Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for September 10, 2020

Appropriate.

Curious: Is Covid about to strike Pitts?

oh, Dez, you don’t say

Misery likes Company- Dez can’t complete

In the words of David Letterman: “This is not a competition! Please, no wagering.”

It is because Dez believes in being positive and not to whine about misfortunes.

Dez that’s a little cryptic.

Welcome to “life”, which is no sitcom with a daily happy ending. Better get to know it well, because it’s all we have.

Has Dez ever worked a job?

This is why I like Dez. She’s like this “Calm during a storm” person and she uses that on others in the strip

Curious. What class got cancelled? I mean, we were all told about Ben moving back home. And the Uni budget cuts (though I still think that makes no sense) taking Bern’s RA position. Over several days of strips. Not to mention her new interest in Jack. I’ve said it before. And I’ll keep saying it. Bernie is just as bad as LuAnn when it comes to crushing on a boy (but I digress). But all we get from LuAnn is “My favorite class is cancelled. And I might lose my teachers assistant job”. I’m beginning to think some of these posters are right. GnK are trying to get readers to hate LuAnn.

kids? what is Luann even talking about?

For Dez, I take it things are going well.

.

For the other two, miserable being must find more miserable being. Then is happy. And to think, they have been there for each other all this time. Since the second day of the strip, actually.

Whoo.

Neo-Earth Mother, Dez just politely said, “It Sux to be You two.”

Luann’s classes are cancelled. Her job at Kids 1st is threatened, and this is despite the fact that Luann, unlike Tiffany, worked her arse off there. Bernice lost her R.A. Job and her room at her own darn home. And Gunther and Bets had a Virtual podcast about cosplay as opposed to attending a real cosplay convention.

Could it be that COVID is creeping into this most beloved of all comics? Nah. “Folks” are still visiting, not maintaining six feet of social distancing and nobody wearing a mask. But It DOES look like Tiffany’s former bad luck is slowly spreading to others.

There’s an old cartoon that used to be posted on the walls of cubicles in America back 30 years ago. It depicted a cartoon character impaled with a giant screw and featured the caption: “Work Hard and You shall be Rewarded!” I think about that when I think about hardworking Bernice losing her RA Job, and Luann about to lose her Kids 1st gig. Makes you wonder, “In the VAST Luanniverse, why bother?”

I’m foreseeing two new waitresses at the Fuse. Especially if Tiffany quits.

Did this about 8 months ago for fun. All of it is me.

https://soundcloud.com/jpirard_1999/space-oddity-1

from a recent rehearsal ( 4 weeks ago) I am on the guitar on the left and high voices.We have 2 keyboardists, me and another, playing organ here and singing lead. I also do 2nd lead guitar and vocal, guitar on left is Arno our main guitar player. I took the 1st solo. This is just 4 live mics in the room

https://soundcloud.com/jpirard_1999/little-wing

Bernice wants to reflect positivity yet she’ll compete with Luann for who has the worst luck. Dez probably DOES have something TO compete with but she’s choosing to stay out of it—smart choice. If you want a positive reflection in your life, you have to have positive vibes and good auras—-not stressful drama.

The job no reader has seen her at in years? The one she never talks about? Yeah, I don’t care.

Well Luann appropriately offers Dez the floor. A cute response by Dez.

Four Yorkshiremen, anyone?

Deez is such a Pollyanna that she could be smiling even after being expelled!

Dez has a transcendental meditation outlook on life. Life Inconveniences don’t become tragedies unless you …….

Well into every life, or day, a little rain must fall, unless one believes in perpetual sunshine. No drama, no comedy, or should I say hilarity?

There’s something wrong about Bernice’s response to Luann’s problems. Instead of saying ’that’s terrible’ she says ’I’ve got worse.’ It seems an odd time to be competitive. However it does tee up Dez to say “I couldn’t compete.” So Bernice’s gracelessness is just a set up for a gag.

PS – Not being able to enroll into a class you wanted or losing a part-time job are hardly the trauma that Luann evidenced yesterday when she stormed into Bernice’s room.

Dez lives a spiritual, low-key, low-maintenance life. Not caught up in material or monetary things.

If one remembers, Dez traveled the world and seems to do whatever she wants. She’s probably a wealthy student who doesn’t wants Bern and Luann to feel bad.

I ain’t easy for me taking an online drawing class and going to cooking school at the same time.

Well the strip just illustrated the classic differences between the optimist who see the glass half full in Dez and the people who may see the glass either half empty or spiked with something they’d rather not drink such as Luann, not sure if I’d call her and Bern pessimistic but they certainly seem to be used to having their pity parties and Dez is simply skirting around the issue. Dez does not think misery enjoys company but perhaps Luann does and interesting to see how Bern did a complete 180 from having a upbeat chat with Dez to jumping in the pity pool with Luann as soon as she turns up and infringes on her “boundaries” so it looks like she can easily be a cup half empty type of gal or at the very least can flip emotions in a heart beat.

I lost my retirement job. And my son is essentially losing his senior year of high school.

Bern: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o’clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, out Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!LU : Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o’clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY!

Nice to see how Luann and Bernice finally realized that even the always positive Dez can have problems. And since Bernice has already pretty much solved her problems moving in the DeGroots house, I’m concerned about the possibility that Luann will lose her job and not know what class to follow. I hope the wise Dez has some solutions.

It is time for Luann and Bernice to start their own business. How about hosting speed dating events at the Fuse. Money for the girls and FUN for everybody. Frank and Nancy ….money from food and drinks.

First world problems.

This is supporting my theory that Dez is independently wealthy or living off a major trust fund.

Very curious how Dez deals with Covid.

@Those fans wondering why Bernice lost her dorm residence.

When Bernice first got her “Dear RA” letter I commented that she received a “full ride scholarship” to Mooney U. Here is the strip: https://www.gocomics.com/luann/2014/03/10. “A full-ride scholarship is an award that covers the entire cost of college. That includes tuition, room and board, textbooks, school materials, and sometimes even living costs and study abroad fees.” (Look it up.)

Later, https://www.gocomics.com/luann/2014/08/18, Bernice introduces Luann to her Mooney dorm room. She relates that she “got a double instead of a quad.” This could either mean she was awarded it by the Uni or she ponied up extra $$ so as to not live in a 4-student quadraplex.

Later still, Bernice was given a paid RA job in a single occupancy room. This is entirely consistent with a “full ride scholarship” plan on a couple of levels. First full rides are given to exemplary students, both academically and socially. Those exhibiting maturity in both scholarship and community involvement. Certainly indicating attributes necessary to an RA position. Second, it provides a modicum of income for the student for “living costs, etc.”

For Bernice to lose, not only, her RA position but also her dorm residency would indicate a serious violation of the Uni’s fiduciary obligation. Assuming that Bernice met the requirements to maintain that scholarship, which seems to be the case.

This conundrum and other oddities in consistency seems to indicate that Luanniverse is not a linear universe but a collection of closely related, but not identical, universes. And that our beloved characters slip and shuffle between and among them with great fluidity.

OR GnK don’t care much for consistency and are telling us to “Just take the episodes as they come and as presented.”

Dez is too compassionate to rub it in, but it looks as though she’s thriving while Luann and Bernie are barely surviving. Kismet….

Bernice didn’t “lose” her room at home. She gave it away, then didn’t take it back.

But with Dez, though her problems may not be as bad, she usually finds a way to turn the bad into a positive.

The two of them looking over at Dez with the same expression shows how in sync they are. V cute.

I’d be interested to know what Dez has been up to. She doesn’t do angst and conflict, which makes her a pretty singular character in Luann’s coterie.

‘I couldn’t compete" translates to me to mean that she has no problems worth mentioning. Kind of a smug comment for her. Weird.

The question of COVID being a factor is valid, but the whole year has been a series of events going wrong. It may be that Dez can’t compete because a loved one of hers’ has been lost to violence, and Dez is maintaining her outward serenity by comically opting out of the self-centered, “my life has gotten worse than yours” talk between Lu and Bern.

She was a knockout as Avenger Emma Peel, and will be missed.

Diana Rigg has passed away at 82. R. I. P.

Luann and Bernice are not complaining or being negative. They are simply stating factual things that happened to them. We already know about B’s situation, but Luann has new information.

Whenever I mention a problem and someone counters with what may be a competing problem, I tend to say, “You win.”

And Dez thought she was so compatible with Bern’s “aqua vibrations.”

so one more

https://soundcloud.com/jpirard_1999/no-time

Just another rehearsal cover song. Sometime we pick songs without having ever played them, just on a whim.

This was one we discussed for 2 months on and off and decided to try. Not bad for the first time ever.We worked out the backing vocals 2 minutes earlier. 2nd verse is better, but the tune rocks. A cover of THE GUESS WHO.

At least you all live in an alternate universe where covid-19 isn’t ravaging the country.

Were is Ann to kick around when you need a good villain.

Buck up Luann, your cancelled class will probably be back next year.

Dez is Marie Laveau. She’s got it covered.

Why does Dez get to stay in the dorm while Bernice and Tiffany can’t?

I’m finding Dez to be one of the more likable characters in this group.

I thought Dez went back to NY to get married.

Dez doesn’t want to tell them that she got Hired to replace Both of them.

I’m really surprised that nobody mentioned Dez’s body language in the last panel. Come on, psych majors, crossed arms, body turned away. Really guys, do I have to spell it out for you?

Why did she loose her room at home?