Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for November 26, 2014

Gunther, buy a clue _

Gunther, you are Unbelievable… ;)

Of course you’re growing, Gunther! You’re working in a cube farm now. That’s a very adult thing to do…-Very good pep talk from Rosa!

“Progress Report”“Canary In A Cube Farm”“…2 Lost Souls, Swimming In A Fish Bowl…” (♫)“A Graft From The Family Tree”“Leech Out And Touch Someone”“Flesh And Bloodsuckers”“In Between The Cogs”" Heart Of The Matter"“Take A Number”“Life In A Tin Can” (♫)or“No Space In This Place”

Rosa, is good for him..Pushing him in the right directions.

“It’s not the same as being needed by someone I love.” So there is no love between Gunther and Rosa, case closed. Time for G-man to come home and court Luann, since that’s who Greg Evans wants to be the ultimate outcome of the strip, apparently.

Well, I and IS Katie are going to be off-line for the Thanksgiving (US) holidays! Have a good one to all of Luann’s US posters! ’Nite all! ;)-———————————————————-“The day becomes more solemn and serene When noon is past…there is a harmony In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, Which through the summer is not heard or seen, As if it could not be, as if it had not been!(Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792-1822)

How big must this clinic be if they have so many people working at computers in the cubicles? How many doctors are the support staff supporting?

And I’m disappointed to see Gunther so obsessed with the fact that his mom is dating. I mean, if he can go to a different country with his girlfriend, he should be able to accept the idea of his mom going to dinner with her boyfriend.

Perhaps Rosa does charity work with poor people in the evening, and she works in her uncle’s clinic during the days to get him to continue financing their stay there. If so, them that arrangement should suffice to keep her happy. Of course, we would essentially have to write our own strip for this to be true, since Greg Evans apparently thinks providing logical motivation for people’s actions is unnecessary in a daily comic strip.

(On Rosa’s change of heart:) It’s because she was resigned to two choices: To go back to her parents in a humiliated state (as stated by her a couple of months ago) or to “suck it up” and deal with it (as alluded to by her in that same time frame)…

He is doing that just to get a rise out of those who are annoyed by it.

Personally, I don’t want Gunther to court Luann. I’m just predicting that Greg Evans wants that, and will eventually he will make it happen. If I had my own strip, Gunther would stay in Peru and we would see him maybe once a year (perhaps when he’s arrested for running through the stacks of the Lima public library, naked. Old habits, don’t you know.)

Rosa may still feel disappointed (not resentful) that she isn’t doing something that she idealistically thinks she should be doing, that is, helping bring medical care to poor people.-But that doesn’t mean she fails to recognize that Gunther needs encouragement to feel that he is needed be more people than just his mother. And the way he is agonizing over the very thought of his mother spending time with anyone other than him, I don’t think a kiss from Rosa would make him forget his jealousy that his mother might love him less if she cares about someone else…

Rosa should say, “Gunther, it’s one thing to love your Mom, but not so good to have her at the center of your life as long as you live. You can’t marry your Mom.”

Gunther is being the same kind of putz Brad is whenever he sees Toni talking to another guy. Jealous and untrusting.Mrs.Berger has never named Mr.Gray as being anything other than “a friend from work”. Who, quite possibly, had been invited home by Mrs.B for a home-cooked meal while his wife is away attending a sick relative. )Surprise! She didn’t even have to cook.)Gunther wouldn’t know this because he jumped to conclusions and signed off Skype in a huff and a half without gathering further information.Now he’s in s snit because he hasn’t found his “special purpose”.

Gunther, considering it’s November, if you were thinking about going to Yale, you might want to wait things out.

True. Y’know, she’s been telling him that since that New Years’ dance… –

Gunther doesn’t seem to realize that he is sitting butt to butt with someone that he loves. Just keep him away from the diplomatic service because he’s so socially inept that he could even start a war with The Vatican.

These may also indicate it “loud and clear”… –

But they do have a corner cube near the window!

I think it is just now dawning on Gunther that he, himself, has moved on with his life and things will never be the same. Now he has to let go of the mind set he’s used to and catch up with his own reality. It is perfectly normal for someone that age to want to move on with his life while holding on to the familiar past at the same time. It’s hard to come to the relation that that cannot be done. Rose is saying all the right things right now to help him when she could be (rightfully) upset that he has excluded her in all this talk of feelings and need. (We still don’t know “plan D”, do we?)

A cube farm at 18??? Sheeze, I’m so glad I joined the military at that age.

Ok that does not look like a clinic. They are working in an out sourced call center.

One day we will look back fondly to the days of the cube farm….management are working on taking even that from us.

How many phone workers does one plastic surgeon need?

> Ok that does not look like a clinic. They are working in an out sourced call center.>Most doctors’ office will have an administrative staff of 3 to 5 people to handle reception desk, patient scheduling, billing, insurance, Medicare, medical records, purchasing, payroll, etc. However, this seems to be a much bigger operation from what little we have seen of it on their first day of work, so the clinic probably has a large staff of plastic surgeons -maybe 8 to 12 doctors – and a correspondingly larger administrative support staff. After all, only really big medical facilities can send Rosa’s uncle to attend conferences in Europe. (When was the last time your doctor went to one?)

It is also possible that this clinic is one of several affiliated medical facilities (in other cities and/or other medical specialties), and this one is the central operation that runs all of them. This would certainly require a cube farm of records-shufflers. However, all this is once again just speculation, where you are required to write your own comic strip to explain the one that Evans wrote, because he doesn’t think that making things plausible and understandable is important.

Ah, HERE We Go. Mz Rosa Slowly but SURELY Begins to Talk the G-Man OUT of Doing Something He WANTS to Do.

Does it Hurt G-Man? I Mean When Rosa RIPS Your Backbone OUT???

I can sympathize with Gunther here. Yeah, they need him at the clinic…but does the world really need another tony cosmetic surgery works? It’s not exactly as if he’s doing meaningful work here.As for Rosa, the only reason she hasn’t bolted back to the states is coz she doesn’t want to hear her parents’ endless repetetitions of, “We told you so.”

Are they cohabiting

Do they work in a physician’s clinic or an international call help center? Sheesh…

That is a medical facility? Way too much administration.

And so what if you are not growing? Are you going to go home and stop her from growing, too?

I think Evans needs to hand this “ship” over… it clearly obvious he doesn’t know how to write “interesting” comics based in the world of teenagers moving into adulthood. It would be a wise move to once again; drop this stupid arc and maybe move on to one that everyone actually is wondering about… when the hell is the wedding going to happen?

1. Aiding the poor was Rosa’s original plan, not Gunther’s. If Gunther had an original plan at all, it was to be spontaneous for a change instead of predictable, or to be spontaneous and to be with Rosa.2. He is not volunteering to help the needy. He is doing IT work in the support section of an apparently huge plastic surgery clinic, where many of the other workers seem to be speaking English. The clientele is therefore likely to be international, which doesn’t sound like poor people.3. There is no ‘way things are supposed to be’ when you’re trying to be more spontaneous.

It doesn’t matter whether the clinic’s staff need Gunther to stay in Peru. What matters is whether Rosa needs Gunther to stay in Peru. It doesn’t seem that there’s all that much between them that would compel Gunther to stay or that would cause Rosa much grief if he left.

“I wonder if she has realized that her continued worth to her uncle is actually based on Gunther continuing to stay there and work for her uncle”*HtD- That’s both insightful & helpful. Thanks.

Looks like to me that “Mom” is the one who is growing.

Rosa seems to feel that it would be a bad thing for Gunther, in terms of his “personal growth”, if he were to go back to the USA. She doesn’t, however, seem to feel that it would be a really bad thing for her if he were to do so. I would say that having Gunther alone with her for these last several months has given her the opportunity to realize that this match just won’t work out, and that realization is an example of her personal growth,

I disagree @Selsmic-2I think Rose does care for Gunther and realizes the potential. He will too when he realizes that Rose really does care.

people…………… computer engineer(what Gunther wants) is different than conventional engineering(which too many people seem to believe)

Geez. Tough room for the average comedian!If ‘unaccomplished’ girls and ‘oedipal nightmares’ didn’t deserve anyone (until they presumably ‘evolved’), the world would be presently be populated solely by cockroaches and two-toed sloths….

I am not particularly keen on or in agreement with Rosa at the moment. She gets Gunther to go on a miguided and mistaken “exotic” trip to Peru to work in a cubical. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++While the country may be “exotic” because it is different from where Gunther grew up, and potentially the two of them may be doing “interesting” things after work (helping the poor, sight seeing, etc.), the more likely reality is that after working in a cube all day, you tend to feel rather tired and basically get into a grind of doing the normal day-to-day things that need to be done (eating, bathing, etc) and getting ready for the next day. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++While I think Gunther is over-reacting a bit about his Mom (unless, as I suggested before, she might have a hidden history of making horrific dating choices), his over-reaction may be his “way out” as a “face-saving” way to let Rosa know he is planning to leave Peru.++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++I think Gunther should do what he wants, and my read on his character is that he would like this "far fetched "fling"" to conclude and he can go back to getting his college education and working towards his own goals and future.

1. It’s likely that Mr. Evans realizes that Engineers who are involved with bridges are designing them or inspecting them, not building them. If the engineer is in the design phase, she or he is not going to be outside, unless using a laptop or tablet.2. Gunther is consumed by his agony over his mother daring to show interest in anyone other than himself. As he said previously, it’s always been just the two of them. So even when he’s not at home, he expects her to be there patiently waiting for him. Because he’s so miserable about his mother’s perceived lack of total dedication to him, he has no energy left over to be ‘testing’ Rosa.3. Rosa is an idealistic person who decided that she’d spent years and years going to school, and it was time for her to now do something to fix things that she sees as wrong in the world. Teens are sometimes idealistic this way; I know my friends and I were. She is not a spiteful person, and is not staying in Peru just to spite her parents. She probably just can’t figure out what to do next, since she really does want to ‘do good’, and doesn’t want to just go home and go back to school some more.4. Gunther apparently enjoys working with computers, so he is not staying in Peru just to support Rosa in what you perceive to be her effort to spite her parents. If he leaves, it’s because he wants to get rid of Mr. Gray and make sure his mother remains devoted only to him.

Gunther is such a mama’s boy, such a baby. There is no way a woman like Rosa would have any interest in him. This is so unrealistic. Luann would never find him attractive either.

As the Alan Jackson (?) song goes, “Where ever you go, there YOU are.” You’ve changed locales, Gunther, but your personal changes are incremental.*Looks like Rosa got some new clothes. Now let Sofia help you get some new clothes and let her introduce you the the town’s night life. Then, chuck it all and let Rosa introduce you to service to Peru’s poor. *But first, hug her and thank her for her help.

Just googled it— it was Clint Black who sang it. Here are the lyrics: http://www.metrolyrics.com/wherever-you-go-lyrics-clint-black.html.

Wait until Gunther comes home and finds that Mrs. Berger has changed the locks on all the doors and won’t give him a new key.

It would make a great comic if Mr. Gray takes out his key, unlocks the door, goes inside, and slams the door in Gunther’s face. In the final panel Gunther sees two silhouettes on the windowshade, locked in an embrace…

You know a comic strip’s writer is really phoning it in when it so routinely follows a template. Congratulations on cracking the “code”!

“Name’s Pathetic, Gunther Pathetic.”

Gunther and Luann isn’t a match that the fans want (they don’t), but it’s a match that Greg Evans seems to want, and that’s what counts. It will be like the Elizabeth and Anthony match in “For Better Or For Worse”. Lynn Johnson loved the Anthony character, even though the fans considered him a really “nice guy” who was insufferably dull. (Gunther!) So Lynn had them date and then drift apart, with Anthony getting married and having a kid and with Elizabeth becoming a school teacher to Indians in northern Ontario, where she dates a pilot and a Mountie. But neither one of these “interesting” guys is good old reliable Anthony, the accountant, so when his wife leaves him to find excitement elsewhere (well, duh!), Liz has to return home and marry him.

This is Lynn Johnson’s vision of what life should be like, where the daughter marries the steadfast dull “good guy” instead of the “interesting and adventurous” guy. It seems Greag Evans thinks the “nice guy” Gunther deserves to be married to Luann, and in the Evansverse, “niceness” is always eventually rewarded.

Wow, glass half full

Gunther is getting real-world experience as a Software engineer and Network Adminstrator in a hospital. That will prove invaluable in his professional development.

Ha ha! If only you wrote “Luann”. Then it could finally win an award for the first time in many years, and actually make me laugh.-Emperor Evans is NUDE, superfans, so let’s not go complimenting his clothes. Unless you just straight-up like to read nonsense, I guess…

She wasn’t babying him when she told him to follow Rosa to Peru. Superfans cheered her on, but now it really does look like Gunther is far from being a man.

where did Gunther say what he was going to study? looked the whole 2014 and we only see that he was going to Moony, so actually we officially got no idea of what career choice he took, we only know he is good in math and sewing(dreaming of Nobel prize in a Sunday strip) and that he has awesome computer skills and original plan was to study at Moony…………….. so right now I don’t see any official confirmation that he planned to study ANY KIND of engineering, seems someone posted that, and it became gospel since than

Why are you being so mean to Mrs. Horner?

ah, 2013, but as I said, it is still an open options of what engineering is, more strongly toward computer or software engineering as Gunther knows real well computer programming, but is slightly possible it could be conventional engineering ONLY because Gunther likes to construct stage sets, but that is kind of a reach, he has not shown interests on heavy machinery or in building big projects(House renovations and such), his biggest love is Sewing clothes, so if anything, would have made more sense for him to study fashion and apparel design and maybe minor in economics or computer designing

Wow, that must be some whopping huge medical practice, what with all those clerical employees there. Rosa’s uncle must be mega rich and powerful; it’s surprising she didn’t know more about him beforehand.

subtle aggressive, in which she “guided” Gunther to make a decision he is hesitant to do but she has never forced Gunther to do something he does not want to do……….. does not want to do is different than hesitant to do as hesitant denotes a sense of wanting to do

you know…………….. part of me wishes(if Greg’s son is willing to do it) that they would start a spin-off with Rosa and Gunther getting married, staying in Peru, Gunther going to the Lima university, and trying to blend into Latin Culture while at same time working in the clinic………….. Karen being main writer of both, with Greg doing Luann and his son doing “the Bergers in Peru”

Many steps taken the first year out of high school are like diving off the high dive for the first time. Six years out of high school it becomes someone else’s fault that the 24-year-old didn’t dive off of a different high dive.

‘Course not. Just that she’s a sweet lady who doesn’t deserve to have to deal with a mixed up kid who is jealous of anyone his mother talks to…

New strip: “Mrs. Berger Meets the World!”

It’s sad, really, how Gunther still cannot cut the apron strings that bind him to his mother. Sure, he was raised by her mostly alone, and with her being a hard-working single mom he was able to lap up all her mothering and smothering and protectiveness. But now at last he is, thanks to the strength of Rosa, out of the house, giving his Mom a chance finally for a life not centered on him. He needs to recognize and come to terms with that fact. Rosa will probably always be the stronger one in this couple, but Gunther must accept reality and get on with his life with Rosa, who (unaccountably to me) loves him.

did not know Rosa and Gunther was a single character……………. and except for some wanting to know what happened to them in Peru, there was no sense of a “big hole” when the 3 left the city of Pittsville(Rosa, Gunther and Delta) while I sensed a bigger hole when out of the blue Quill returned to Australia, much bigger than when Aaron, Diane, Zane or Miguel left. and not many are crying because Elwood has not appeared for a while, and not many are going “Bring back Fogerty and Phelps” or Ben(Quill is essentially a combination of Aaron and Ben, good looks and great person)

if we go by what both expected when they got to Peru, Rosa feels she got less than expected, while Gunt feels he got more than what he expected

Rosa …………. being in a village helping poor people and Having Gunther vs having Gunther and working in a clinic for super rich people who want plastic surgery, she got Minus ……………………

>>>>>>>>>> Gunther ….. being in a village, trying to help Rosa with her passion and having her vs Having Rosa and working in a place where he gets to use his computer skills, he got plus

Are these two living together? Are they a couple? Are they “growing” up as adults? who knows ? but if I followed a woman all the way to Peru, for no other reason than to be close to her, and nothing was happening between us, I’d probably be on the first plane out. But not because my mother was fortunate enough to have a life of her own.

AND HE DOESN’T LOVE ROSA??!?!?!

is most probable that both are in the house of her uncle, and because he is rich

I would not be surprised that not only they go to different bedrooms, but that they are in different wings

and is most probable that they both prefer to wait for the honeymoon, matter of fact, would not be surprised if Tiff does the talk, but she might still be a virgin

Take the pot off the stove, momma, it ain’t gonna boil. Greg has strayed from course and instead of his characters having a romantic escape, they have become like brother and sister and the potential for passion has just gone poof. To risk a poor pun, you can only keep it up for so long before the tension deflates.

matter of fact, of the “class of 2014” students……….. the one who sounds “most likely to have already done it” is…………. won’t say it, but I can eliminate 2 of them, Luann(despite her going to 1st and second base with Quill) and Rosa(I see her as the wait till honeymoon type), some are “I feel is unlikely”(can say one is Tiff as I already stated it), while only one looks like a “maybe but I could be wrong”, none of them is “I am certain she has done it”

Nooooooooooo!

Step back a moment here. Gunther just graduated high school. That means for most of the time that this comic has included Gunther, he was not considered an adult in the eyes of the laws. If his mother had pushed him to leave the house and achieve independence before he graduated high school, in most states in the US she would be arrested for child neglect (unless he had gone to court and been given the right to be on his own.)-At some point in all of our lives, we have to start taking responsibility for ourselves. Gunther made a decision to go to Peru, so whether his mother encouraged him or not doesn’t matter. In the same way, he needs to take responsibility for the fact that he does not want to ‘share’ his mother’s attention with a possible boyfriend. This jealousy may have made sense when he was 8 years old, but not when he is old enough to go to college…

Future office, 1964 New York World’s Fairhttp://voices.yahoo.com/the-office-cubicle-turns-40-why-creator-wasnt-1473325.html

we have lot of “forgotten characters” we have the sister of one of the main characters of “70s show”, the big brother of Richie Cunningham, Judy a character of the Winslows in family matters, not many remember that Molly Ringwald was in Facts of Life season 1 as Molly Parker, Sarah of sister sister, Jason of boys meets world(Eric’s best friend before Eric became dumb)

do you know there are six “3 stooges”? and lot of people forget there are 4 Marx Brothers

Gunther doesn’t realize that just by being away from home, he has grown. But like joining the military, you have to go home to realize how much you have grown. And it’s true, you can never go home again.

I was in Perú this year and last year. I did not see anybody working in cubicles at the work offices I visited. Also, they did not have that many computers. The hospital for the indigent did not have any computers at all. At the other hospital I visited, I did not see any computers, either. Everything was done manually…