In today’s strip, the green pitcher bears witness as Holly tempts Les to betray Mason Jarr the movie actor’s confidence. Cindy suffers yet another case of Westview face from oversmirking.
The temptation of Les
Tag: Les
Cindy’s ambush interview
In today’s strip, the background has been transformed into a wall of generalised human flesh.
One can only assume that the background has just awoken from uneasy dreams. “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” screams the background as it awakes with a start. “I’ve been transformed into a featureless wall of flesh.”
As for the action, Cindy channels some amalgam of Edward R. Murrow and Mike Wallace—who am I kidding?—she reaches deep into her rich background as a journalist, and pulls out a legalistic trick right out of the 4th grade playground. Oh? You promised not to say anything? That’s fine; just write it on this napkin. As Les demurs, I tried to come up with other techniques for her to suggest:
- tweet it
- sing it like a Broadway show tune
- jungle drums
- tap it out in Morse code on the table
- smoke signals
- semaphore!
- let’s play charades
- perform it as interpretive dance
- send me a singing telegram
- something… Hey, wait a minute!
Why is Cindy in Westview—in Montoni’s of all places—on a weekday? Shouldn’t she be in Cleveland anchoring the news? Why is Les not at work? Shouldn’t he be at the high school making teenagers hate literature? It’s like BanTom is the issue of some unholy DNA experiment involving The Two Eds: Bulwer-Lytton and Wood.
The one with a homunculus
Take a close look at Les in panel 3 of today’s strip!
Turning guy-in-the-background into homonculus-in-the-foreground is my contribution to the writing in this week’s arc. I’ve foreseen the future, and—let me tell you—it’s going to be a slog this week. Brace yourselves, because we’re spending the whole week inside Montoni’s.
On the other hand, this will almost happen:
We’ll also dig deep into Cindy’s journalistic bag of tricks, and the depth of Les’s moral integrity. But that’s all for the future of this slow, slow week. Because—don’t get me wrong!—it won’t be interesting, and there will be disappointment a-plenty for us, the reading audience.
Jarr-struck
In today’s strip, Cayla is utterly star-struck, a facet of her personality that we’ve seen exactly never before.
Bantom missed an opportunity in panel 1 to make Les’s personality really shine through. I’ve corrected this omission.
Woo hoo! Les’s hair is on fire! Oh, wait.
Today’s strip, at first glance, seems to show Les, head aflame in the purifying fire of just desserts. But no, they’re just burning their Yuletide tree out in the field. That practice makes my Californian instincts turn to rage, and calls to mind Johnny Cash’s infamous “buzzards” incident.[1] Then I remembered that Ohio used to burn its rivers (for decades), and it all seemed to make more sense.[2]
The picture of the Cuyahoga River on fire that ended up in Time Magazine a month later – a truly arresting image showing flames leaping up from the water, completely engulfing a ship – was actually from a much more serious fire in November 1952. No picture of the ’69 river fire is known to exist.—Cleveland Historical
My live-in expert on all things Ohio tells me that residents of Buckeye Lake toss their trees into the water’s edge. This encourages the growth of algae, which attracts fish, which makes for easy fishing in the springtime. By the next winter, the tree will have completely decomposed. That seems awfully green for the midwest, but it’s a damn sight greener than just lighting it on fire and smirking at it.
Given how Cayla usually reacts to news from Les, I’ve corrected the dialog in panel 3.
- To be fair to Mr. Cash’s memory, the part about roasting 49 California condors appears to be apocryphal. ↩
- Speaking of uniquely Cleveland things, thanks to @Nathan Obral (yesterthread) for pointing out that the Lost reference had extra meaning for those in the Cleveland TV market. ↩
Son of Stuck Funky 