Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for October 12, 2015

So…. that is why….

Did your R.A. “do rounds”? None of mine did. They only came around when there was some emergency. Otherwise, we went to the R.A. instead of vice versa. Apparently at Moony the R.A. isn’t an advisor so much as some sort of cop.

Curiouser and curiouser…

They do compliment each other perfectly.

Doesn’t anyone ever have classes at Mooney?

Are you kidding me? I expected to see the mysterious Mr. Gray, and I end up with Oprah on a bad hair day.

Another thing I didn’t notice before…I love Dez, but unless she’s Native American and has a certain standing in her tribe, she needs to put that headdress down.

“Awkwards And Forwards”“Odds And Friends”“The Invisible Elephant In The Room”“Tole-rance And Raves”“The Walls Within The Walls”“A Friendly Guard At The Gates”“Start Spreadin’ The Entre Nous " (♫) (♫)" Different Strings Theory" (♫)“A Room With An Open View”“An Everyday People Person” (♫)“Stuck In The Neutral Zone”“Common In-cense”“The Pine Cone Deodorizer Makes It Work”“The Rodney King Mantra”or“Take Two Buffers, And Call Me In The Morning”

That’s how my mom’s was. I say was, only because the ’do" she wears these days is much shorter. My father and I are the dark brown hair types and she is a dark blonde, but it was a “Crystal Gayle” length when I was young.

What sort of tradition involves wearing wings like that?

Please do! I want to see if that small crater on Tinker’s face is a giant pore where a zit was, or if she just got a black head removed. I won’t be able to rest, until I find out….

“Fear not – it’s just a Kirk Douglas chin…”^Ah, yes!… Plus, that would make sense, being that she is cast in the part of a heroine…..

New poll up: Did you understand Sunday’s strip?

Can Mr. Gray be Trusted?1) 20 votes – No, this is a gray area.2) 19 votes – Sure, he worked in Las Vegas. What could go wrong?4) 17 votes – Sure, he’s dating Gunthie’s mom. What’s not to trust?3) 12 votes – Other.5) 8 votes – Sure, he’s a trained professional.Other: Yes, welcome to the strip Mr. Gray; Wise people will wait and see; others will work themselves into a dither; We’re meant to think he’s dodgy, because of the Vegas angle.; Who cares, it’s a comic strip!; Never trust a short, bald man in a gray suit.; Karen’s writing the strip now, we can trust him more than the brownies…; His real name is Salvatore “big fish” DiScarlotti; He has to be a villain, so that Gunther can be a hero by saving Mom from him.; Doesn’t matter. What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!; 50 shades of Gray.; About as far as I could throw him up a steep hill.; Trust, but verify; No, they just met him

If anyone is interested in who some of the Luann fans are, below are the view statistics for one of the polls that had a lot of participant activity. The numbers are how many views of the Luann Tracker poll pages there were for each country.

15 Australia10 United Kingdom7 United States3 Netherlands3 Thailand3 Germany3 Japan2 Singapore2 Brazil1 Sweden1 Mexico1 Taiwan

Ah yes, ukulele raves. They sure are a big thing with the young people nowadays. No one has DJs and deafening loud EDM anymore, it’s all about ukeleles.

Dez is fun. Good-hearted, but a little wacky. I’ve known several real-life “Dez’s,” most of whom retain at least some of those characteristics all through their lives….

One-My- Gaw.

This Dez Person is bringing a Ukulele to this “Looney Palooza” Sap Fest.

Arthur Godfrey MUST be Spinning in His grave…..,

How old does Dez seem to you all? To me she seems like a 35 year old returning to college. Her level of emotional stability and confidence seems very mature to me, and likely to have formed by years of life experience.

When Dez says ‘This is why’ they get along so well, I can sense the truth of it emotionally, yet I cannot define that feeling with words. What is it? Tolerance? Acceptance? Yet they aren’t merely indifferent to each other, there is a friendship forming between them…ah, I cannot express it. Maybe that’s why Dez didn’t spell it out in panel 3 too?

There are three words here that I think apply: tolerance, love (I mean human love, the kind we are supposed to have for everyone else), and understanding, which probably could be part of tolerance. As to her race, I think Dez is meant to intentionally be amibigious, something different than the norm, and celebratory of it. College is different, and people encounter life outside their comfort zone, and Bernice is really learning well how to do that.

A sense of humor and open mind also help! And curiously, Bern brought neither with her when she moved out of high school. How she has grown!

the roommate most be from Asheville NC……

7I like the interaction between Bernice and Dez. With all the “extra curricular” activities Dez has, I wonder a) what her major is, and b) what career goals she has? If I were to make a prediction, I would tend to think that she could be doing well as a Social Work major. It would a) seem fitting to her personality, and b) is not a difficult major in terms of work for anyone who is reasonably intelligent (like Dez seems).

It’s any wonder why we can’t all get along like this. :-/

Lucky man.

Acceptance… pure and simple.

Bernice alludes to classes (with “homework” assignments) we never see her attend, Dez, apparently has none to speak of. Luann is only shown going to the one class (Frank must be so proud to fund that one), Strange as it seems, smart guy Gunther is sharing a lab assignment with not-sure-how-she’s-not-on-academic-probation Tiffany. And Quill! is the only doing anything actually related to his field of study.

Is this place Evans’ version of Doonsbury’s Walden?

It is easy to get along with someone if you rarely spend time together.

My RAs as a freshman were sort of cops. But that was a religious fundie school. You never knew when a potential donor might stop by and want a tour! But every RA I ever heard of had a private room as a bennie.

Dez paints her face, dons a headdress and wings, and carries a ukulele and bongo to a “magical mystery rave”. Does Karen Evans believe this is a real thing that people actually do, or is this just another nonsense strip like yesterday’s?

Glad some of you find Bernice and her roommate interesting. I have a hard time getting excited about this storyline.

C’mon Davey, it is just a comic strip, and, imho, pretty well drawn. The storylines are coherent, and few enough to follow. Or was there a bit of sarcasm in your comment? Again, though I can never remember which character in Pogo used it, “It is to larf,” will always be one of my favorite and oft used expressions of amusement.

Thank you Implausible, for giving me the opportunity to reflect on the changes in dear Tiffany. I think you are right, she seems to have lost her fiery drive and ambitious determination to advance her career at all costs, to take and make every opportunity to get ahead. She is having a winter season in her life for sure. I think she is growing up a little, something she couldn’t do if she was still in stasis as ‘high school Tiff’. Her resume didn’t get her the acting scholarship she was counting on. No one ‘discovered’ her and whisked her away to Hollywood. Her father didn’t enroll her a Moony U, which evidently had a good enough reputation to lure Quill all the way from Australia to attend (well maybe Luann mattered too). Her high school achievements and contacts don’t matter in the adult world. The princess has fallen to earth to walk among the peasants, and she is devastated and demoralized. But, she is growing as a person through Gunther, and a little bit through Bernice. I don’t think Tiff and Gunther will marry though, they both agreed they were too different from one another. Which is great because I think Tiff needs a brother in her life more than a lover. I hope Tiff and Bernice will become friends, they are so funny together. I believe spring will come again for Tiffany Farrell, even if it seem so far away right now.

Implausible… you state “… academic assistance from THIRSTY guys…” I am not really sure what you mean. I see no drink chugging (beer or otherwise) associated with Tiffany. I tried to think of potential “euphemisms” thirsty could stand for, but nothing appropriate came to mind. Was that a typo for “thirty” or something I am just not getting?

Mr. Gray & Dez, the two new characters, appear as polar opposites.Mr. Gray: Appears as a boring, middle-aged white man without much imagination, let alone style.Dez: Appears as a hip, young, adventurous woman of color.*Yet appearances are deceiving— Dez is showing herself to be a smart, responsible adult. And Mr. Gray is shrouded in mystery. I appreciate the intro of these two opposite/similar characters at the same time.

Does Dez ever go to class or study? I would surely like to know what her major is.

…in response to your post yesterday.

I’ve still been reading. There just hasn’t been much in this strip the last month or so that I found interesting enough to comment on.

“Thirsty is a popular word with the young crowd to describe someone who wants to sleep with someone else.”

So that’s what “the most interesting man in the world” is talking about in those beer commercials.

We left off with Gunther protecting Tiff from the rain, and now Mr. Gray and his background, adopting Frank and Nancy as friends. Who says the writing isn’t good? It keeps me turning the page. Closest I ever got to DC was Portsmouth, NH., which wasn’t close at all.

I wonder what will happen in this week’s story? I’m guessing we’ll follow Bernice on her rounds. But since she doesn’t have anything specific on her agenda, I suspect one of her dorm mates is going to have or pose some kind of problem for Bernice to deal with. Well, in any case, there is a good chance we’ll run into Tiffany and/or Sun, so it’s exciting!

Wow! Bernice looks much more womanly and mature now.

I don’t understand what you mean by “Bernice basically ‘invaded’ Dez’s established space at the dorm.” Dez and Bernice were supposed to be equal roommates in the dorm; it’s not like one was an established resident who deigned to allow the other one to stay in the room.- Furthermore, last August, Dez put a mask up on the wall and then disappeared for the rest of the semester, never contacting Bernice and apparently only sneaking in and out of the dorm room a few times. If the space was “established” for anyone during the fall semester, that was Bernice, the person who was actually living there full-time.-So when Dez finally met Bernice, it was Dez who could be said to be invading Bernice’s established space, if anybody was invading anyone else’s space.

SPOILER ALERT

Bernice jumps to a conclusion too quickly…