Tag: Taj Moore-hal

China Hates Lisa

today’s strip

Man, that Les face in the first panel is priceless.  Poor, poor Les.  Being forced to have a movie made of Lisa’s Story.  If only he could say no.  Which he could, of course, but won’t, because he’s a whiny child.  A whiny child who called his wife up to whine about the travesty being done to the memory of his dead wife.  Which, if it’s not the world’s story, then why did he publish it in a book as “Lisa’s Story”, exactly?  

This really is Les at his most insufferable.  I have an extremely hard time believing that even Batiuk thinks Les is sympathetic or at all likeable, but apparently he does.

Pigging Out.

Today’s strip, when it drops.

As usual Sunday wasn’t available for preview. And I’m too worn out to wait for it to drop.

Ironically, I spent the afternoon and evening at my very first college football game. Iowa vs. Minnesota. It was an absolutely awesome time. Iowa fans were so excited when they won they rushed the field, as the ecstatic team held aloft Floyd of Rosedale, still safe in Iowa’s care.

Floyd of Rosedale is an 80 year old bronze pig the winning team gets to keep for the year. It references the time when the governors of Iowa and Minnesota bet an actual live hog on the outcome of the 1935 game.

What I’m saying is football is a, weird, exciting sport, with rich history and traditions. If enjoying the game today was also spiting Tom Batiuk’s horrible CTE arc, then I enjoyed it twice as much.

Spring Swingers.

Link to today’s strip

I gleaned a few interesting tidbits from the dialogue today. Les’ statements about having to sell more books and the school being happy with a perpetual super-senior indicates that he is currently paying for some or all of her college. Summer’s scholarship must have run out and/or it was not a full ride. Kent State is a NCAA school and only allows students to compete in four seasons of a sport. Maybe she was a redshirt freshman and wasn’t on the team her first year? But it indicates that this will be her fifth, sixth, or even seventh year of college.

If Les’ is paying for Summer’s graduation, maybe from Lisa’s life insurance, then is Keisha’s college also being paid for? Wouldn’t that be super awkward if Keisha was having to take on a bunch of student loan debt while Summer gets to start clean? But, then again, Keisha seemed like a smart girl. She probably made sure she finished her degree before her athletic scholarship was gone.

Actually going to commend the artwork today, relatively speaking. The ruler did a lot of the work, but there is good attention to detail for once. In the background at least. Les is drawn as a sightless abomination talking out of his ass, but I’m guessing that’s Ayers subtle caricature of him. And putting up the porch swing in spring not only sets the season, it’s a subtle callback to the strips way back in June 2011 when Cayla and Les confessed their love on it. Batiuk may forget how many kids his characters have, but he seems to always remember that Les has a front porch swing.

Of course…it was TAN not BLUE. But then again, maybe it’s been painted.

Two is Agony so Three’s a Clown.

Link to Today’s Comic.

Cayla seems to think that during their trip to Sandy Eggo they will actually get to ‘see the sights.’ Eat sushi in Little Tokyo, dance to mariachi music in Old Town, maybe go to the zoo to make interracial jokes about the pandas. (All things I made time to do during my Botcon San Diego trip.)

Obviously Les is planning the vacation will take place entirely within the confines of the San Diego Convention Center. Cayla will be lucky to drag him across Harbor Drive for a single sitdown meal that isn’t convention concessions food.

I’m guessing that she’ll spend most of the convention pressed against the glass in the Sails Pavilion, staring out the window wistfully at the Gaslamp Quarter; surrounded by things she neither understands nor cares for.

No wonder Les wants to bring Crazy Harry along. He wants a solid tie breaking vote in favor of skipping supper again to wait in the endless Hall H line for another seven hours.

Eisnerian Gothic

Link to Today’s Comic.

I would make some kind of comment on Caucayla not knowing the location of the awards because Wimmin Amirite? But apparently Les previously didn’t even know the award existed.

I’ve been to San Diego for a Botcon once in the summer. It was really nice coastal climate, and not any hotter or muggier than Midwestern summer can get. And since when has CauCayla been heat intolerant?

The second panel is pretty great though, with Darin fleeing from a conversation still taking place while Les and Cayla do their best impersonations of Queen Elizabeth, with a wave goodbye more wooden than Cigar Store Indians. Cayla has a halo around her head…perhaps a first miracle on her own path to sainthood?

This art is really starting to annoy me though. Everyone’s face has become interchangeable. You remember when Cayla had a broad nose and Darin had a beak? The artist sure doesn’t. He has two noses to use, C-shaped or L shaped, and he barely remembers which character gets which. Batiuk can’t be bothered to push Burchett for consistency of character design in a strip worshiping comics as an art form next to opera in importance.

Compare with yesterday’s Crankshaft with art by Davis. Look at that detail! He carefully drew the wedding picture on the wall as a totem of the romantic creature in Ralph that the drive-in waitress has reawakened in him.

All Les and Cayla get on their wall is the avant garde, “Grey Rectangle Against Grey Background.”