Kids these days, with their shenanigans and whatnots! If it’s not gluing a quarter to the floor it’s vandalizing a car like in today’s strip. Nothing says light-hearted mischief like a $2200 detailing bill. What’s next? The classic “lit newspaper in the mailslot” trick?
Woohoo! Go Seniors!
So…for Les, life is watching blonde women interact with their lockers while he endlessly walks down a brick corridor. Or some damn thing–who honestly knows what the point of this strip is supposed to be. I’m starting to think that Tom Batiuk is simply trolling us (as others here have pointed out). I’ve read this episode over carefully and I cannot make head nor tail out of it. Is the point supposed to be “High school lasts forever”? Is it that Les hates his job because it makes his life Hell? Is it that hairstyles on blondes are getting shorter? (Panel four must be from a previous year, since Les is dressed differently.) Or is the point that, every time the school year starts, there are blonde women with lockers–only, get this, the women are different each time! Really, that sounds the most plausible but it’s weak, even for this strip.
So, I don’t get this one. I honestly thought we’d get the “bullying” arc started up again, but I guess Mr. Batiuk thought we needed some Les Wisdom(c) dropped on us. Too bad he forgot the Les Wisdom Decoder Ring(c) to go with it. It just looks like a hellscape to me, with a pair of word balloons pasted on. (Look at that dialogue. Tell me than any random sentences couldn’t substitute there and make the same amount of sense.)
Sorry for rambling, but I don’t see this one as an “episode.” Instead I see things like the adult Les’ face in the “Westview Class” masthead image among all the teenagers and I think, Is that supposed to mean something? Les has always been old? Then I note that in the penultimate panel, Les’ hair is all disheveled, and it’s neatly combed in the last panel. Again, is there a point to that?
I do like the Modigliani face in panel five, and I like that someone went nuts with the Scotch tape in panel three. And all those bricks. Endless bricks.
Bricks.
Ah, I get it now. We’re supposed to want to slam endless bricks against Les’ head. Okay!
Thus ends my time in the Les Chair. Tomorrow, the fabulous DavidO takes over the hosting duties…and good luck to him!
See you then, and thank you for your indulgence!
Well, Chullo, let me remind you of something. You may not remember this, because it all happened so long ago, but just a few minutes earlier you were eager and ready to sit in this very class. You went out of your way to get those seats. The principal himself stepped in to aid you in your quest. Now class begins and suddenly, you’re full of regrets. Apparently you forgot that the Les Moore who teaches this class is the Les Moore.
Well, you’ve made your bed. Now you have to eat it.
Every time Tom Batiuk does an episode like this one, it just amazes me that he cannot see how utterly loathsome he makes Les Moore. The worst character of all time, the fist-magnet of one hundred thousand punches, and Mr. Batiuk keeps making him more and more punchable. The only possible reaction for the students to have to panel two is to close their books and all silently walk out, never to return. The fact that they stay is sheer fantasy. The fact that they struggle to get into the class is mind-boggling.
Yes. The mind boggles.
I was looking over some of the older Act III strips, and there was an interesting dynamic when teen Summer was around. Les was frequently over-protective and anxious about her to the point of being a pathetic, needy jerk (stalking her on her solo car date, for example). But he also came across as human, as a parent genuinely concerned about her and obviously unwilling to lose her and mire in loneliness. In a way, it humanized him, allowing to be an overt jerk, yet also acknowledging that his jerkdom came from his neediness. In most cases, he was still nauseating, but he hadn’t quite become The Horse’s Ass.
Nowadays, well, I picked this up at the local Goodwill.
As you can see, we’ve dropped the “Bullying” arc because Mr. Batiuk had to get in another Les fix. I’m sure the “Bullying” arc will be back–there are awards to win nominations to be had, after all.
While he was lovingly detailing Les, he forgot how to draw the other characters. For evidence, look at Chullo in panel one–worst face this week. He looks like Becky at the Wally-Rachel wedding–
–a hastily decorated potato pressed into service. Perhaps even the very same potato. On the other hand, look at panel two–four sets of heavy-lidded world-weary eyes.
Anyway, what we have today is more evidence that Chullo and Glasses are dumber than rocks.
In the past, students have hated attending Les’ class, largely because they hate Les, but also because he’s a dull pedant who turns the learning process into sheer torture. Puns, Hemingway, Moby Dick and “trick” trick questions. No one wants to be in Les’ class.
Now, here come Chullo and Glasses, and they can’t wait to sit in for more of the same.
Of course, Les would have a roster of students who were supposed to be in his class this year, and he could easily see that Chullo and Glasses are signed up. Unless in Westview High, all you do is show up at a class and you’re enrolled.
And was Les so enraged by this perfidy that he marched the Dumbtastic Duo into the principal’s office? If not, whose “OFFICE” is this? Does Les hold classes in his office? Is Glasses saying “Told you” to Les Moore? Seems rather disrespectful; even Les deserves respect for his position (and for nothing else).
So, you make the call: lazy ignorance or willful stupidity?
(NOTE: You’ll see what I mean when you read tomorrow’s episode. No spoilers.)
Son of Stuck Funky 