Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for May 21, 2018

Go talk to your best friend, Ernie.

The wurst is yet to come.

THAT curly blond boy is Axel’s brother?

Apparently Axel’s parents are Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett

Another week of this? Why not just admit that moving the strip to college didn’t work out, and then just forget about the over-18 cast members like Bernice and Gunther, and rename the strip “Fay”? Stories about kids in ninth grade is clearly the creators’ comfort zone, and (given the college-setting stories that went nowhere) it’s also their core competence.

Fessing up may have scored Fay bonus points. ✨

It does look like we got a positive ID on that big brother!

So far, so good. Luann is sticking to her guns. And Fay is learning that what she pulled wouldn’t go over well in other families, either… at least not in the family of the guy she’s got a crush on.

Well, maybe we can exhale now that it seems Aaron Hill isn’t being resurrected.

Not much of a chaperone, if he can be ordered to get lost.

I want to see the car Axel and big bro drove up in.

There is never enough headroom in a compact.

I expected an unexpected surprise! I guess it was still unexpected but not surprising. Oh well…..

Well “IF” that’s Axel’s brother, then he doesn’t appear to be much older than Axel. Certainly much younger than Luann.

I have to say that these two young men appear to be quite responsible for their young age. It would be ironic if young Fay manages to “corrupt” young Axel……,

“Ground us like sausages” Nice to see Greg is up-to-date on the latest slang terms!

Luann taught Fay well.

Glad Axel got his brother out of the way.

If only the elder brother had been Aaron Hill . . (sigh) continuity with the past would have been saved.

I am interested to see what Axel has to say to Fay, once he gets Charlie Asperger out of earshot.

Capricorn9th and And Your Point Would Be, above, made a compelling statement, that the problem with this strip is that it’s a strip about kids, catering to people who were kids many, many decades ago!

They also make the argument that Greg and Karen are out of touch with the very kids whom they are modeling in this strip.

Seismic-2 pointed out that Go Comics is a forum that also supports Pibgorn and other not-necessarily-family-oriented comic strips. Of course, Go Comics is not the only publisher; Luann is still in many (of the remaining) newspapers across the country – newspapers may be setting the bar for Luann, not so much Go Comics.

For myself, I can’t say that I’d be comfortable with Luann taking on subjects such as kids having kids – a fear that I think resonated with many last week with Fay on the way to the Fuse. While it may be a thing that kids do, moralist that I am, I’m not ready for Luann becoming a venue that says it’s okay for kids to have kids.

At this point, I’m not sure where to go with this “rant.” Clearly, Luann is a popular strip, usually garnering well over 200 comments a day. While a poor measure of readership, I still think it says something. So, the Evans are doing something right.

But I like the summary given by others that we appear to have kids in college that don’t really resemble the college students we know today or were when we were in college. That, and not everyone goes to college, and for a variety of reasons.

Heck, if a kid came to me about college today, I have to ask him or her the question: If you have to generate a house’s worth of non-collateralized debt that’s also unforgivable, is this the best choice at this time?

Oh, heck! I ju

Tomorrow should be interesting. Axel hasn’t said much – but I suspect he is pretty sharp and has a handle on this situation. I hope Axel still likes Fay.

Oh well! This has to end someday!

It will all get so much better when Luann is working on her doctorate?

Does Mr. Gray really sleep in his suit?

“Yes, brother. Thou art embarrasing me.”

Axel’s brother’s attitude leaves much for improvement. How did Axel manage to appear to be night and day from him?

Alex’s brother give me a great “Old Brad” vibe here. I like it!

“The Wurst Is Yet To Come”

“The Brat Pack”

“Oh, How The Meaty Have Fallen!”

“Sau-sage Advice”

“A Very Tough Case”

“Grounds For Punishment”

“From Bow, To Kielbasa, To Stern”

“You Are The Meekest Link!”

or

“You, And What Salami?!”

I assume she’ll ‘fess up to mom in a way that’ll let Luann off the hook.

I really liked the punishment. “Ground like sausages!”

“Ground us like sausages”?

I kept picturing sausages no longer allowed to fly. No food fight?

Still enjoyable to contemplate.

I have a sneaking suspicion that GnK have a surprise twist yet to be played out here. One, I’m not sure that Lurch is an “older brother.” I think he’s Axel’s wingman. Two, there’s been too much emphasis on the supposed strictness of Axel’s parents for that plot device to just go poof. The strictness or the parents must play out some more in here somewhere.

Tune in tomorrow.

I’m going to take the position that GnK are doing an OK job of providing interesting story lines. They’ve created a problem for themselves in that there are several lines (OK, arcs) that have captured our interest. Not to mention interesting characters (OK, I just did). For instance, I think big things are in store for Tara.

So we just have to sit back, relax (Ha!) and watch the blinking lights. NOT!

I give 50-50 odds that that isn’t Axel’s brother. We’ll see…

Another week of this tedious storyline. That’s the fourth week in a row, I think. Should rename this strip “Fay.” In any case, where are all the main characters? How about Brad and Toni? I guess they’re all on a long spring break.

Hi Luann lovers and/or trollers! I don’t think long head boy is the brother, I think that is his best friend, who has a lot of the same interests. Not only did he call him “dude” which would not be something a much younger brother would call a much older brother (say Luann’s age), but also the friend used the term “our parents” instead of our parent, or mom and (maybe) dad, or some descriptive noun or pronoun that would indicate a personal relationship. Axel was embarrassed because he really likes Fay, a LOT, and he wants to talk to her about this himself (this is the childhood sweetheart scenario if I ever saw it); but what this arc is leading up to is the brother, who I believe will enter in the panels tomorrow or probably Wednesday. Then we will finally met the brother, and Luann will to, unless it is someone she already knows or knew. My money goes on Jack, but a wholly new guy might be in order here. Or I could be a wet as Lake Michigan. We will find out this week though.

@MORDOCK999: From yesterday: “My Favorite Nerd” sounds like a comedy series!

(Also, the troll’s thread has been wiped out of existence.)

Aha! Took awhile to find this, in the May 14, 2018 comments:

CATHERINECREAMER 7 DAYS AGO

Look at 10/31/17 I believe that’s Axel’s brother with him.

Congrats to Catherine for calling it!

I sure hope that Axel’s brother remains nameless, ‘dude’ only. It seems once someone acquires a name they become a full time character and part of the story line.

4

While I knew it was inevitable to have the “Fay” arc continue, it is a bit disappointing, none-the-less.

But, I guess I am glad that Luann is getting Fay to work through the problems she has caused and at least in this first step, explain to Axel what is going on.

The one thing I find odd, however, are people’s comments here about Axel’s older brother. There seems to be a lot of negativity here towards the character. And, I guess I am not understanding why. Sure, his statement “…yell our eyebrows off and ground us like sausages.” is not made of standard cuss-words, or current slang. But, I thought it was pretty damn creative, myself. The symbolism that “Ozzie’s” words promoted in my mind…. were IMO, the most interesting aspects of today’s dialogue.

From my perspective, the older brother looks younger than college age, so I doubt there would be any sort of potential “double dating” interaction between “Ozzie” and Luann.

Sorry, everyone, but I have to be That Guy. Axel’s brother is not a chaperone, but a chaperon. Chaperones are female.

I thought for sure we would leave Fay and Axel behind after seeing Brad and Toni yesterday. Sigh!!

Ground us like sausages, as in grounded? Or grind us like sausages, as in through a meat grinder?

Axel’s big brother/chaperone seems neither very handsome nor too bright. The sooner Fay and Axel can lose him, the better. Then, it will be up to Luann to be sure their hormones don’t rage too much….

Ugh, this is never ending . . .

And we have never even begun to contemplate “yell our eyeballs off.”

That’s a lot of ore to mine.

Is anyone concerned that Fay is a 9th grader and Axel is in college?