’t Ask…Don’t Tell

Link To Today’s Strip

Thanks to DavidO and the rest of the outstanding SoSF staff for all they do!!!

Not too long ago I was going back and forth with the SoSF staff and I mentioned how I don’t always mind getting a Les arc, as at least there’s something to really hate there as opposed to the typical “Funky is fat” idiocy. Well, the gods of the Funkyverse must have been listening, because this week something I’ve long-dreaded has come to pass…Summer (shudder) is back. Never tempt the gods of the Funkyverse, friends. The consequences are simply not worth it.

I’ve always despised Summer almost as much as Les (and Lisa for that matter). She’s always too twee, too gritty or, as you can see today, too snotty. The hair, the neck, the hoodie…it’s all so grating. Summer is truly her father’s daughter. So today she’s back in her (surprise!) robin’s egg blue car to remind us about an arc we’d all prefer to forget. If that wedding was any crappier you’d have to scrape it off the bottom of your shoes with a stick. Meanwhile Dickface is (surprise!) furiously raking leaves, as Leafpocalypse ’14 has begun. The Funkyverse’s stars are all aligning in some sort of grand confluence of boredom and misery, it’s gonna be a long, long week, snarkers.

Weekend At Baby’s

What faraway place is Les at tonight? Does Cayla even has to ask? Les is with his dead wife of course! Today’s strip has Les spending more quality time with Lisa’s ghost as he ponders what-ifs. At some point he probably realized that he wouldn’t be a delicate genius author if she’d lived, so he’s probably glad things turned out the way they did.

Summer Blue Times

Today’s strip

Les: Was [Lisa’s journal] hard to read?

Summer: No… It’s funny, insightful…

This strip… It’s sad, pathetic…

I’m puzzled, snarky…

That is I’m skeptical, confused…

Summer: The only sad part was getting to the end and realizing that Mom wasn’t going to be writing in it anymore.

Really‽ That was the only sad part‽

Snarkers! Let’s help Summer remember the other sad parts!

Lisa’s Legacy ’Lash

Today’s strip

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!

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Cayla’s existence subordinated to Lisa.

    Check! She’s literally holding Lisa’s name before her.

  • 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!

School’s Out for Summer

I thought “the kibosh” had been put on everything yesterday, but the stupidest story arc in FW history continues with today’s expositionfest.

It stands to reason that since Summer and Keisha arrived at KSU a month after classes began, that they’d be coming home a month after they’ve ended. Les regales the girls with a rehash of the last two months of strip “action” (oh, wait: he left out “Your half-brother Darin is going to be the birth father of his wife John Darling’s daughter Jessica’s daughter”).