Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for October 21, 2020

Growing older is mandatory. Growing up is optional.

wow… what a life Ben has been leading

Lots of movement. ✨

All is explained except why he doesn’t have a job. He’s certainly done a lot in four short years. During that time Luann has graduated from high school and entered community college. That’s a respectable use of her time. It’s exactly what Bernice has over the same time.

Puddles is all like “Yeah, yeah! Heard that line before.”

Well… looks like another washout for Luann on the Mr. Wonderful front!

Ben York, former Army Sergeant, married man with two stepchildren living in Pitts. And he lost his employment. What a storyline?

Sheesh! We still don’t know about the job Ben lost and he still hasn’t asked again about Bernice. Why can’t the writers advance the story already instead of torturing us by dragging things out like this? ;-)

Luann wins the dueling profile silhouettes!

Luann wanted to get with Ben when she first met him but now she can’t do anything other than be friends because he’s married and has two boys.

Dropping hints that he’s no longer with “Jo” – hey, his wife has a name!

Also, apparently married into kids. Are these the kids he now has?

This story is certainly going in weird directions.

I’m with beb01: No explanation as to why he’s unemployed as of now. Sounds like he has an outstanding resume and, in a COVID free world, he shouldn’t have a problem getting a job.

Most disturbing is that, apparently, his wife is still alive, and apparently, he has her birth kids (not kids of his own).

While the story is still not fully told, it does look like G&K are trying to pair Ben and Luann.

Looks like Puddles is busy down in the corner.

Even Dez couldn’t have had this an exotic history! 8^ (

You haven’t missed anything, Luann.

All in all, a surprisingly logical explanation for most everything.

Wow, what a set-up, and Luann looks so somehow attractively intrigued in the deliberately drawn silhouette. This can get quite complicated. I hope too many judgmental heads don’t explode before this arc plays out. This time I think I have a call on both the probable arc, and the the art ad how and why it’s possibly drawn the way it is. to show attraction.

A former Army Sergeant Ben, Travel the world feel in love as a wife and two kids.

Even Puddles looks bored.

It appears that Puddles is displaying his sentiment to Luann’s last statement in the last panel. She will have to think about changing his name to “Doo – dles”

I hope this is leading to an arc where Luann does SOMETHING…

So Ben is not like the deranged Kurtz in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. This ex-Army fella from Manila, must be one of the good guys, but leaving his wife when she was handling a crisis seems odd. Besides, he still had a clinic to run. Maybe he’s just another ex-GI who found his special girl in an alien place, married her, went native, and became an ex-patriot. I met a few in the old days. Strange breed.

So Jo is down in Manila to take care of her ailing father and it is apparent there is no room for her sons and Ben. So Ben took the room from Bernice. Ben? Go get a job so you can get an apartment and take the boys with you so Bernice can have her room back. You are the adult. Why are you freeloading in the Halper household? You don’t know how long Joanne is going to be in Manila so if you think you’re waiting for Joanne to bury her father and staying at the Halper’s house for a bit, think again. It won’t be just for a bit. Go get a job and support yourself and the boys.

Jo stayed with her sick dad and Ben took the kids to get them into the US permanently.

Lessee here. Wife (her second time around, at least) Joanne is in Manila with her ill dad. The twins are in Belize, living on a boat, with your adoptive parents. And you are in Pitts, California, hometown of your birth family, with whom you are now living in what was Bernie’s room.

I guess I’d be a bit overwhelmed by that data download, too, Luann. Maybe even flustered….

Since Karen started taking part in the writing of the strip, it seems Luann does not get much of an opportunity to have a long term suitor. I can see the last day of the strip, Luann wakes up and this will all have been a dream. Last panel of the last day shows a forlorn Luann back in 1985 wearing a Snow White type of dress outside a Photomat singing, ♪ Some day my prints will come… ♫

Army guy Ben? Yes. Hippy Ben? Nope! Not at all attractive.

150 years ago most people never traveled more that 20 miles from their place of birth their entire lives.

Luann has an old soul, it appears.

Well FINALLY a “Back-Story!” And told in two panels, yet. See? It CAN be done. And frankly, I think this is G&K’s way of pretty much putting the the LAST nail in the “Luann/Ben Romance” coffin. Because apparently, Ben and Jo-Jo are STILL married. Must be, because I can’t see Ben getting custody of Jo’s kids in a separation, since they’re Hers.

Let’s see. Ben’s travelled the World during his hitch in the Army and after with the Red Cross. Dez has travelled the World. So has Tiff (back in the good old days). And Gunny spent some time in Peru. Luann on the other hand, once went to Hawaii (With her mom) and spent all of a day or two in NYC. Count Me among those who say that this whole arc (and maybe, last arc) is mainly about Lu perhaps re-evaluating herself enough to get off her Duff, out of her bedroom, and finally DOING something with her life.

One more thing. It’s a big World, but when I read Ben’s bio, I wondered IF in his travels around the World with the Red Cross, did he ever run into Rosa in Peru?

Good for Put, giving them their privacy.

Ben’s my kind of dude. Except he seems to be already married to a good woman.

Ben York left the Army and is an expatriate living in the Philippines running a clinic. He met future wife with two kids who are twins while working in the Philippines. They get married and Ben York now is a stepfather, unless he adopted them. Ben lost his job and moved the twins to his biological parents’ home in Pitts from the Philippines. To exclude His adoptive parents ( the Yorks), they are living in Belize as expatriates on a boat. We don’t know the ages of the twins but they might be attending Pitts Junior high school. I believe the storyline might involve the twins and Luann. No romance between Ben and Luann since Ben is still married. The storyline needed Bernice to live with the Degroots as a connection to Ben York’s life.

and Puddles says “Oh brother…”

Here I am……and I guess here I’ll stay…

Never ceases to amaze me how many comments are in this strip’s GoComics pages, lol. I’ll be honest- I kind of faded out of my fandom, and the college antics just weren’t as fun to me as the high school stuff, and the Brad/Toni story more or less ending happily was a “cap-off” point for my fandom… but wow, I must be alone because people LOVE commenting on this! And not necessarily to hate-read it either, lol.

Ben just blowing out a whole ton of exposition in a single panel is pretty funny for a gag, but part of me wishes they’d give us the real scoop and SHOW us all that stuff- it’d make for a pretty good week of strips, especially for a character we used to see a lot of.

Maybe Luann can meet someone who has amnesia and just came out of a coma. Then there wouldn’t be such a complicated backstory.

“So I decided to become a bum. It’s very low-stress.”

How in the world did you do all that in four years?

Sooo… he’s a bum who doesn’t work and sponges off his parents while his wife dumped HER kids on HIM to raise…

That’s all great but why did you move in with your parents and are you looking for a job? He seems really pleased with himself for someone who is a hobo.

So there was NEVER a strip where Ben said he was divorced or separated. Quite a few posters seemed to think there was. I wish people would stick to what has actually been stated and not make up their own version of this story and act like it is fact.

Thank you, Luann, for cutting to the chase.

I’m sensing a contrast of lifestyles dilemma for Luann. She’s going to spend the next several days wondering why her life is so boring.

Ben is a really great man. He has done so many things that you feel impressed. I’m afraid Luann will fall into another spiral of sadness thinking about how empty her life is. But I hope Ben will be able to inspires her to try, dare, find her goals and try to achieve them♡.

Talk about exposition.

“…rockin’ like a hurricane…”

so he went to the birth parents and dislodged bernice because no one else was convenient. Maybe he can drop the kids off with brad next.

No love interest for Luann, just a blast from the past.

How old is this guy!

So, in the time since his original appearance, he’s done a tour in the Army (minimum 2 years,) done a stint in the Peace Corps, gotten married, lived for a time in Belize, and now is here at Bernice’s. And in that time LuAnn has done… nothing?

Luann- “SSDD.”

Even the authors acknowledge that the interesting stuff all happens off-panel.

so this is the reason Bernice got booted out of the house????

How appropriate that Puddles is pooping as she says that.

I know lets have Ben be a secret enemy agent and Luann discovers his plot and saves the day! Or… we can just continue chatting for a few weeks. Bernice already told Luann he was back, married and had kids, remember? Last panel – Puddles is not buying any of this.

Ok…I must have missed it years ago! Can someone fill me in, please? Are Ben and Bernice biological siblings? Was Ben adopted out? Get me up to date, please!!

Cannot explain everything in two panels of a three panel cartoon. Give this new character, with a history of his own, a chance to play “show and tell.”

Looks to me like Puddles is ready to drop a big load of doodoo.

@Cheapskate0: This story is certainly going in weird directions.

Ya think!? But, hey! They don’t call it Pittsville fer nothin’. Let’s see: Bernice owns the DeGroot household. Jack gives Bernice a fish! Dez throws rocks at said fish. Luann calls Nancy a walrus. Gunther catches Les and Bets cookin’. Tiffany becomes a flower girl with a weird hairdo.

GnK have gone all Walrus on us: ♬Sitting on a corn flake / Waiting for the van to come / Corporation T-shirt, stupid bloody (Wedn)esday / Man you’ve been a naughty boy / You let your (beard) grow long…♬ 8^ D

Everyone does what they do on their own schedule and for their own reasons. One of my kids’ is as happy as a clam living in a commune. They have a degree in Japanese modern history from Kyoto Uni, worked for a time with a Japanese newspaper. Another kid is a college professor specializing in comics. Another is a muralist, one is helping me on my farm. Which kid is successful? Non of them if your measure of success is “kill the men, steal the horses, and leave their loved ones weeping”. Each person gets to measure their success. Some days, just doing dishes and sweeping up palmetto bugs is all I can bring myself to do.

I need to take a walk down memory lane and go back and find those comic strips. Sounds interesting. It is normal for children to go back home and take care of their ailing parents if it is possible. Not everyone has the means but if you can, wonderful. My mom left us with our stepfather to go to another state to help take care of my ailing great grandmother. The other family members chipped in to make it happen since they could not go.

It might be than Ben brought the kids to the US so they could attend school.

Luann’s so perky!

Ben may be out of shape but he’s lived a lifetime already. Meanwhile, Luann……

Luann: “You still haven’t explained why you grew a beard tho.”

ka-recap

It doesn’t sound like he’s not with his wife to me. She’s with her sick Dad. Doesn’t he have her kids with him?

Luann is saying/thinking…still single and not dating anyone…just my normal life. But she’s only 20…..plenty of time.

Art imitates life! Buried deep in the comments is this little tidbit from Katecst!

“Greg Evans married Betty Ransom, a teacher, on December, 1970. They have three children named Rhonda, Gary, Karen, and five grandchildren.

“One of Evans’ children, Rhonda, born around the time Evans had met his wife in college, was put up for adoption. 30 years later, Rhonda discovered that she was adopted. When reading the Sunday comics, she realized that an artist’s name matched the name on her adoption papers.”

https://prabook.com/web/greg.evans/2319710

Panel 3: Puddles knows that Ben is full of crap.

Well, that explains a lot. Quite a resumé. Meanwhile, by comparison, Luann will feel even more worthless? Her insecurities rise? Wonder why Ben came home with the twins. Is this visit temporary? After a time in foreign countries did he have to return to maintain citizenship? Maybe his parents wanted to meet their grandchildren? Will Luann want to volunteer and travel (shades of Gunther)? Oh, so many unanswered questions! Lol! Interesting week ahead! ;-)

We readers have some serious precedent to consider in this meeting. Back in May thru June of 2001 a hauntingly similar sequence of strips occurred. Luann, then 16 years old, was saved by lifeguard Stuart, then 21 years old. Luann succumbed to serious puppy love for this hero. Under the ploy of wanting to “take him to dinner,” aka a date, as a reward. Nancy had major reservations and placed heavy restrictions on the meeting. Frank, somewhat more accommodating, gave Luann “the talk.” At the dinner, Luann discovers Stuart is married.

Sound familiar?? A married older hero? Previous infatuation? Are we going there… again?

Her comment, “Here I am.” could certainly be taken as ambiguous as to meaning, at the very least!

Luann’s got to be what now? Twenty, twenty one? I personally think Evans will have Luann dabble with her previous feelings for him. But this would be TOO, TOO “edgy” — even for the Evans!

Caught all of us up to date in a hurry.

Good job!

the military is not for everyone, for a lot of people when they get out they go thru a period of rebellion, some longer than others.

Many people are happy to stay in their home town all their lives and never travel and explore the world. That does not make them losers or pathetic, just what they feel comfortable with. Half my high school class still lives in the same small town while I moved 1000 miles away at age 18. I would not have been happy living my whole life in that small town, but those people are.

Luann, he has a wife. So dial it down or walk away.

I take it as Luann hasn’t done anything except her comic strip duties and is stagnant. Time for her to get a job, meet a guy, anything but the dull same old routine.

Ah finally some sex appeal! Ben has the visage that surely stirs the loins! That gut, the beard, the hair-In-all-his-crevices. Surely a delight for anyone interested in the hobo appeal. Oh my!

(Repeat from above)

Elsewhere someone else brought up yet another hole in Ben’s story.

Which brought to mind yet another hole in the story.

First: Military enlistments are three years or longer. Back in the day, the Air Force only offered four and six year enlistments. Question: Does that mean Ben got out “early” – and if so, why?

Else, has he really had time to do all he said he has done?

Second: Timeline in the Luann-verse. It was 1991 when Mount Pinatuba blew its top, burying Clark AB and environs in a mountain of ash. In a tiff with Ferdinand Marcos, the United States decided never to return to the Philippines!

Almost thirty years ago and yet Ben was there in the last four, ostensibly on a military assignment?

The more I try to make sense of this, the less sense it makes. Something’s not right here.

As with Monday’s strip, I hope this spurs Luann to get more serious about her future.

R.I.P. Spencer Davis , renowned Brit rocker.

OK, where did he say he was unemployed? I just reread the last few days and still didn’t see him say that. Not that I’d be surprised – his story sounds like he doesn’t like to stick to one thing too long. No comment on estrangement, nor interest in Luann – he’s only asked about his sister.

In other words….professional bum.

I think that he is an imposter!

Luann has a nice profile. :-)

B.S.

Luann actually has done a lot. She participated with a regional establishment (The Fuse), helping out with its art and theater with Pru. She mentored a young woman and helped give her confidence and assurance (Faye). She helped develop young minds and assist with damage control (Kids that Care or whatever her job was called). She assisted a well known professor as a college assistant with art ( Prof. Zebo). Which by the way, can we see Faye again. I liked that character.

tomorrow: Luann accidentally steps in Puddles’ business. :-/

I find it strange that Ben being a stepfather, who doesn’t have joint custody, has the boys. In a different country than their mom. Also, it looks like Puddles is squatting and about to gift this reunion.

He’s been Peripatetic. She’s been around the block. Once.

Luann undersells herslf. A reasonable answer to Ben would be… “I’m in college now and I’m interested in art and education…” … something like that. Part of Luann’s problem is that she doesn’t think well enough about what she does do.

Oh my GOD why would anyone spend a lot of time analyzing every detail of today’s strip! It’s so low stakes, every single day. Nothing important ever happens. The one character who has changed in any lasting way is Ben, who’s been out of the picture for years. There are no secret meanings and there is no foreshadowing. It’s all just light entertainment, if you ask me.

@RSH: I agree with you, but I think we are very much in the minority here