Well, it’s heartening to see Les kissing his flesh-and-blood living bride this New Year’s, however awkwardly. Then we’re treated to yet another twisted-face-o’-rage from Cayla, as TB belatedly delivers the payoff to the gag he’s been setting up since last week.
Tag: Les
Post-Grammatic Stress Disorder
In the hands of any other writer, Les’ remark to Cayla would be taken as sarcasm. Your high school English teacher (and high school was how many years ago?) wrote a single comment (and not a very scathing one at that) on your paper, and you’ve been scarred by that? Well, clearly she has been: to this day, Cayla can’t sit down and compose an email to her daughter without being seized by flashbacks. “Careless”? This from the most careless “writer” working in comics today. Can you imagine the withering critiques that Les must give to his students?
Every Kick Begins with Cayla
O.B. Dan
December 28, 2012 at 12:56 am
Is it just me, or does anybody else see that Cayla has put a little edge on since she married The Grounded One?
Since her “best thing that ever happened to me moment” last fall, Cayla has seemed kinda cranky, as the enormity of the mistake she made in marrying Les has begun to set in. Today she lets slip that Les is not her first choice to spend New Year’s Eve with, before regaining her composure in panel 3 and offering a weak apology. Is Les offended? Not at all: he’s already got a date for when the clock strikes twelve…
Hangin' on the Telephone
As the baby-blue Batiukmobile® rolls into, or out of, Kent, Ohio, Cayla stares intently at her phone, as if willing it to ring. Seems the daughter she raised single-handedly and sent to college now can’t be bothered to answer her mother’s phone calls. Rather than explore her relationship with Keisha to understand why this might be, Cayla instead disparages Theodore “Ted” Paraskevakos and blames his invention.
Christmas Past
TheDiva
December 22, 2012 at 12:06 am
Because we all know how much interest Funky and Les showed in music and singing back in the Act I days…well, I can’t think of any right now, but I’m sure they exist, because otherwise Batiuk would just be pulling random bits of backstory out of his ass for the sake of a cheap gag, and we all know he has too much artistic integrity for that.
I’m not using the above quote here to show up TheDiva, because I’d never have recalled this either (the most musical one of the gang was Crazy Harry with his air guitar). But today Batiuk gifts us with an Act I strip to prove that, yes, Virginia, they really did go Christmas caroling.
I’m convinced that TB’s reproducing a vintage strip here, rather than trying to recreate his old style, as he’s done in the past with mixed results. The logo in panel 1 is the old style. Even the lettering in the dialog balloons is somehow more cheerful. Compare it to the lettering in the weird snow globe that shows our current-day cast: the “L’s” had yet to acquire their painful hump.
Les and Funky, see how young and how likeable! The redhead, of course, is poor, doomed Livinia. I have no idea who the blond girl is, or why she’d have anything to do with Les, even back then. Dig those bell-bottoms in the penultimate panel silhouette! Lastly, it’s interesting to note that before he started taking himself so seriously, Batiuk could use excessive drinking to get laughs.
