Tag: Owen

To Be or Not to Be: That is the (Trick) Question

Grab Bag Week: High School Hijinks Edition continues, and yes, dear reader, today’s strip is the source of that oh-so-punchable Les face in this week’s banner. That’s the expression Les wears when he’s doing what he does best: being a smug, superior dick to his students. Owen’s right, Les, for once: that was a trick question. Doesn’t the fact that nobody, nobody in his class is able to answer this question say more about the teacher than the students?

WHSTV

You’d think that producing Westview High’s closed-circuit morning newscast would be a job that a couple of geeks like Cody and Owen could not only do but might actually do pretty well. Naturally, everything goes terribly awry, as typified by the fact that the picture on the TV is upside down. Just more fuel for Les and Linda’s disdain of their idiot students.

Never mind that, though. Get a load of who’s sitting in the front row: it’s Alex, most recently seen dispensing totally worthless relationship advice to lovestruck Owen. Surely there is some retconning going on here: we met Alex at mopey Pete’s book signing in December 2007 (see below), and she appeared to be at least high school age five years ago (I was going point to the fact that she sported tattoos even back then, but apparently Ohio law allows minors to get tattoos with parental consent). She’s certainly old enough for Pete to attempt hitting on, though we know that that’s not the best indicator. Note that her model sheet on the Meet the Cast page is one of the few that does not give an age. How convenient.

Dec. 10, 2007 strip:

Go Ask Alex

Everyone say hi to Alex, Westview’s only comix fangirl (since Chien vanished) and mopey Pete’s biggest admirer, in her first strip appearance in over five years. Owen and his usual sidekick Cody are apparently on the outs since that yearbook photo remark, and anyway, what does Cody know about gurlz? The Chullo’d One, like Pete, just cannot understand why women don’t find him appealing. Alex responds to Owen’s plight not with empathy but with teasing. Poor Owen is a geek even among geeks.