Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for August 22, 2017

“Ginormous Expectations.” That’s good one.

Gwyneth Paltrow was a real witch in that movie.

Luann has grown so much since the beginning of this strip. If middle school luann had this responsibility she would never be taking a class to help fay out, probably give her awful advice and ruin her social life..

Ginormous Expectations used to be a late night movie on Showtime.

Fay may be off-camera, but she at least still rates a mention.

Our Luann is growing up!

I’m kind of impressed. With Kids 1st, Fay, and college classes, it seems that Luann may actually be focusing on some kind of legitimate career path.

Of course, she also has her hand in art and drama. It will be interesting what comes together in the long run.

“Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Expectations” is a better book. It has to be, it costs $1.99 more.

Charles Dickens is one of the greatest writers in English literature. But I also want to comment that the Fay arc, and Luann’s progress/purpose is being tied up with this arc. It puts Fay, and what Luann wants to do, and is doing in perspective, from her altruistic nature, to what she is taking in community—NOT JUNIOR COLLEGE GREG—college, and her goals. Of course what that should mean is that we probably will go back to the Fuse,, Pru, Ann, Les, Mr. Grey arc soon. The second stage. It was all set up with the theater camp, which did not work out, but in Luannverse had/has kinds of unintended or unexpected consequences.

Backpack strap on left shoulder entering bookstore. No backpack while looking at Econ book. Backpack now on right shoulder, still book shopping. Very lax security in this bookstore.

Ann Eiffel should invite all the employees to a lingerie party.

So we’re out of the costume session. I was hoping Luann would find a costume where Fay could be a badass for a few minutes. I think that exercise could be good for her.

Great Expectations? Bernice. What the dickens has gotten into you?

Luann’s audience at Kids 1st is so young it’s hard to know what each kid might need as an individual a little later in life. With Fay, Luann sees a target that she understands. However it’s easier to spot the problem than to provide a good path to progress. I visualize a moment of truth for both Fay and Luann when Luann’s theater exercises are no longer getting anywhere. Maybe it would be good “homework” for Luann to send Fay to a few places where she has to take command of the situation. Maybe they go to a fast food place and Luann sends Fay to order the food. Luann then asks, "Was the server friendly? How did you respond? Was the server grumpy. How did you respond? Was the server funny? How did you respond? Next time, recruit a “volunteer” 13-15 years old to go have lunch with Fay. Afterward Luann talks to Fay about how they interacted. Did she like or not like the person? Then some more real life tasks involving Fay doing things on her own – to build a little confidence. Possibly, outside of school classes, Fay hasn’t done a lot without her mother around.

Yes, YES, Y E S!! Child development classes will be excellent courses for Luann. Of course I am biased since I taught child development and child psych in fall, spring, and summer semesters for forty years.

I thought Luann was going to Moony U. So what is the reference to Community College?

Regarding all the loose ends: I’m confident that the story will bring it all together in some way. I’m speculating that the sexy lingerie party that all you hunks have been lusting after will probably not happen because it is not only inappropriate for a family comic strip, but also because someone or several people will blow the whistle. I can envision Fay being the heroine and possibly the mysterious Les. I can see Ann doing something heinous like setting fire in the kitchen and Toni and Brad saving someone’s life. Probably one or more people will be in the hospital with severe burns and smoke inhalation and with any luck, Ann will be in jail. and somehow, Fay is going to get a lot of attention from Axel. Don’t be too hard on him. He is just trying to find his own personna. He’ll be OK.

As much as this tries our patience, isn’t it awesome how Luann brings together such diversity of age, background, interests, etc. Time for my date with the sandman.

Ohhhh, Don’t get Your “Hopes” up, Dear Friends.

I suspect these two lovely ladies will be mentioning, Nils, Jack, Various and Sundry “Guys” and Piro in particular, before the week is out, much to the Consternation of certain readers who THINK these Gals should abandon ALL hope of “Romance,” FOCUS strictly on their “careers….”

Wow, so Luann is actually taking a class geared towards her current and future career plans? I’m surprised and impressed. It sucks that it took her until her 4th year of college* to figure it out, but better late than never.

*Well, 4th time beginning a new year of college; the passage of time in this strip makes no sense whatsoever.

Fay should see a shrink.

Technical question: Someone recently posted the following link:

http://www.gocomics.com/luann/2016/5/2?ct=v&cti=1028975

and I’ve seen this format in other links people posted.

I’m just wondering what the “ct=v&cti=1028975” parameters do? I never see these in my address bar when navigating the site, so I wonder how these affect what is displayed, and how can that number be obtained?

YAWN!!!

“Great Expectations”

“All Your Hopes And Dreams!…Just Allow 4-6 Weeks For Delivery”

“Caviar Wishes And Champagne Dreams”

“Starts Out Porterhouse, Ends Up A Cheeseburger”

“The Calypso Explores The Depths Of The ‘Wait-n’ See’ "

“Aspiration…And Exhalation”

“The Longing…And Short Of It”

“All I Have To Do, Is Dream…” (♪)

“If At First You Don’t Succeed, Try Looking Up The Code”

“The Long And Winding Road” (♬)

“Take Me As I Ambition”

“Wish For Dinner”

or

“A Ball Of Yearn”

Great Expectations is probably the cheapest book in the entire store. (Some professor or other having declared it racist, or some other fool thing and steering students away from it…)

Does Bernice ever do anything other than rain on whatever parade Luann is in?

Does anyone else think the course load at this community college is a little odd? Luann is “taking two and transferring”. Usually that means getting English 101, 102, 201,202, History 101, 102, psych 101, etc out of the way. Not micro economics, (which implies Econ 101 was taken) or child development.

Of course, Great Expectations is about a young man who is expected to get a very large inheritance from a mysterious benefactor, not about mentoring a 13-year-old, but don’t let that slow you down, Bernice.

College students don’t read “Great Expectations” … it’s a high school book. Or at least it used to be.

Luann and Bern browsing the bookstore……how exciting!

I hope Fay’s mom has a back up plan for her daughter’s development. Or the mom could just teach Fay all of that herself.

6

Interesting that Luann is taking Child Development. She mentions her role at Kids First AND also Fay. I wonder if this was a course she had been planning for quite a while or if she just added the course (possibility due to her saying she wanted to do it because of mentoring Fay).

As far as the “Ginormous Expectations” goes… I think Luann is selling herself short here. I do not think it takes a whole helluva lot of resources to help Fay with her “13-year old” concerns….. it mostly will take a) a listening ear, b) a person who has had some similar experiences, and c) a person who cares enough to try to encourage Fay. Luann has all those qualities. Will it be simple? Probably not. Will the Child Development course further assist Luann… Probably yes. So, all-in-all a good set of actions by Luann today.

Luann certainly knows those concerns.

Bernice is the last person to be giving anyone advice. Ironic since that’s her career path. Bernice has constantly given bad advice or failed to follow common sense since entering college. Then I realized that today Bernice made the stupid comment, about Dickens being an aid for child development, and Luann had the snarky come-back.

I miss old fashioned bookstores. Most near us have closed.

I’d venture to guess that Bernice Halper (definitely not “helper”) hasn’t actually read Great Expectations, nor has Luann. But never mind that; it’s irrelevant. What is of interest is that Luann seems to have been thinking and is planning ahead, at least for the near term….