Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for November 02, 2017

Hey “Pucker-Lips!” You can’t tell that “Green Shirt” Kid to “Shut Up, Dude!!”

Bravo, Axel, sticking up for Fay like that.

If she liked him before, she’s totally crushing now.

That was almost sweet, in a back-handed sort of way.

Imagine you are the kid sitting in front of Fay and you are way into show before Glinda makes an appearance and then you hear the whispering behind you. Fortunately Glinda is not in the show much after the first scene and you think, “I am so glad she stopped.” Then in the final scene, Glinda reappears and the whispering starts up again. Then imagine that this your sister is the one playing Glinda and you can’t hear because of this girl is repeating all her lines behind you. After yelling at whispering Fay to shut up, this kid wearing sunglasses sitting beside you tells you to shut up and he looks like he wants to kiss you because his lips are puckered up. What do you? You want to hear your sister do her lines, but you don’t want to get kissed by that weird kid.

This is actually rather juvenile behavior. On Fay’s part, as well as both guys who spoke.

And Greg is using total font size control.

That second quote was not a whisper.

And the glasses and pucker give no clue to what Axel is thinking.

If anything.

Well, Maybe one thing.

Fay is delivering her lines better than the person on stage.

Tomorrow, things change up a bit. Axel will be sitting in Luann’s seat next to Fay, and Luann will be sitting next to Miami Vise -head.

It’s rude to speak up during a play like this. But then again, this doesn’t seem like Axel’s scene either.

Speaking dialogue while the actor is speaking is rude, distracting and thoughtless. Won’t the mom be pleased that her daughter’s been encouraged to be an obnoxious jerk.

Again more dumb comments either because they are dumb, or they allegedly are meant to be funny: it’s obvious that punky, “these kids today” spawn of the devil Axel really likes Fay, and Fay is so delighted she has a smile a mile wide. He took up for her!!! Kids relate to each other differently than totally clueless baby boomer adults seem to understand. Man a kid acts like a kid, and a girl has a crush, and somehow the focus is on rudeness. Man oh man, cluelessness in the extreme, IMO. I think Fay will suddenly amp up her confidence level, and Axel has shown his true feelings. His issue is communicating them directly to Fay, as is hers to him. When they figure that out, then watch out!!

The actors on stage have been rehearsing and preparing for weeks. Then they get some special needs kid whose half-wit tutor encourages to speak their lines during the play. It’s entitled, inconsiderate behavior.

Wow a compliment to fay and an insult for whoever onstage. Being able to make a 2 for the price of 1 statement like that is almost a talent! How do you do it Axel?

Hurray! Young love! Waytogo Fay!

Axel FTW! I told you folks he was a winner under there.

I did. Right?

Crowd-sourced delivery mogul, here we come…

Stupid thought for the night.

Axel is trying to hide the fact that he just got braces.

Luann needs to have Fay whisper her lines. Fay’s participation out loud really isn’t fair to the others.

Gawd! Fay is really hooked on this guy. Lookit that smile in the second frame! However it’s still not clear how well they know each other – if at all.

Axel may not particularly be aware of who was whispering behind him, or even very aware of Fay in general.

His comment to the other guy may just have been a way to snarkily dis the actress on the stage.

But Fay heard it and took it as a personal compliment. That will stoke her coals, even if she misread his intention.

Suddenly Fay gets up and Axel gets up and they both leave together for the evening – And Luann is still sitting there feeling really silly …

Good for Axel! Fay had better shush, however – she’s being obnoxious.

tbh neither of them should be talking during the show. Worse than a cameralight. She could do the lines in her head.

This strip keeps bringing to mind The Princess Bride – “whenever he said ‘as you wish’ what he really meant was ‘I love you’”. “As you wish” .. “Whenever you wish” …. you decide.

First, I love the theater and having someone behind me reciting the lines behind me would drive me crazy. Worse than people with those rustling candy wrapper. That being said no one is paying a ton of money for this performance. I am certain parents are whispering to each other and people are commenting on this and that about the play. School plays are littered with random applaud and the occasional interjection from the audience and the odd wave from our budding thespian to someone in the crowd. Take it all with a grain of salt. I thought Axle was kinda endearing.

WEll, looks like Axel’s getting beaten up in the parking lot after the show. Why is he there anyway? The Wizard of Oz isn’t exactly a show most teenage boys go to just to see it.

Wow, That was unexpected! But she has to quiet down and not get ahead of the show dialogue. Its not polite.However, she may have found an ice breaking moment, though its taken us 4 days to get to it.

“A Sound Decision”

“Show And Tell”

“Cease And Insist”

“Be Scene, And Not Herded”

“The Interruption Of Mount Krakasmiley”

“Slow Commotion Re-play”

“Ode To Noise”

“Some Broken And Straight Lines”

“I Don’t Dig Clamors”

“Gung-ho Din”

“Racket And Opinion”

“A Pandemonium To Bear”

“Breaking The Sound Barrier”

or

“Disturb Your Enthusiasm”

Once upon a time, before the advent of internet comics, there were books of comics, but most people who read comic strips read them in newspapers. I wonder if that were still the way people got these strips if the ones who hate so many of the characters, who think the stories are illogical or stupid, who obsess about the appearance of the characters… if they would read these strips in the paper or skip over them? Do they come here just to complain? It’s been asked over and again why people come here if every aspect of the feature is so repulsive. I have to say, when discussing comics in the old print only days, I never heard anyone say “I hate it but I read it every day.”

Even though Axel neither endorses nor condemns Fay’s probably ‘anonymous’ whispers in the darkened theater (he seems to think hers was the "lesser of two ‘evils’ "), all she’s going to see, is “Aww…he stood up for me!”. Cute little lass, this!

And this occurs to me… a great deal of the high pitched wailing that goes on in this comment forum… and I don’t see it with any of the other comics I follow here… is very much like

annoying chatter in the theater.

Hope…

I am enjoying two points of today’s strip:

1. Fay may be doing a better job of depicting the character than the lead actress, and

2. Because Axel appreciates that she gains further confidence.

I have not yet had time to read today’s comments, but am hoping that i may be able to forestall a too common myth. There are a few males who automatically go into the claim of females preferring a bad boy even when there is NOT yet enough info to know if the male is bad, or if the female is interested, or both. Some have already applied that “reasoning” to Fay and Axel. Does it sometimes apply in real life? Sure, same as for a few guys in the inverse situation. Is it the norm? Nope. It just is an excuse that some use (and use and use again) to absolve themselves beforehand of any reason to try mingling. As such it is NOT the heterosexual females who are enamored of bad boys; rather it is a subset of intimidated heterosexual males who are the ones who really are thoroughly enamored of the concept of bad boy attraction – to use as an copout.

So, could that myth be avoided this week, please?

Boring.

Please, lighten up, people. This is just a three panel shortcut to move the plot along in just a few lines. As such it got the job done and we saw Fay being appreciated by someone whose opinion matters to her at this point in time. So, the job got done, it got done fast, one character may be absolved of the worst which some assumed about him, and another endearingly grows some courage (rather like the lion…).

Yes, no one likes rude interruptions in real plays, but… (and I will not say the obvious here since it just plain IS obvious).

Luann is some mentor. She completely forgot to teach Fay the basics of theatre etiquette. I sort of hope Luann becomes an actor and is plagued her entire stage career with audiences that whisper, crinkle candy wrapper, coughs incessantly, take flash pictures, and don’t turn their phones on silent.

LUANN only ever said: “Now remember, the goal tonight is to imagine yourself on stage. BECOME Glinda. Think how you’d play heer. Goood actors study and learn from….” and then realized Fay was not listening anymore after seeing Axel.

She never said ‘whisper the lines, she never said speak the lines.’

But she is a HORRIBLE mentor. NOT.

@JIMMJONZZ: If you find the comments posted here to be similar to ‘high pitched wailing’ and unlike those posted at other ’toons, you are not reading ANY of the editorial ’toons. The posters there are using claws and fangs…

Whining about the Luann arc or whining about the commentary – it’s all whining. Note that I am whining about whining. Damn this is hard!

Axel swings dizzyingly from -50 to +50 in chat charts.

So does the rude guy look like “early Brad”?

1

Unfortunately, this plot device, while meaning well in trying to establish that apparently Axel “likes” Fay….. it is done in a way that I find very uncomfortable:

1) As these kids are roughly 14…. they all should know better than to be so damn rude in the middle of a performance. This includes FAY as well as Axel.

2) Many have argued that this is “juvenile” behavior…. occurring by “juveniles” and therefore this is a legitimate excuse for this behavior. I firmly disagree. It is not *juvenile*… it is boorish and rude to the actors in the play to have audience members say their lines. To me, anyone who is over perhaps 6 years old should know better than this.

3) Fay should not be saying lines out loud in a voice that is loud enough to be heard by the folks in front of her. Pure and simple.

4) The guy who says “Shut Up” is understandably angry about Fay’s recitation of the lines out loud. But, his response was poor as well. He should not have told Fay to shut up. Perhaps “shushing” her may have been appropriate, but he did not do well either.

5) Axel should not have said what he said at all (rude and obnoxious), and he definetly should not have said it loud enough for the actor to hear and respond to (extremely disrespectful).

Perhaps my ideas do not represent how folks act today. But, I FIRMLY believe that folks should have better manners than this…. especially at a live play. It is so unfair to the actors who devote a lot of time and effort to their performance. And, 14 year olds should have be well aware of this. Yes, I know that many teens and adults DO rude actions like this, but I think it is wrong and I think it is a poor plot path.

Issues of rudeness and etiquette aside, I think the message is that the students selected to be in the play are probably not doing a great job (they can’t even remember their lines) and Fay will realize that she could have performed much better. So next time there is a school play maybe Fay will be ready and have the courage to try out.

Uhh… ok. In real life? Very, very, rude. In a comic strip? Awfully cute. :D

But, yeah – kids, don’t try this at home… or in a theater near you, as it were.

So, a congrats to little Fay for gaining confidence, and one to her knight in shining sunglasses… and an admonishment to the Evanses for going about this plot development in the wrong way. ;p

That smell! That smell! This was not brought on by food allergy, this time.

Seems Axel may know a little more about the theatre than he’ll likely admit!

Seems a little easy to re-edit Fay’s shy gene.

tomorrow: Fay has two boys fighting over her!

Is Axel just being “a nice guy”? Or does he actually know that this is Fay?

Either way, Fay is not in Kansas anymore; she’s in an Emerald City of her own!

This is not good behavior in a theater, period. No one wants to hear someone whispering during a show. I’d be pretty pissed if my child was performing and some kid is chattering away behind me. Luann should know better and teach Fay theater etiquette.

No one could disagree with your first three sentences. And if Luann and Fay were real people in a real theater, the fourth sentence would be right on point too. But the whole scene is for comic purpose and for revelation about the nature of the characters portrayed.