Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for August 01, 2014

Brad to the rescue!

hat’s what you get, T.J., if you leave something on the stove unattended. Now business is up in smoke.

I’ve been anticipating this day! Just like what happened to their apartment…. Sorta… – A bit of Chachi Arcola, where Arnold’s gets burned down…. Or perhaps a bit of another show (from the 90s) where they wrote a character out (sorta….) by having their character almost get blown up in a car (as an attempt on their life) and they “left town” to deal with it… – He put the “Louie” in “Ka-blooie”….sorta…

I guess you can say this one could be a mobile phone conversation with someone right next to you… (a close call) – Or a smooth face with a good razon… (a close shave) – Or a conversation with the Hamburglar… (Rubble, Rubble)

Hope you got insurance.

Never leave living enemies

“A Booming Business”“Like A Good Neighbor…”“Please Pardon My Gas”“Cookin’ With Fire”

“To Make Wreckage With A Mo-bile…” (♫)or “Smoke On The Boiler… Fire Up The Truck” (♫)

Yikes. Well, that might give TJ a new appreciation of mortality.

Someone set TJ up the Bomb.

We get signal!

Main Screen Turn On.

It you!

How are you gentlemen?

All your food truck are belong to us. You have no chance to survive make your time. Ha Ha Ha.

We almost got rid of TJ. But maybe this close call will prompt TJ to get a handle on his life…

Oh well… Now he won’t have to try to find a buyer for the foodwagon. Now he can try to get an insurance settlement!

But seriously, how many ways are there for a car to actually explode like that? Mobile Food Truck or not, they are designed to NOT explode without significant effort.

And by “anticipating”, I meant expecting that TJ’’s track record could have possibly pointed to him having another incident where he left something on the stove….

TJ has graduated from scamming people for petty amounts at WW to insurance fraud. It’s certainly convenient, considering how sick of the whole project he seemed.

Anna Eiffel was here?

Um, what just happened? Looks like fate propelled TJ’s decision to ditch the food truck.

I don’t want to say I called it , but…uh HEM!

Well, if everybody else is gonna call it.. I guess I’ll also pick up the phone…

That would have worked better if it had been in a flood… but, I don’t know how to start a flood… (I suppose I could ask a god or something like that… I heard rumors about a flood a while ago… but I think that was kind of over kill even then.)

Boy, that caught me by surprise. I was hoping for a plot twist like Chef Gorden Ramsey stopping bym, tasting his food, then putting him on one of his shows like Hells Kitchen.

If you have Progressive, good luck, TJ – they screwed me over on the theft of a vehicle because of an issue with the driver who suffered from a medically induced mental condition.

“I also mentioned that the truck would be serving hot dogs and marshmallows on extra long sticks” ^So did I. Sorta… – But in my version from yesterday (or the other day) I told ORM that the fire dept. would be the ones bringing the smores….

Suddenly, he loved that truck!

Or Fahrenheit 451….

I magnified the strip to get a good look at the third panel. Some of those smaller particles must represent the tofu, peas and shrimp. Now, if TJ would have been inside, fragments of him would be flying! Just imagine how many comments would be on this site if the creators had chosen to write him out by blowing him to smithereens?

“Perhaps, it is one of those pressure cooker bombs on the stove in the first panel.” ^In that case….

“Sponsored” by….McGruber Insurance….. “You can never be too prepared…” – Justin Case, part time attorney at law….school… – And by… Plotz’ Devices…

LOL, pretty much!

Also, after closely examining the artwork, I debate with myself the significance of a “kablooie,” rather than a “kabloowy.”

If TJ were planning insurance Fraud, I’d expect to see his trademark grin somewhere. It is nowhere to be found.

Wow, this strip has taken quite a few huge turns.

I Didn’t DO It! I SWEAR, Officer! AT the Time, I was several States Over, Sipping COFFEE after Returning Home from Bible Study and Helping the Homeless!

Sure, I Didn’t LIKE the Two-Faced, Smarmy, Lying, Conniving, Little S.O.B., But I would NEVER Dream of Sitting off a JOYOUS Explosion Whilst He was OUT of the Truck!

I’d Made Sure He was IN the Truck and…., Hey WHAT do YOU Mean, “Read Me My Rights”???

This is NOT funny,very poor joke,several people have been hurt by the food truck explosion weeks ago killing 2 family members working in the truck.

I went into a restaurant, lookin’ for the cook,I told him i was the editor of a famous etiquette book,The waitress he was handsome; he wore a powder blue cape,I ordered some suzette; I said couldja please make that crepe,Just then the whole kitchen exploded from boilin’ fat,Food was flyin’ everywhere; I left without my hat….

Solves his blahs about how business was so bad. No more business anymore.

It’s obvious at this point that quite a few people will suspect that TJ planned it. But how about Brad? What will he do when TJ is proclaiming his innocence while others accuse him of being guilty? It could be quite a dilemma…

Hot plate..Exploding Burrito…insurance..Fraud…T.J. goes to jail..

And that, my friends, is what is known as a “convenient fire”

Hey! a levitating hat!

Did Greg do research on explosives?

He did not draw a low order explosion. He did not draw a grease fire or gas tank leak. There are shrapnel plumes.

This was a pipe bomb.

Problem solved!

Someone probably ordered a steak sandwich and found out the steak was fried tofu. That actually happened to me. I seriously considered trashing the joint.

Propane tank blow! Once again, TJ is incredibly lucky. But this pretty much ends the food truck sub-plot. I hope TJ had insurance on it!

Wow! I am glad TJ was taking out the trash. What is TJ’s next move?

Looks like you got out of there just in time T.J.! Hope you had insurance on the truck. Now you can go back to the Weinie World and become manager.

Dang T.J! Is the food that bad that the customers wanted to kill you?

Wow, I never knew this strip was in Israel and a Hamas rocket could fly that far.

wonder if he’s going to get accused of starting it himself since he’s been complaining about it so much. Except for the expression on his face in the last panel, I’d wonder if he did do it.

wow! TJ was that close to going “Ka-Blooie”, himself!

This just happened near me, with tragic consequences!

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2014/07/01/food-truck-explosion-reported-in-feltonville-4-injured/

That’s what happens when you let Badger make the snow peas.

Greg must have hired Dan Thompson (Rip Haywire) to help write his strip, today.

Well, he was getting bored with the business. Problem….solved!

“Ka-blooie”? Seems like Greg is paying homage to Rip Haywire. Does Dan Thompson know about this? tongue in cheek

This is the 2nd kitchen he has burned down.

For those suspecting it was Ann Eiffel doing this? On the off chance she did it just think how great the trial would be, as her defense lays out the timeline of harassment TJ gave her at WW. “Your honor, what she did was wrong but after the lengthy time of harassment and illegal recordings, you could understand why she lost her mind.”

Aand…I bet my paycheck he doesn’t have insurance.

KA-BLOOIE!!!has someone been reading Rip Haywire and paling with Dan? Hmmm.

Sure are a lot of fire emergencies in this comic strip.

Be careful what you wish for.

Did anyone see Crankshaft in the area? Looks like T.J. will get a visit from Brad and Toni along with the rest of the Fire Department..

Wow… You’d think TJ would have learned something when he burned the house down. I foresee everybody believing TJ blew the truck up on purpose except Brad and everybody they know treating Brad like a moron for continuing to trust TJ, bringing up all the stupid things TJ pulled throughout the years.

Rad.

When Brad and Toni hear the call “food truck fire” they will be first on scene.

maybe ann eyeful did it

There was a tragedy in Phillie recently when a food truck that was using propane for cooking purposes blew up, after the tank developed a leak and a spark set the leaking gas on fire. Two women died in that explosion.

YAY, I called it! But I would far rather that Mom Berger had taken over the truck with her good home cooking.*But… is TJ guilty of arson? I’m sure glad he didn’t turn up “missing”, with no one knowing if he were inside the truck at the time.*And Sheriff, the answer to your other riddle is… “Fissssssssssh. Sweet fissssssssh”

Insurance investigation…

The blast was so powerful that it blew off TJ’s hat. ~Fire grows where TJ goes.~In the first two panels, TJ looks like someone who is giving up, like a homeless person who keeps moving but aimlessly to keep from being arrested for loitering. ~…and so Cafe TJ concludes

In the final frame there is a white arrow pointing to the flame-head of a snail. Es-CAR-GO?

What was TJ thinking when he hired Crankshaft to come over and adjust the pilot light?

The arson investigators are gonna have a field day with this one

First the house burns to the ground and now the truck explodes. TJ is baaaad luck.

Insured, I hope! The end of TJ’s problem.

Uh-oh…

“She missed.” ?.I swear sometimes you act like you don’t really love TJ.

My sons tossed a nearly-empty propane tank into a small fire.The explosion shook the house from over 100’ away.I was facing away from the blast but saw the light from the explosion through the window turn the wall reddish orange.They’re still alive even after several such unwise actions.I don’t know how.

I love the sound fx! ; )

For amyone else, this would be devastating. For TJ, it will turn out to be a stroke of luck. No more food truck to tie him down and a nice insurance check to boot.

don’t have to be flammable … heating up any gas in an enclosed cylinder will eventually lead to pressures in excess of the container’s strength and rapid decompression.

Yup… Guy-Lassac’s Law, pure and simple… :-)

The Lazy Cartoonist’s Handbook:.(1): A character has outlived his usefulness to all future storylines, so what’s a good backstory for writing him out of the strip?-> “Hey everyone – I’m moving to Hawaii! Bye!”.(2): You have started a storyline that would create significant difficulties any way that you finish it, so how do you escape from this corner into which you have painted yourself?-> “Look, Ox, I’m going to be really busy during the prom with all the arrangements, so I won’t have time for dancing. Maybe I can save the last dance for you. We’ll see.” – and then we just never do..(3): You have built up a big scenario as a plot feature, and you almost immediately ran out of ideas for using it, so how do you write it off?-> “KA-BLOOIE!!!”

Propane tank leak, that’s all it takes. You have your ignition source, oxygen and fuel.

*a good way for …characters to grow up quickly after seeing TJ’s charred remains*-Even for you, this is new low.

Revenge from the food manager at the movie theater.

His father’s former business associates are after him.

Ann Eiffel could reappear, but she did not do this, She would like to twist TJ around her little finger, not kill him.

Nor did Dirk. He’d go after Brad first.

It’s the MOB. It’s the MOB. It’s the MOB.

They have found TJ and are after all the money that was put into TJ’s “trust fund.” by his mobster father.,It’s the MOB. ! !

Explosive plot twist – didn’t see this one coming!

Good thing: failing business and insurance. You are insured, aren’t you, T.J.?

T.J. has insurance on the vehicle because it is required for all vehicles in California and Oregon and hopefully everywhere else in the United States. There is no way he could operate the business from the van without proof of insurance.

Well, I hope you had insurance.

we’re missing a salient point here. Assuming TJ didn’t blow up the truck and the explosion came as a surprise … he barely escaped with his life. This brush with death could be used then as a life-altering experience. For example, he may decide to travel, and/or hunt down his remaining kin?

All very true, but I haven’t made it to that point, yet. I’m still at “what happened to the truck and does he have enough insurance to cover it?”

Those could all be very good scenarios for his departure, once the truck thing itself is resolved.

This was an interesting one to see translated into Spanish…

Levi, you seem to be having a blast with this strip.

Getting a real bang out of it, you might say.

Well, that is one way to deal with your dislike of the food cart business, TJ! (Actually, I think the cart blew up because of some propane issues). ;)

You were right, Brdshttt! Have to laugh at the ""Fraud Flambe…’" ;)

Want to bet it is discovered to be a defect in the van and he gets a big payout?

We’re the only “witnesses”. The FD will respond, Brad will let slip that TJ hated the business, the arson investigator will find something suspicious (even though its innocent) and TJ will be in jail. The end.

Well, my back sort of feels better than it was yesterday! Still have to watch how I turn or bend down, though. Also, have to learn how to sit in chairs so my back doesn’t spasm on me… Hope to see y’all later! ;)-——————————————————————————“All nature is but art unknown to thee; All chance, direction which thou canst not see; All discord, harmony not understood; All partial evil, universal good; And, spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite, One truth is clear, “Whatever IS, is RIGHT.’”

I sense jail time for TJ as he gets accused of arson for the insurance money.

I wonder if TJ will have to flee to Peru to avoid suspicion of insurance fraud?Evans has already used up Hawaii as a place to dump his unwanted characters.(I wonder if Puddles will be emigrating soon?)

An explosive ending to the Cafe TJ story.

no one will miss the “health food” he served

If properly insured, this could be for the best, since the Food Truck wasn’t really working out for him.

His neighborhood looks like Baghdad. Better follow Gunther to Peru.

Well gee, you don’t see that every day :3

What do you want to bet, regardless if TJ did it on purpose, Brad is going to think he did.

LOL at the “vehicular suicide” note! ;)

Heh, heh! With “fans” like that, who needs enemies?

When in doubt, C-4.

How did he get so much trash if he didn’t have any business?

Eyes wide

Nooooooooooo

WHOA! WHAT IN THE NAME OF

Guess that solves the “frustrated with Cafe TJ” problem.