Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for April 05, 2018

From the 12 feet reference in the dialogue, I am venturing a guess that is Mr. Gray’s back yard.

When my widowed father remarried, stepmother moved in. Then a few years later, the moved to another city; I came the following year, but to my own apartment (with their helping me find one).

Gunther and Irma will leave the old house behind. I wonder if anyone will find where they put Quill in the old house?

Okay. I’m beginning to smell a large grey suit wearing RAT here.

1) Why can’t Gunther live ALONE in the Berger Family home while Irma moves in Al’s house?

2) Why can’t Les Live ALONE 12 feet away from the Gray homestead in the backyard Guest House Gulag where Al can keep an eye on him?

3) How come Al is calling all the shots and never asks ANYBODY what “they” think?

4) What is this obsession with wanting to cram Les and Gunther, two guys KNOWN not to like each other in to a “tool shed?”

Someone said long ago that the entire Gray/Eiffel/Knox Clan, may just a family of crooks, and I’m beginning to believe it.

Gunther’s suspicions about this Creepy Gray character may one day, be proven correct.

Move into a dorm at Moony, Gunther. (You and Quill can still be roommates, that way.) Or better yet, move back to Lima.

“Twelve Feet?”

Plot doesn’t look that wide to me … ✨

Why not move into apartment, is there something i missing or is the whole Gray/Eiffel/Knox part of the mob.

Hitch is for you to enjoy: Gunthie will be someone else’s someday. Live for today Irma. Gotta let go of each other to be happy.

Why doesn’t she get to keep her house in her name? Then she can let Gunther stay there. Gunther would need to pay utilities, etc. but he would be maturing and accepting more responsibility. Or she can rent it out for income. Is it just going to be sold?

My guess is Irma is still making mortgage on her house. Mr Gray wishes to be debt free so Irma is selling her home and moving in with him. My worry is if Mordock is correct that the Gray family is a crook, Al might be using Irma’s money from the sale of her home to pay for that guest house which is not necessary. My guess is Gunther and Les will never move into that guest house and Al end up using it for something quite on the other side. Or hide Ann in it.

I just realized how skinny Ma Berger looks now compared to when she was introduced.

That has nothing to do with anything. Just something I noticed.

The guest house grew quite a lot since monday.

Do they sell her home? Do they rent it? It’s her house, prior to this marriage. It’s her property.

This is starting to look like Everybody Loves Raymond.

No matter how hard I try, I cannot see the two stake lines perpendicular to the house as being parallel.

Irma and Gunther are not getting a square deal.

~~

Greg did this visual joke on purpose.

I think it’s pretty innocent. Mr Gray is keeping his son nearby so he can keep an eye on him and likes the positive influence Gunther could have on his son. He also wants Gunther near his Mom to make her happy. I think he’s on the up and up. Since he first appeared, he’s been one of my favorite characters.

So… what happens to their current house?

“More Space….The Final Frontier…..”

“A Hard Orbit To Break”

“You Always Miss Your Water, When It Takes Longer To Get To Your House”

“Grow And Tell”

“Depth = Space X Time”

“The Apple Of My Eye Doesn’t Seem To Fall Far, From The Geometry”

“The Gravity Of The Situation”

“There Are No Pills For Growing Pains”

“Everybody’s Gotta Learn, Sometime” (♬♪♩)

“It’s The Same Land, But Not The Same Roof”

“Tether, Or Not”

“The Completion Of Irma’s Twenty Year Project”

“It Was Our Castle, And Our Keep!” (♪)

or

“Our House, In The Middle Of Our Street!” (♪)

Gotta grow up sometime — or so everyone tells me.

I think the comments about what is Irma doing about her current house, or Al Gray’s motives for building a guest house (and I am not sure whose house the guest house is attendant too) miss the point. This arc is about loss, uncertainty, and moving on for both characters, Gunther, who is very close to his single mom, her whole reason for being actually, and as a result has been smothered to the extent it affects his ability to make romantic or even life commitments. Now she is trying to adjust to a new reality, which she wants, but she still has trouble trying to give up the old reality. Gunther wants what makes his mother happy; the question is what makes HIM happy. It will work out, but I think the house is just a metaphor. It is in Luannverse, but it can be replicated in life, and happens all the time, in fact, is common. Change can be hard but good.

I know each day into this story arc, the staked out area for this “Guest House” has gotten bigger. But has Al Grey actually hired a contractor, or, even pulled permits yet for this project?

So… She’s moving into HIS house, leaving HER house vacant. The house Gunther already lives in… but they’re building a NEW guest house for the boys behind the house they live in…

Sure. Makes perfect sense, I guess.

12 feet and many memories apart.

Still think something will happen to put the kibosh on it all.

Given that neither Gunther nor Les likes the idea of their living under the same roof, then why are they doing it? Let each of them rent an apartment (or, in Gunther’s case, a dorm room) separately, and save the expense of building a “guest house” that won’t be needed in a few years when they’ve both moved on with their adult lives.

8

I like how Greg has captured in a small, 3 panel comic, the gist of the challenges faced by a loving family when change is afoot. While change is inevitable, the ways in which the various members of a family deal with the change reflect on the care the family members have (or do not have) for each other, and the emotional attachments folks have for things that have been good in their past, and the nervousness that arises when the future is not clear, but hazy.

In the last two days (not the “sewing room day” but the last two, I have felt far better about Gunther than I have in a long time. He is showing reasoned care and concern about his family. Again, that does not mean he should not and will not grow and develop and take adventures etc. I hope and believe he will do that. I am just happy that at least at the moment he is responding to things about the changes in his family in a more adult fashion.

What I see happening is a Gunther-Tiffany-Les triangle centered around the guest house.

I really do NOT like where this is going. I just hope it doesn’t spoil the strip for me.

One of the complications of this type of site is that people can make suggestions that answer questions early on, and those who join in later don’t read the earlier comments. A couple of posters have suggested that Irma may have been renting the house that she raised Gunther in (being a single working mother these days makes it less likely that she could afford to buy a house or have good enough credit to get a mortgage on her own). That being the case, there’s a logic to her moving in with Al Gray. And if the newlyweds want privacy (unlike Brad and Toni), they may not want the two boys living right in the house. Thus the guest house. If Al has legal responsibilities to supervise his nephew Les, he can’t just pack that kid off to a distant apartment, so there’s some logic to a guest house for Les. There is less logic to Gunther being there, if Gunther could move into a dorm room, though…

Needless Drama Alert:

Les and Gunther will be living together, and they’re both interested in Tiffany. Wait for her to visit their house.

Methinks Mr. Gray is playing and has been the long game since he came on the scene.

Well, he was married to Ann Eifel. What’s up with that?

I don’t want Mr. Grey to be bad, as Gunther’s mom deserves happiness. I don’t want this comic to be that dark, Ann makes it dark enough. I think Mr. Grey wants privacy with his new wife, yet he has responsibilities to Les, and a responsibility to Gunther also due to Irma. He’s probably keeping both Les and Gunther close because he HAS to keep an eye on Les, and Irma AND Gunther want to keep close to each other. (You never hear Gunther complaining about living with mom. Remember, in Luanniverse, Gunther, Luann and all are still 18 or 19.) An added plus for Mr. Grey is that Gunther will be a good influence on Les. Just make sure they have separate bedrooms! As to Gunther and his mom’s old house, who knows. Maybe it’s rented, maybe not, but again maybe Mr. Grey wants to keep Les and Gunther close due to the previously stated reasons. His house has the land for a cottage, and Irma’s probably doesn’t. If Irma owns the house, she may sell it and just put it into savings for Gunther’s future. It doesn’t all need to be so dark and bad. Just making the best of unusual circumstances.

Mama Berger’s phrasing in the second panel is seriously disturbing. She speaks as though they were a married couple on the verge of divorce (particularly with the “built a life together” part). I see the creepy Oedipal overtones in this relationship are not solely Gunther’s fault.

Those apron strings must be made of some kind of vibranium weave, because they’re proving nigh-impossible to cut.

If Irma does indeed own the house, not having Gunther live there will show that the house is not needed. Because of that, the house may be sold. Perhaps Mr. Gray is thinking that if things do not sail smoothly for him and Irma, with the house gone and Gunther not living there, she will have no place to go back to – possibly increasing the chances they will have to work things out.

.

Note the use of “if”,“may”, “perhaps” and “possibly” in my above comment. Nothing etched in stone.

I know he can’t be written out, but Gunt REALLY should have gone away for college.

“Only 12 feet” … YES, Gunther, BUT (and to paraphrase the question) from the spoken-intro to The Odd Couple show: “Can two [totally different] men share an apartment without driving each other CRAZY?”

I’m thinkin’ Pitts PD gets called in for: 1) a domestic disturbance, or 2) investigation of a crime/murder scene … (and yes, I know, The Evans’ wouldn’t go there!) ;)

Glad to see commenters taking a shot at filling in the Gray Clan’s history. Greg has had years to not do it. My own opinion is that Big Al was tied up with a mob in Vegas and fell from favor. Ann, simply enough, ran a brothel in the same area, so Les’ father was not a cop killed on duty, he was one of careless Ann’s customers. Resentful Les is a felon on parole and is seeing a court appointed therapist.

I am slightly confused by Irma’s comment that she will live in “his” (Al’s) house. The house she and Gunther currently reside in is hers. Maybe she is just referring to the fact that Al will be “head of the household” after they are married. Gunther’s comment about our “old house” (read “home”?) is also weird. What century are they living in?

Gunther is growing incrementally, but is still too much of a weenie…I would like to see him run back to Peru and join Rosa (Is that her name? It’s been a while) and become the new generation of Shining Path Maoist guerrillas…Rosa would be the ideological symbol of the Revolution, Gunther the “Tailor of the Masses” and Les could join them as the Che Guevara-type figure, as he would sort of look like Che of he let himself go grooming-wise for a couple of weeks…They could raid bourgeois apparel stores and rip out seams of clothing that in their judgement oppresses the proletariat….Just a suggestion…

Will Les show up to survey the situation and offer his opinion? Stay tooned!

1 PM Pacific Time and GoComics via phone goes crazy.

It seems getting to the comments is not a two touch process.

Gunther is socially inept, so he should go with his strengths and become an academic hermit. Stay away from the business and management courses or anything that requires interaction with people. Secure a future in a lab or research facility…….a protected environment. Plan for minimum exposure to conflict and stress because Gunther has an explosive temper. Recommendation: Go away to a nerd college and get away from all the distractions that he can’t handle.

Things have been muddled, but today seems to tell us that this “guest house” is 12 feet away from Al’s place, not Irma’s, which begs the question, what is to become of the Berger house and why isn’t it becoming Gunther’s abode?

Plot requirements can be a pain….

Y’know, folks, it’s called a GUEST HOUSE. I don’t think Al intends for the boys to live there permanently.

I actually dreamed about Gunthers situation last night! Those are the perils of reading the comics shortly before turning in for the night, I guess. Anyhow, in my dream Gunther was giving his mother a box containing what might be considered an early wedding present. In essence, telling her he was ok with the marriage. The gift was sort of old-fashioned: a silver brush and mirror set that a ladies might have had on her dressing table back in the day. (And before anyone starts complaining that dream Gunther couldn’t possibly afford such a lavish gift, those babies are usually silver plated, and they don’t cost that much in antique shops.)

The “guest” house is being built next to Al Gray’s house …. hmmmm …. my “Ann E. with a tracking bracelet” idea is getting closer all the time.

Unhealthy situation, unhealthy people. Come to think of it, lot of dysfunctional characters in this strip.

sick, sick, sick

And things get WORSE as Gunther slowly but surely and predictably CAVES…….,