Tag: Les

Grace-Les

Wow! “Leaving our footprints/pawprints/buttprints in the snow of Kilimanjaro!” Tell it to Neil Armstrong and (New Jersey’s own!) Buzz Aldrin. The footprints that they left on the moon 43 years ago this month? They’re still there. Footprints in the snow of Kilimanjaro (or anywhere else on earth)? Not so permanent. Still, anytime Les is made to look like an even bigger fool, it’s all right with us.

Ooh La Lava(tory)

It’s one of those “jokes” that makes sense only in print: “Lava” meaning molten rock is pronounced “lah-vah”, but I doubt that anyone pronounces “lavatory” as “lah-vah-tory”, even in Tanzania. I could be wrong.

It appears that the cartoonist is creatively spent after rendering the lush jungle landscape in Sunday’s strip: a Google Image Search for “Kilimanjaro lava tower” turns up images of an impressive, massive monolith. As drawn here it resembles a small slag heap.

Is It Safe? Is It Safe?

Today a couple of the porters, who for once are rendered as more than just black silhouettes, refill the traveler’s bottles with water from what looks like a fairly sophisticated, modern purification system. Yet Dan seems to doubt the system’s efficacy. “They say” the water’s safe…“still…” Does Dan think he came all this way, and paid all that money, just to be intentionally exposed to dysentery?

Bungle in the Jungle

To those who, like yours truly, scoffed at Crazy Harry’s well-intentioned offer of his Tarzan collection to Les? Turns out Les actually read Crazy’s Tarzan comics and as a result is now trippin’ balls. James the Guide (inexplicably portrayed today by a young Geoffrey Holder) solemnly warns the climbers that due to the high altitude they “might experience some hallucinations.” This warning comes after the hallucinations have already begun. While TB uses Les’ condition as an occasion for humor, and to indulge his fondness for jungle comics, Les is actually experiencing the onset of high altitude cerebral edema (or HACE), “a severe (frequently fatal) form of altitude sickness”. He really needs to be moved to a lower altitude, stat! On second thought: keep climbing, Les, keep climbing!