Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for March 22, 2018

Read yesterday’s comments.

The script is already written.

oh, this going to be nice

Noone ever said that theater study couldn’t be about script writing.

Luann is a very wise woman.

It seems fitting that while reading this comic strip, I have the Caine Mutiny playing on TV.

Luann, I am proud of you! You found a way to keep to your job definition AND help Faye. Faye needs to learn how to be more assertive in real life, (which I believe is why she is taking theater lessons in the first place) and what better way than a real life situation?

Hey, Luann, great quick thinking! And great advice – Fay needs to say these things to her mom. You have always been good with Shannon and now Faye – you will be a great teacher and a mom (years in the future).

The script (my version):

Luann: Go ahead Fay.

Fay: Mom, I want to try out for Quibbling Siblings.

Mrs. Garcia: Is that the play Axel is in?

Fay: Yes, but it’s a good play. It’s about a family named Quibbling and one of the sons has defective lips that are constantly puckering. Axel is perfect for that role.

Mrs. Garcia: And why is that?

Fay: Axel has defective lips that are constantly puckering.

Mrs. Garcia: So you like a boy who has some kind of deformity?

Fay: It’s not just that his lips are deformed, he also wears a ball cap sideways and he wears sunglasses indoors.

Mrs. Garcia: He dresses like what an old, white male cartoonist would consider to be a gangster.

Fay: That’s right.

Mrs. Garcia: You’ve convinced me that you should be in this play. Axel doesn’t sound like a threat at all. He sounds like a candidate for surgery and therapy.

Fay: That’s right.

Luann: Yay! You convinced your mom, Fay. Good job.

Fay: That’s right. I did. But now I don’t like Axel anymore. What did I see in him?

No, Luann, it’s not ‘let us write a script’. It’s ‘write a script, Faye’…

Luann needs to draw the words out of Fay – but it needs to be Fay’s wording. I think it’s not a good idea to tout the play – or Axel. It should be more like, “Mom, I’m (14?)! I want to choose my friends just like anybody else. You need to let me socialize with people my age. I really won’t do anything stupid.”

The only way Fay’s mom will be happy about Fay being in “Quibbling Siblings” with Axel is during the scene where Fay sneaks into her sibling’s bedroom and clubs him with his baseball bat while he is sleeping. Just before the scene, Fay’s mom secretly substitutes the Nerf™ foam rubber bat with a real Louisville Slugger™.

At least Luann is keeping her own head on securely, even if Mrs. Garcia seems to have exploded hers off of her neck …

Great advice Luann!

Luann is handling herself very maturely here. Not everyone would have been able to resist reacting to Mrs. Garcia’s diatribe with anger or by talking behind her back, and that includes people much older than Luann. That, plus the fact that she’s found a way to turn this incident into a theater-related lesson. Way to go, Luann!

Luann is maturing, caring, and smart, contrary to some opinions, the genesis of which I will not presume to understand. Now the next thing is to see how this script works out. Not totally the way any one might predict, but that is so human. I think it will work out though.

Fay’s a sweet kid and Luann’s got a good heart to help her this way.

But SHOULD she? Enabling a 14 year old to stand up to her mother? I mean this is Fay we’re talking about here. NOT “Les.”

What happens if something goes wrong??

How old is this kid supposed to be?

That’s still helping, though. ✨

This kind of improv training exercise is what got you into hot water with Mom in the first place.

And that’s where we will spend a few weeks at.“The script.”

Script? More like talking points. I know my parents never followed any of my scripts.

I can see this drivel becoming a three week arc. About as riveting as Peanuts Classic.

So Luann IS going to help her with “boy things.”

It’s a comic strip, so it probably won’t happen, but if Faye’s mom discovers that Luann helped with this “script,” she’d be fired in a heartbeat.

@misterdantes Or Lizzie Borden???

What a lame mentoring outfit Luann is wearing. That looks like something Elly Patterson would wear. Or “Mrs. Fogerty.” Certainly not an early twenty-something.

Unless Ann Eiffel has some connection to Mrs. Garcia, this plot is going to be so dry!

Unless Ann Eiffel has some connection to Mrs. Garcia, this plot is going to be so dry!

Again, I’m confused about just what Luann is supposed to be “mentoring” Fay about. The person who was going to run the theater camp (that fizzled) was Prudence, not Luann. Pru is the one who has experience in coaching actors, not Luann. I thought Mrs. Garcia was paying Luann to help bring Fay out of her shell as a person and be less shy. (Paying someone to be your daughter’s friend is pretty pathetic, but anyway.) So really isn’t Luann supposed to be “mentoring” Fay in how to talk to kids her own age (including boys), not not how to perform on stage? Today we’re being told the exact opposite. I think this story arc has become completely twisted around from the way it started.

Did we skip a day? We were about to hear Fay’s swear word.

This is so not interesting. Go back to what we really care about… the main characters in the strip that we have been reading for years, not this side show.

This is so not interesting. Go back to what we really care about… the main characters in the strip that we have been reading for years, not this side show.

This is about as interesting as watching the paint dry.

The title character of “Luann” was created to be a young teenage girl who was boy-crazy. Unfortunately, that was her defining characteristic, so now that she’s in college, and she’s broken up with her boyfriend, there’s not much that the strip can do based around her. Unless the Evanses get Luann involved in a new romance, or unless they find some new previously unexplored facet of her life, they will be forced to concentrate on stories around other characters (in this case Fay, as Luann v2.0) rather than around Luann herself.

If Luann can devise a script that will allow Fay to change her irrationally close minded mother about acting with Axel, she ought to consider becoming a lawyer – she definitely would be good at cross examination and with persuading judges and jurors to adopt her client’s version of the case.

so many conclusions jumped to. What happens if/when the Mom actually meets Axel? Or does she know him from somewhere else?

Maybe Luann handle a ten year old’s love life, its obvious she can’t handle her own

And where’s that swear word we were all promised?

@NOTBORNYESTERDAY: Probably the swear word is keeping company with your love life. And Faye is supposedly 14. Not ten.

Momma came down unnecessarily hard in yesterday’s strip, but Luann comes back with an excellent counter. She’s come a loooooooong way. :)

7

A bit “PSA-like” today (Public Service Announcement, aka a “Very Special Episode”) it seems. But, on the whole…. a really impressively strong and logical way for Luann to handle the situation currently.

1) Will it work? Perhaps.

2) Will somehow we see Axel in a more positive light? I doubt it, but possible.

3) Will Fay be able to talk to her mother in a positive way after this? Probably.

4) Will “Mom” apologize to Luann for the intensity of her interaction (not saying the motive was good or bad…. but it was awfully damn intense, IMO)? Anyone’s guess.

I do very much like the growth displayed by Luann today. Very nice.

Why is Luann wearing that vest? Is she auditioning for Annie Hall?

They don’t even know if Axel will be in the play yet. Even if he is not in it, some other boy will be and Fay will talk to him. Way over-reacting by everyone.

And I think we finally know why the girl had such trouble speaking, her freaking domineering mother has totally squashed the girls spirit.

For Ringo and others who think Fay stories are boring, consider that I was comment #325 yesterday and today, at 11 AM MDT, we are already at 120 comments. Obviously, someone finds this interesting! (Though it would be funny if, say, a third of the comments are simply to complain that it’s boring!)

prediction:

Fay’s mom forbids Fay to audition for the play and Fay does it anyway. Luann stays out of this because she thinks this should be between Fay and her Mom but helps her rehearse once Fay gets the lead part of the sister sibling. Axel gets the lead as the brother sibling. Mom finds out and then goes to the play and sees her daughter perform and sees how awesome she is and apologizes to Luann and thanks her for helping her daughter be all that she can be (cue army commercial jingle)

Good lord is this story arc boring. Anyway, who the hell gets a mentor for their 14 (?) year old?

Luann is now teaching Fay to talk back to her mom? Mom should love this. It is a little odd that 20 year old needs a bra and a guy to feel good about herself live at home Luann supposedly has the most well balanced parents in the strip. As far a writing a script goes, I don’t remember Luann being particularly rebellious/capable of standing up for herself in her teen years. More like average and insecure. So this is gonna be kind of the blind leading the blind at this point. I’d have an easier time seeing Tiff standing up to an abusive director or adult at that age to get what she wanted. I kinda see Luann just teaching Fay to sort of “lean in” by reasoning with her mom, and her mom doesn’t seem very reasonable.

Should also mention that Its a little odd to compare under involved Tiffs dad to over involved Fays mom given the age difference. I can buy a 18+ year old Tiff needing to separate from her dad. A young girl like Fay is in fact her mom’s responsibility, and if anything happens to Fay it is likely to become her problem as well. I’d wait and see what Fay’s mom’s reasoning is on protecting her daughter first. It may be that Fay has a history of going a little boy crazy and mom doesn’t want her distracted from studies and becoming overly emotionally involved. Remember, Fays at an age where we almost all had to read Romeo and Juliet. Where all the kids ends up dead for the romantic ideal in the end. Not a super healthy way to look at love.

Luann may be primed for a career in politics. She established “plausible deniability” within three panels (or less, really)….

Luann is right, you must speak to your mom.

OK – While Luann & Fay are writing a script – we could jump back to Tiffany & Ann Eiffel…