Tag: Les

The Les You Know-Part 1

Link to today’s strip.

Naturally, when “officials” are worried that the county fair isn’t going to get enough publicity, they’re going to call the most important man in town–and he’s going to work tirelessly to make sure other people do the work.

So, Les being Les, he’s volunteering his students without asking them first.   And he’s also volunteering their parents to drive them to school that day, unless Westview has a number of bus runs.  (None of these students look old enough to do solo car school.)

I am puzzled as to exactly what the students are supposed to be covering–people putting up stands, spreading hay, making sure power receptacles are turned on and that the porta-potties are visible?  Most of the fun activity at a county fair would happen after school hours, and on weekends…unless the fair is being held when school is out, which is clearly not the case here.  Let’s not even mention that the school channel is not a broadcast channel, so the only coverage the fair will get from Les’ class will never leave the high school.  I’d think a bunch of posters would do just as well, but then, I’m not an award-nominated cartoonist.

By the way, Batiuk teased a “Funky-Crankshaft” crossover story, taking place at the fair.  Prepare to dread!

Food Poisoning

Link to today’s strip

As usual, the Sunday strip wasn’t available for preview. Normally I would try to tough it out till midnight, just to make sure whatever horrors Sunday brings are properly commented on. However, the strain of trying to find amusement in drying paint has finally broken me, and I’ve come down with the Westview flu. Not as deadly as the Spanish flu, maybe, but virulent in it’s ability to sap me of energy, leaving me with a headache, and slightly nauseous. So pretty much what you would expect after spending two weeks with Les Moore.

Here’s hoping that it’s not able to be transmitted through the interwebs, because Beckoning Chasm is taking over for me tomorrow, and I’d hate to think I had contaminated the controls.

Goodnight, and Good Luck.

Ducking the Call.

Link to today’s strip

Les finally stopped grilling hot dogs. I’m guessing so his depressed resigned expression could be seen by all the people who refused to take over the responsibility Les was attempting to relinquish. And they’re just smirking at him. They probably refused because they hate him, not because they don’t want to go to DC with a bunch of high schoolers.

yellowskyGuys, I’m starting to worry about Cayla. She hasn’t smiled once in two weeks of being in the strips. Either she’s in the midst of a major depression, or she’s become the audience avatar: bored, depressed, and tired.

I’m depressed because the sky in the strip has been colored oppressively yellow all week, and I don’t know why.

Drain Damage.

Link to today’s strip

Now I am really really disappointed we didn’t get to see any of this water balloon competition. Because it sounds like it was a no-holds-barred water war waged both inside and outside the school. Can you imagine the water damage? Even if they were barred from classrooms and computer labs, all those corkboards and vaguely inspirational posters on the walls are toast. And those tile floors would have gotten dangerously slippery, I imagine everyone who participated has bruised tailbones and skinned knees.

But I’m guessing there isn’t anything in the student handbook preventing the teachers from running through the halls with firehoses, water pistols, and, balloons. Nate’s hands were tied.

Why is Les still grilling hotdogs? We see food in front of these people, so they’ve mostly all gotten all they were going to eat already. Unless there’s going to be a hotdog eating contest later. Billytheskink was joking at the beginning of the week about Dinkle being able to eat a banana sideways. Now I’m picturing him shoving hotdog after hotdog into his mouth sideways like a machine, lips closing over his entire fist down to the wrist every time and sucking the digits clean.

But more likely Les just doesn’t want to listen to anyone elses’ speechifying.

Textbook Case of the Smirks.

Link to today’s strip

There is barely any continuity of which people are in the tables in front of Nate, as pointed out yesterday by Gerard Plourde and Eldon of Galt. (Who, when mentioned together, sound like some kind of awesome adventuring duo from a fantasy novel.) Linda has become Klabichnik, and the tables have completely changed orientation between panels.

Also in the background, right under Nate’s nose, is a teacher I don’t think we’ve seen before: The Invisible Man. I know that Batiuk has toned down a lot of the more whimsical elements of his strip since the early days, but we are still in a universe with a sentient 1970’s era computer, so I guess a see-through man isn’t out of the realms of possibility. Must have been a diversity hire.

Final textbook tallies? Wat. I mean, I guess that the teachers would have to check to make sure all the students had turned in their textbooks by the end of the year, but Nate wants all of these tallies turned in to him directly? Is he going to stay up late into the night, pouring over the numbers, checking and rechecking to make sure every single battered tome has been returned to him? Does he have a name for each one, put it in it’s little nook for the summer, then sit on the floor then gaze up at them, whispering softly at his ‘friends’. That is very unlike the lassiez-faire attitude Nate has displayed previously.

But laughing about an art error, and trying to go off on some kind of wild tangent about a crazed Nate having a secret obsessive, possessive, text-book hoarding alter-ego that only comes out when he’s alone in the dark, are literally the only ways I can make this milquetoast strip amusing, even to myself.