Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for June 05, 2021

A Kiss on the lips can be so Continental,

But slipping a little tongue is so wrong.

These two really understand each other.

here we go again

Man, She can’t help herself!! What a Vexatious Temptress!!

A nice conclusion to this arc!

Oops! I did it again! Too funny!

OMG can she just stop?!

Well, it must be true love.

Please, please, please….

If they write their own marriage vows, do not spend an entire month, at the minimum, to put it all into the comic strip’s limited balloon space.

Tish! You spoke French!

OMG! It’s a miracle! They DO belong together. So, can you all stop dissing Luann for her tiny role in this? (Of course not…)

Uh-oh, that’s torn it. Nil used one of the words Bernice used the other day.

Bernice will now start planning their wedding.

Can’t really say this attraction seemed likely – maybe it will become more believable.

So the path to Bern’s heart is through a thesaurus?

Our boy is playing a long game, here.

Gee.

All it took to get Bernice a-jiggling was for Nul to say the word ”inveigling.”

Guess that’s the secret to winning a gal’s heart in this Strip.

Being “Edgy” and using an occasional “big” word.

Now comes the fun part.

Wait’ll these two REALLY get to know each other.

One “minefield” coming right up. ;)

¿Bernice ya se habrá olvidado de Jack? ¿Cómo reaccionará ahora al verlo?

he’s just so inveigling.

If it can be done by Shakespeare, it can be done in a comic strip.

Let us proceed unto a reference of the beast with two backs.

Shannon, overhearing this, says you should take that beast back to the toy store and get a full refund for such an obvious major defect.

Cue music: Hit the road, Jack!

Please let this be the end of the arc. I want to see another arc end on a positive note.

Bernice meets Mr. Right!!! They basically understand each other. She sooo deserves this; Nil has always been intriguing. Plus hilarity ensues! Good way to end this week anyway.

Perhaps they can find happiness in the lands of 9 Chickeed Lane or even Pigborn, where thesauruses are allowed to roam freely.

It appears to be a pre – programmed involuntary reaction. Nil says something that triggers Bernice’s circuitry that polls all her inputs, and based on the input, the kissing subroutine engages the hardware. She has absolutely nothing to do with it, it just happens.

True love.

Bernice, he may have used a big word, but that was not a compliment.

NO TONGUE!

That girl’s just bubbling over.

Ladies and Gentleman, I give you the new young couple of Luann, Nil and Bernice, aka Nernice! : )

And did anyone else besides me have to look up the definition of inveigling? LOL

Mmm…guile, cunning & btw…trickery…Lol ;^))

Either Bern has met her match or Alexa/Siri/Google sent Nil a recording of the conversation she had with Nancy!

Through the actions of Bernie and Nil, Greg is unveigling a whole new relationship in the strip.

It’s like watching an extremely long, over-burdened episode of “The Wonder Years”…

NOW the things spice up!

Apparently inveigling works on Bernice…who knew?

Finally! Bernice has met someone who speaks her language!

Bernice knows what inveigling means, and she is acting on it.

WOW. Nil used the very same word Bernice was spewing the other day at Nancy. They are made for each other! Bernice is turned on by his intellectuality. I get that. Clearly, Nil saw that a long time ago at the bowling alley but Bernice apparently did not, and then Jack dropped the bowling ball on Luann’s foot causing a huge scene so the little show between Nil and Bernice was all forgotten – on Bernice end. Nil apparently hadn’t. Glad Nil decided to try again and reached Bernice even if he did it through Jack.

Surprise. Bernice has a spring loaded libido.

Nil: I have to draw you.

I can’t ride this crazy train any more……..let me off!!

I think there’s a spark between you two Bern. Relax and let it happen!

She really can’t help herself!

Wow! The Bernice hatred knows no bounds!

Well She is beyond your malice so it’s all good!

I love learning new words! Merci !

Part of me hopes this is Bernice getting together with someone more her speed for once. The other part of me hopes Nil is trying to come out to her so she doesn’t feel bad. I’m usually wrong though, so I still hope I am.

If Nil is going to become Bern’s boyfriend I’d like him to get a new hair style or at least a second eye! The single eye is quite distracting for me.

Nice. Totally out of control and happy. Bernice has met someone who can talk like her and seems to like her too. Finally the wild sapiosexual side of her can manifest itself! I’m happy for her ♡. We still don’t know what Nil really thinks about this situation, so let’s hope he likes being suddenly kissed by Bernice.

Maybe she’s a sapiosexual.

This romance took me by surprise. Out of all the possible matches this was off my radar. In comic land, I hope they enjoy the ride.

Bernice, eschew obfuscation.

When humor becomes too esoteric, it can be like yelling “FOYER!” in a crowded vestibule.

Bernice, you HUSSY!

So this is what “sorry for kisss—” looks like.

Bernice needs to back off and see that Nil is not responding to the kisses in an encouraging way.

BerNil is now a thing.

I called it! Nil tells Bernice what she wants to hear and everyone is happy. Now we are done with Bernice for a while. Yay!

We are due for a Shannon Sunday tomorrow.

Oops she did it again

The path to Bernice’s heart is strewn with advanced vocabulary.

Inveigle: persuade (someone) to do something by means of deception or flattery.

It means that you’re in love.

Well it will be a couple of months before we get back to these 2 love birds. Then they will be an official couple.

Good.

…uhhh…is this all happening in the Fuse?

She has turned into a brazen hussy ? !

Best way to a nerd’s heart is through her vocabulary…

This is a great plot twist! Who would have thought of these two getting together over an art show, a kiss, and “inveigling”? Plus I love that we are learning more about Nil. I feel like kissing him, too!

Bernice is learning what really turns her on (Ohh, talk intellectual to me …)

“A Fish Called Bernice”

I wonder what Shannon’s up to.

The hussy and the hustler. Good combination.

I knew the minute I saw Nil use the word inveighing that she would be drawn back in. The words she has been using the last few days have been a big lead-in.

Get a room already you two, jeez…

Maybe the degroots will get there spare room back

…I had to look it up!….

Bernice knows seven big words. That means she gets six more kisses if Nil knows the same words. Personally, I’ve never been a big fan of those who use big words that they know the general public is not familiar with. It’s a snobby tactic that only leaves the audience feeling mocked. But in this case, it could be a fun side to this relationship, and lead to some really incredible Scrabble games!

Inveigle. Now that’s a new one on me. I had to look it up.

End of week random thoughts.

• Bernice is a pushover for expressions of platonic love coupled with androgyny and sesquipedalianism.

• Apparently they’ve found something they can relate to in one another. Especially after that disastrous double date of May 15th thru 17th, 2017. Did he say leeching!?

• Nil appears noticeably more Cyclopean than that first double date! We better keep an eye on him for any cannibalistic traits.

• “Their song” will be I only have Eye for you. Or maybe Slip of the Tongue.

Inveigling. That’s a new word on me. I had to look it up.

I guess Bernice finally met a man who is her intellectual equal. For her, that’s quite a turn-on.

A man with a good vocabulary, a man who likes (or makes) art — these are very sexy qualities.

inveigling

Tending to seduce: alluring, bewitching, come-hither, enticing, inviting, luring, seductive, siren, tempting, witching.

It’s not exactly Rhett and Scarlett with Atlanta burning in the background, but…

Boy if she’s not careful she’s gonna end up pregnant!..though I can’t find a fun thesaurus word for sex (copulate we all know what that means Nil!)

How many eyes will their children have?

Some people just get turned on by big words. :)

Hey you two! Get a thesaurus!

And THEN get a room.

That’s when she realized that he’s a keeper.

“Young love (young love), first love (first love)Filled with true devotionYoung love (young love), our love (our love)We share with deep emotion”

Looks like someone going to get lucky today

So when the cat has got your tongueThere’s no need for dismay (oui, oui!)Just summon up this wordAnd then you’ve got a lot to sayBut better use it carefullyOr it can change your life

next up: G& no B ? TIff and Ox? stay tooned !!!!

Who else had to look up the word “inveigling?”

a good match, but w/ Bernice part of it is a competition to see who knows more words. Bern wanted to make sure Nil knew he didn’t need to define inveigling, that she already knew that word.

On another note, i was curious as to what Bern would wear. Clearly she did not want to come across as a temptress (the way she dressed for Jack… which didn’t work anyway). This time she sports the prim schoolteacher look.

Bernice never used big words until about a week ago. (Neither did Nil, although he always was a man of few words.) How did this suddenly become an innate part of her character?

These 2 in the future…

“My dear…?”

“Yes my love?”

“Could you do a little more of that as I do this, but as you do, once again talk about the complexities involved in the creation of microelectronic graphic technology? You know how stimulated my (sexy look) ‘intellect’ gets when you do!”

“But of course Darling!” Shall I get the white board first and do my (coyly), ’presentation’ as well, or just the summary?"

“*OH MY!*”, just the summary, as I am in a dire need to get to the (ugh!) conclusion of our (catch in breath) ‘discussion…’

“Ah you are a SMART GIRL aren’t you, with your pythagorean theorem fixation and your absolutely kinky obsession with Intellectualism as the view that regards the intellect as superior to the will, and that the intellect is the basic factor, both in the universe and in human conduct. It is just the ticket my love!"

“Oh say it again! say IT AGAIN!!!”

“Oh?, which thing dearest?”

(Breathlessly), “Ticket! ticket ticket!….ticket ticket ticket, tick-et tic……!!! (trails off)….“Oh dear?”

“Yes?”

“The ‘ticket’ has allowed me to (catch in breath), ‘arrive’ and reach a favorable conclusion to our intellectual discourse."

“Ah yes, I see…well played! As you can see it is also emphatic that you know that I to have ‘arrived’ to the same conclusion as you. It really is a wonderful thing that we can share in our ‘intellectual’ pursuits in such a mutually supportive manner!"

“MMmmmmm, yes dearest, how about next time, be Jean Piaget?”

“Ah you are true “intellectualist”! To borrow a more common phrase, ’that’s hot!’"

(Peals of laughter and unbridled joy) “And to think I actually left you standing in the parking lot back then!”

Looks like Nil is a thrill for Bernice!

JUST REMEMBER

“A professional headshot in front of a bookshelf says you’re an intellectual. A professional headshot peeking though a bookshelf says you’re probably under a restraining order.”― Ryan Lilly

She’s right, she is a hussy.

And they say men don’t know the perfect word…

Wow! My mom told me still waters run deep, but can there be two students of 16th century literature in Pitts? What else might they have in common? Hoping Bernice finds Nil interesting enough to make her realize Jack isn’t for her. Seems right now, we could say, “Jack who?”! Will we be left hanging with this kiss for a different arc, or will this saga continue? Hmmm.;-)

Bernice: (what’s that tingling between my legs)

Ha! This is the 2nd time I had to use the dictionary in this strip (^.^)

Nils was trying to cajole, coax, persuade, convince, temp, lure, entice flatter, sweet talk, butter up and seduce Bern. No lame duck is he!!!

Bernice has met her match: A fellow snob

Sesquipedalianism is the path to Bernice’s heart, and other internal organs.

I totally don’t understand her reaction. After all, he just admitted to deceiving her with flattery!!!!

Aww.

Same thing as her interest in Jack – I said Bernice would have to make the first move. But this time she did.

Kiss me, I love the way That you kiss me

There’s only one thing wrong. With the way that you kiss me. (Kiss me yeah)

Now your kisses. Are sweeter than sugar. And plenty strong enough

But the bad part is you don’t Kiss me long enough, oh…

Do it again. Just a little bit slower. Do it again. Just a little bit slowerI just can’t stand it. When it’s over. Aw, do it again Just a little bit slower

If I suggested someone was inveigling – they’d be on their IPhone looking it up.

In P4, it looks like her lips have grabbed his upper lip. Anyone else notice that?

Come,come, Bernice, there wasn’t much inveigling about it, said Nil.

I wonder if Bernice and Nil will engage in pre-marital interdigitation. I thought it meant “holding hands”, but it has several meanings, and I think the most cogent one in this circumstance is “The mutual interlocking of toothed or tonguelike processes.”

THIS kiss was not him being inveigling, rather vocabulary (as evidenced by recent strips) is quite important to Bernice and thus a major turn-on…

OK – you made me do it. I had no idea what ‘inveigling’ meant. I might be guilty.

Darn it, Bernice. You kissed him before he had a chance to tell us what that word meant. Now I have to go through the trouble of looking it up myself… ;-)

Bernice certainly has changed her opinion of Nil. Go back and read the Double Date arc of 5/15/17 through 5/19/17. In the first strip, Bernice is dissing Jack and Luann (of course) because they’re enjoying themselves. Then she tells Nil she plans to be an psychoanalyst, and when he tells her what interests him she rudely tells him he’ll probably be her first client. After Luann is injured, Jack offers to carry her to the car. Luann says “yes,” but bossy, know-it-all Bernice ignores both of them, and probably aggravates poor Luann’s injuries by dragging her out to the car.

So Bernice has gone from thinking Nil is so creepy/weird that he need serious psychiatric help, to thinking: “OMG he used a big word! I just can’t keep my lips off this guy!”

Hey. Why not?

he’s the only other person on the planet that knows that word, it’s fate

Well educated Americans knowing language and meanings well…THAT is so unusual

Now let’s move on. This has been one long, drawn out, ridiculous storyline.

I wonder if this will continue on Monday. Bern runs to go tell her BFF everything and end up being told ‘no, nite’, and a walk off. Although, it is twice now that Bern has initiated this kiss. What if Nil tells her she is moving too fast for him. I do think Nil and Bern are a good match. Both are intellectual types and are very book smart. I do like Nil, the odd eccentric so I hope he stays around for a while. I wonder when Nil, Luann and Jack will transfer to the university and get out of community college.

Now this strip has given something to google. How did the English language come to have so many ways of saying the same thing?

Soulmates. Who woulda thunk?

I don’t know if it’s true love, yet. Bernice has been doing all of the kissing.

I have to say “Wowee!” again. What a wonderful, surprise connection we have here. Thumbs up!

Hey, Bernice, you come across sapiosexuality in your Intro to Psychology book yet? =)

It’s simply a matter of two people with excellent vocabularies and similar interests who have met. Who cares if he’s a bit odd – so is she, and Bernice is a bit of a snob anyway, so who else would appreciate her?

Nil is more intelligent than he appears, which is apparently appealing to Bernice. Sweet.

Coming out of my cage

And I’ve been doing just fine

Gotta gotta be down

Because I want it all

It started out with a kiss

How did it end up like this?

It was only a kiss, it was only a kiss

THANK GOD! I’ve always liked Bern and I really hope she finds love at long last. This is the best development in a story arc since like forever. Thank you G and K!

this is great….i bet we get to see Nil’s other eye

Outright positive outcomes are few and far in between in this strip, last one was Ann Eiffel getting what was coming to her? (actually, Nil’s reactions leave some room for interpretation…..)

Nil’s next art show will feature a piece called “B Reclining on a Futon”.

All soap operas, at their base, are romances, and Luann has a LOT of soapish elements. Gunther and Bets, Bernice and Nils, and, most memorably, Brad and Toni. They rivet the audience.

My hunch is that this strip will end with Luann getting married.

“All comedies end in a wedding.” — Anton Chekhov

nerdlings

Time to be honest with yourself: You feel something.

I saw Bernice today! She was coming out of a mall, looked to be in her early 20s, same hair, same color, same glasses, very stiff demeanor, walked like she had somewhere very important to be. She was dressed appropriately, too, in a conservative buttoned up shirt and pressed slacks with grandmother shoes. I had an urge to stop the car and run after her and say “Do you know you’re a major character in a comic strip?” but I didn’t. Perhaps over the years we’ve created a tulpa.

What turns Bern on? An impressively large diction.

Inveigling at first sight !!

That’s two. One more, and it’s true love.

He got her at Vocabulary.

Just wait until he shows that he knows the difference between “your” and “you’re.” They’ll get engaged.

Bernice the aggressor. Sounds like a fun date, but what do we have with Nil? A non-aggression pact? Somehow I think that all systems are not go, and we will not have a lift off.

10

This was very nice!

I worry that there will be some “catch” to the story the next time we see them….. but today…… as it currently stands….. wonderful!

Birds almost of a feather…. Bernie is more prone to short bursts of extroversion, while Nil seems to be totally introverted….

Well, by golly…whodathunkit? Looks like those two ARE a match after all. Bern finally found a guy that matches her intellectual level. So, we’ll see where it goes from here. If anywhere. It IS Saturday, so who knows?

I like this pair. I hope she loosens up, though. The mono eye I don’t like. I’d rather see Nil from the hair side like in the last 2 panels.

Wham there it is …

Oh, FFS… the word is not even being used correctly here. It means to wheedle your way into someone’s good graces by means of deception. If Berniece thought that was what he was doing, she would have slapped him, not kissed him.

Intelligent is VERY attractive.

It would be nice if they had a conversation that lasted more than a few sentences. Or have I forgotten what it was like to be young?

To win over by coaxing, flattery, or artful talk.

The temptress strikes again!

It makes since: Nil showed that he thinks respectfully of women back when he and Jack had a thing for Luann in art class. For him to be drawn to an intellectual and share a love for a broad vocabulary just seems natural. I see them sitting on a park bench, watching other people and chatting about what they see from a psychological point of view and an artistic point of view. It will be fun to watch this in the future.

“It pays to increase your word power.”

Thesaurus Edition

So Luann is going to be the last member of her social group to (ahem) get busy? This strip is now about college students, and they tend to have a more (ahem) active social life.

At least she knew what the word meant. I was at a loss. Hahaha!

and we’re steered away from Luann again ;-;

Oh Snape!