Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for March 04, 2019

This is barely even parody. Some profs and TA’s are such sticklers that you wonder how they ever get any work done through all the whining and correcting.

So I guess Luann didn’t take the TA job. I wonder why not.

I was once a T.A. in high school. It was a Spanish language class and no way did I act like a dictator.

Yay! New character!

Hoo, Boy! I wonder if Little “Howie” is one of the guys Gunther picked for Luann on the dating site app?And I’ll wager he wants to see Luann for something “other” than proper “stapling” of her papers!

PS: (Psst! Hey Jack! Do you know that Lu just "Friend-Zoned You?)

Next, all papers will use Comic Sans, 9pt and page and line spacing requirements are still in effect.

I guess that it’s the habit of some people that, when they’re given just a WEE BIT of power over others, they tend to abuse it. :/

Tara manages to place herself next to Jack, between Lu and Jack. Doubt she would “friend zone” Jack.

I was a TA also and all I did was grade papers. Also, it was the PROFESSOR’s responsibility to staple tests (in my time, tests were printed and given out). Now, since the TA scolded for not stapling in the left corner, I assume this is research assignment and here I am wondering why they aren’t emailed by attachment to the teachers. I taught both high school and community college and my students email me their work. I also give them tests online. No papers involved and the test program corrects and grades the tests for me. Guess Pitts CC is not current on some technology.

Come on turning in physical papers? That is sooo last century.

Tara has a sense of humor with style – she’s fun. I don’t think Howie will be a keeper.

Humour is dead….. this wasn’t even funny i didn’t even laugh at the stupidness of it ..

His OCD is going to make this an annoying week

Little Howie is probably Elwood’s brother.

We all know a Howie: Someone who takes their job WAY too seriously and is generally a pain to be around in and out of the office.

Looks like Luann got sentences to Bad Stapler’s Prison!

Good practice for the real world and its TPS report cover pages. Preferred stapler is a red Swingline.

O.k. I think we just met Borenice’s brother. And he’s just as exciting.

It also looks like Luann just got a scarlet letter.

This is sooo reminiscent of a book published in 1969 by Jerry Farber (a black professor from Los Angeles State College) who wrote an article in in 1967 published in the Freep called “The Student As Ni**er” (yeah, you can’t even write it out unless you are a certified “person of color”). It was so much better in describing all the bullsh*t that went on in school in the 1960’s. Find the book if you can and enjoy it. Check out “Teaching Johnny To Walk” for a wonderful parody of institutionalized teaching as well.

http://www.studentunion.ca/cfs/1968/1968-cus-student-as-nigger.pdf

What confuses me is that TAs usually teach beginning classes. It would be highly unlikely to be taking a class that I had been offered the opportunity to teach. At least that was the case when I was a TA.

I see a homeowners association presidency in Howie’s future.

It seems school is still a staple of this comic.

My Organic Chem T.A. was an angry little man who did not like the “T” part of his title… while he didn’t do this particular thing, he DID complain a LOT about my lab notebook vs. anyone’s, to the point I told him to “get over it and look at my work”… he finally did shut up about it. :-)

Batiuk, eh? Is Les Moore going to make an appearance?

The other two names before DeGroot, Batiuk and Coverly, reference Tom Batiuk, creator of Funky Winkerbean and Dave Coverly who writes Speed Bump.

In a chem lab course, don’t you hand in your (bound) lab notebook after an experiment instead of a loose-leaf report?

Does Howie own a pair of Star Trek pajamas?

So a cartoon and two cartoonists can’t follow directions.

HUH – Bad Girls, Bad Girls, whatcha gonnna do, When the TA’s comin’ for you?

Anew (potential Luann suitor) has entered the lists. Since we’ve been warned in recent weeks about the evils of dating apps, are we now going to be subjected to Howie the Harasser?

A couple of Funky staplers hit a Speed Bump.

Tara now occupies Luann’s spot in the Chem lab. By symbolicly distancing the two, I suppose this is a signal from GnK that they are no longer interested in flirting with the Luann and Jack matchup. The introduction of “Howie” (a strange little character with a obsessive compulsive personality neurosis) doesn’t portend well for our heroine.

Does Jack appear to be drawn a little more pre-makeover, Neanderthal-ly? Almost back to art class days.

Howie = someone who gets less dates than Gunther.

He just gave them justification for a coup d’école.

Gonna have to debunk this. TAs are almost always grad students, and ain’t no grad student got time to be that petty.

Being left handed, Luann just naturally stapled the upper right corner. This school doesn’t honor accommodations?

Speaking as a former professor, having papers stapled that way makes grading a bit easier. That and having the pages in order. I’ve had papers turned in stapled in so many different ways, ways that you can’t see everything after page one! I’ve had pages out of order, sometimes I’ve even encountered pages upside down! It’s really annoying and frustrating. When you have so many papers to grade, you’ve got to have things streamlined as much as possible!

Let’s see whether Howie offers to “help” Luann operate the stapler by holding her hand.

And Speed Bump

Reminds me of Sqeak. Calaggarts wormy toady in Billy Budd

“Really, Mr. Batiuk, this is the laziest job of stapling I’ve ever seen. Do you have no pride in your work, or do you really think you can get away with handing in just any old thing you throw together? You may have been able to get away with such shoddy homework back at Kent State, but here at Pitts CC we hold people to a higher standard!”

Wow – Luann is in class with 2 comic strip artists!

“Your staple is at a 40 degree angle, not the required 45 degree.”

Where I worked, you stapled in the right hand corner. This way, when you pulled paperwork from the files, you had everything you need all together. I’ve been doing it ever since!

5

Hmm. Not quite ready to guess where this may be heading. But a few thoughts:

1. Interesting that neither Tara (nor Luann (nor Jack presuming he was asked)… took the professor up on the offer of being a T.A. While I suspect Greg had Tara and Luann refrain so they could get this comedically annoying fellow for laughs, in real world situations, being a T.A. would have likely been a helpful. resume building role for any of the three of them to take.

2. Being a T.A. would have likely most helped Jack if he is still aiming for a pre-vet sort of major (less important if he is only going vet tech). Being a T.A. would have been next most helpful for Luann (presuming she is still considering a teaching role even if her goal would have been elementary ed. Tara, with our lack of knowledge of her career goal… the value of being a T.A. is far less apparent.

3. The comic artists names mentioned are ones I “know” and I also “know” of each comic…. but they are not in my queue of regular reads… so I am not sure if there is some sort of “insider” joke with referencing those two that I am not getting.

Since I was away at a research meeting at the end of last week, I did not get to comment on Gunther’s pose…. the Saturday comic was actually the most enjoyable and funny sort of ending, and it actually had me laugh and for me, was the best part of the arc. I am glad Gunther is letting his true nature be shown. Hopefully some really nice female will contact him and appreciate him for who he is. I always envision an “Amy Fowler” sort of young lady (Mayim Bialik’s character on Big Bang Theory).

One thing this panel does is kibosh the trollisms that Luann is a lazy neer-do-well who is only in community college because she is a lazy, bad student. That misperceives her totally. She had a logical reason for deciding on community college, thus saving a lot of money while trying to figure out what she wants to do career-wise, and even though the strip likes to show her as a typical kid really, she does well in school. In this STEM course, the Professor wanted her to be his TA. I think she did not take it because she did not want the responsibility because of insecurity, and not wanting to put herself ahead of people; would she have been kind of dictatorish if she had taken it? Tara is the classic authority questioner, although she is also a good student, naturally smart. Jack is a hard-working student, he has a goal, and he works toward it. All in all boring, normal kids, in Luannverse. Where this arc will go? Hilarity ensues.

I once had a workplace trainer who was so particular that she required our notes to say and look EXACTLY like hers. No deviations. When we tried to explain that note taking is a personal thing and what works for one may not work for another she refused to listen and insisted we do as she said. She would even walk around the room chastising those who deviated from her way. This wasn’t even school, it was training for a new role we were moving into at work. It was ridiculous.

T. P. Teacher’s Pet.

Well, we know who should have bought the stapler\protractor combo item, don’t we?

Will this segue back to Jack and the online or not, dating?

Drop dead, Howie!

I had a TA one time who wrote on my paper that contractions were not used in a scholarly work—I was a junior—it was a paper for a history class and I was also an English Major. I was furious, lit in to him and then to show him managed to get into a traffic accident on the way home!!

The danger of giving power over your life to others.

It seems like such a struggle to observe a protocol that only results in our becoming mundane like everyone else. The world needs more Knutes and Crystals.

Enter the new Swingline ElectroGrab 2000 with the Accupoint laser alignment system. Howie’s dream stapler.

He must be punishing her for applying the staple at a 40-degree angle instead of 45.

Okay.

First: IF Tara OR Luann had taken the Teacher’s Assistant job, then none of the class would have to deal with “Gruppenfuhrer Howie,” here. And they would have been in a position where they could have, at least to some degree, control the situation and the environment. Not to mention creating a close working relationship with the professor, which could be useful down the road in getting references and jobs. But as usual, the kids are too buzy being “edgy and cool,” to think of the future. And sorry, but THAT, in THIS case is Tara’s fault.

Second: I thought “folks” would like to take a peek at a group picture of the whole gang past and present, in happier times.

https://www.gocomics.com/luann/2012/08/24?comments=visible#comments

See Tiffany over on the right? I miss that Tiffany. I wish THAT Tiffany was back and with Gunther! Others will see the long lost Delta and Rosa. H3LL, even Ann Eiffel is in the shot.

But the GOOD News IS: There’s NO Les in the pix! ;)

This is probably not what the artist was suggesting by having Tara describe Howie that way, but Charlie Chaplin created a silent movie called ‘The Great Dictator’ that was a thinly veiled reference to Hitler. The movie apparently created a lot of buzz or whatever they called it way back then (before I was around…)

Howie’s attempt to flirt with Luann?

If Howie is such an enthusiast of proper stapling, why does his sweater have a picture of a giant zipper on it?

Tribune News is reporting that actor Luke Perry passed away today. He was only 52…

It’s sad to see that Luann refused to be the T.A. And this being called even if she’s not wrong is suspicious … What this Howie want from her???

Please tell me this isn’t going to be a week long arc!!

Funky Winkerbean’s parent is in that class?

Oh, the shame of it! And now it will go on her permanent record.

Greg is being sly and is mentioning two comic strip artists, (Tom) Batiuk, and (Dave) Coverly. Anyone else catch that?

Luann’s staple was at 48 Degrees.

Oh, the Horror.

I suspect this kid was asked after Luann. I think Jack would have accepted the offer. He’s not prone to peer pressure like Luann who was just following after Tara.

Hey that means either Tara and Jack followed protocol, or Luann is about to get hit on by helmut hair.

Howie the T.A. seems to aspire to become more like my high school math teacher, notorious and either feared or revered for his exacting requirements.

But is DeGroot here in the same league as those two cartoonists? BTW, should the staples at top left be placed vertically or horizontally?

I had to look up Coverly; I figured he was also a cartoonist, but didn’t remember he does Speed Bump. Interestingly, he’s from Plainwell, Michigan. Jef Mallett (Frazz) is also from Michigan, and Frazz’s girlfriend is Miss Plainwell. These guys need to get out more.

Tara is funny!!!!