Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for May 30, 2020

It’s all a roll of the dice. ✨

I can hardly imagine how many children I’ll have in my future family (biological and/or step… as soon as find Miss Right).

Quoting Peter Schikele: Those look like final notes!

Yes, yes, that’s the end of the piece! (as in, I really don’t think we’re going to see Shannon and Toni next week)

Brad got lucky. No woman I have ever known, not to mention those I married, would have tolerated what went on this week.

Sorry about that, Cranky Dragon, Trilogy, and others.

Better not show her any of your old pictures, Brad…

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7 little potato – headed couch potatoes. But you will love them all.

I hope this will be the end of the ’let’s make a baby’ stuff for awhile, at least. Personally, it’s hard for me to imagine why someone who didn’t get along with his only sibling would think a big family would be fun. But I still feel like, once Toni gets pregnant, her days in this ’toon are numbered. Her reluctance to marry at all (probably partly due to her childhood situation) is part of what defined her. A change into an expectant mother just seems like too much of a change. At least for me as a reader…

There’s no guarantee- sometimes the seemingly best parents have offspring who act horribly…

She’s got designer genes.

He says, “A big family” She says, “You and Luann.” I think Toni thinks that 2 kids is a big family.

Well if they anything like Shannon. Toni would know what to do.

Kids with dots for eyes. Adorable.

Brad is basking in his clueless mode again. When it’s clear that Toni isn’t currently anxious to have a kid – Brad starts talking up a big family. Meanwhile, Shannon is having a valuable learning experience with Defeat. Going forward, it might be interesting to see a little darker side to Toni – she’s been relatively quiet about her issues. I wonder what her relationship with bad boy Dirk was like.

Wow – Brad must have 18th Century male sensibilities when it comes to being marrying. “I want you to make me a lot of babies” as he casually pours popcorn into a bowl.

No, she’s saying if 2 bicker and fight like Luann and Brad did, how’s the sibling rivalry between 6 or 7 going to be? My cousins in PA tried 6 times for a girl—-they have 6 boys. The oldest is 21 and the youngest is 8.

Yay! No more talk about procreation!

Is Shannon ready to abandon all hope of winning against Master TJ. ?I hope so. May the force be with you!

Also, it would be nice to have a couple who decide not to breed; let’s see how their lives pan out without offspring.

Siblings bicker all the time. It’s natural, but they usually grow out of it in time. They become someone you can count on and someone you can share memories with.

TJ wouldn’t give Shannon a win. I think it’s good because children need to learn they can’t always have things their way all the time. The world they will be entering does not work that way. At my grandson’s birthday party, he got a toy which the players have to fetch rings around the pufferfish without touching it otherwise it will puff up and go blam! He tried several times and cried when the pufferfish exploded. His parents told him it was how the game worked and it was just fun and told him to look at all the adult who were laughing at the pufferfish. He still didn’t like it but it was a lesson for him. No need to coddle him. My son did remove the top which was a bowl split in half with an open top for hands to reach in. With the top half of the bowl off, it was easier to reach the rings for my grandson. His arm and hand were half adult’s size so we evened out the odds.

Brad’s right. Their kids would have good genes. They would be drawn that way.

I like how TJ subvertly undermines Shannon before she realizes it…

well she’s right about her genes and i agree with her because she’s trying to tell him in so many words thus far anyways while she wants kids i don’t want a huge family cause it’s hard work and though i don’t have kids at all even i know that is just a lot of hard work and not everyone wants a lot of kids either and i don’t think Toni does want a lot of kids

Okay so this is the fin de siècle. Cute divertissement, no kids are perfect. TJ is a genial con artist, and Shannon is a typical 6 old girl child. Children will come on the by and by though.

Looking forward to a houseful of little Shannons.

The lesson here is that this is something that couples should talk about before getting married.

Wait just a second!

Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?!

Is Tony thinking seriously about getting pregnant!

I’m honestly shocked. I was positive this last comic would be about waiting for a house, or Tony saying she’s not there yet, effectively making this week utterly pointless.

But no. Tony actually appears to be warming up to the idea of a kid. Meaning it’s actually possible that we could have another batch of mini DeGroots! And this week wasn’t a waste!

Permanent change is not a typical Luann thing. I think we’re seeing Karen’s influence take a firmer hold. Now if only Luann could finally graduate?

There is no such thing as perfect kids

Brad looked older when her was younger! How about some stubble!!?

Just go ahead and do it, you two! I have a hunch they will be good parents.

Everybody is overlooking one very important detail. Up until recently, Toni had a hard time controlling Shannon. Brad, on the other hand, had little difficulty handling the dear little tyke, the first day he met the kid.

Bottom line? Brad can handle kids with little effort. Toni? Just BARELY. That’s pretty much “Why” Toni quickly delegated Brad as being the “stay at home dad.”

Toni just doesn’t want to be a “round the clock mom.”

And this is thanks in no small part, to Shannon.

Feel free to prove Me wrong, and stay SAFE this weekend. ;)

I think Brad is ready for parenthood.

Given the confinement we’re all experiencing, there is a prediction of a wave of babies in our near future. Cartoonists are mirrors reflecting our reality.

There’s an old say that goes, “Making babies is always fun but, afterwards is when the real work starts” and you’d better be ready. Refunds are not an option here.

Solution is easy, Toni has the first one, Brad has the rest.

I think their kids will be intelligent, beautiful but with the same temper of Hurricanes and Earthquakes. That would be REALLY fun! And I can see future teen Shannon babysitting them saying they’re troublemakers.

How many years have they been married and they’re only NOW talking about a family? Weird. My then-girlfriend’s ideals on what kind of family she envisioned is one of the big clues that we were meant for each other. Over sixteen years (and five children) later, and we couldn’t imagine things being any other way.

Perfect kids ha I guess we thought so too.

Parents? “To be, or not to be.” That is THEIR question.

A good break point in the arc, lot of change to come. For Toni and Brad but I suspect for the other characters too. Tempo has changed fairly significantly with the New Year… I’m seeing it coming stronger for Tiffany, Gunther, and I’m suspecting Luann (maybe taking more of the stage one way or the other…). Interesting…

Sunday: Knute and Crystal shop for masks.

Stand your ground Toni. People are not defined by their kids. Or lack thereof.

The only thing this arc says is that they aren’t ready to start a family yet! For everyone who is dying to see them pregnant consider that they are living on a tight budget in a small house and caring for Shannon much of the time. So they are not in any practical way ready for a family. Also, Toni is still expressing doubts. Until she is ready ( and she may change her mind in time) and until their finances improve we won’t be seeing any pregnancy. And we shouldn’t. I think that’s the message Greg and Karen are sending. All your Broni pregnancy watchers will just have to keep watching and enjoying them as they are for a while. After all, they only got married a year or so ago. In Luannuniverse that’s like a month!!!!!

Coming from a family with six children I knew I never wanted to have any of my own. Once when a single mother of two expressed an interest in me I had to explain that I came from the ‘Hansel and Gretel’ school of childcare. Interest revoked (fortunately).

Their female children would resemble Franks side of the family – Yuck!

Am I the only person who thinks today’s joke is that Toni is overhearing her niece being a bad sport and kiddingly disagreeing with Brad about the guaranteed quality of kids from her gene pool?

In the next panel, Shannon murders T.J. for winning.

Appears that there is contention at the DeGroot’s Jr. It’s bubbling just beneath the surface. Perhaps GnK are ready to bring discord and discontent into their lives.

New subject please….this is boring!

https://www.gocomics.com/luann-againn/2020/05/30?ct=v&cti=1428192

See today’s reprint strip, re: “perfect genes.”

a little late in having this discussion.

I think we forget that Brad is still really young. He seems older because time in Luannverse moves so slowly relative to real time. Brad graduated from high school back in June of 1999 (hard to believe), and Luann was probably either a freshman or a sophomore at that point. Fast forward to today, and Luann would be a sophomore (maybe still a freshman) in college, which makes Brad no older than about 22. Toni and Brad have plenty of time – no need to rush things here.

Yeah, Brad wants lots of kids, it’s not his body that will be destroyed.

I think the idea that because a woman has a child she automatically is expected to leave her job is a bit outdated. Would she decide to do something different in real life if she was a firefighter? maybe. But let’s be creative about it and not just stereotypical.

Think this through, Brad. You’re a Luann character. The aging ratio is 1-to-17, and all procreation is asexual.

Brad could think having a family like that is a second chance for them both.

Will TJ leave his job at The Fuse and become a full time nanny?

Brad should not have kids till he gets a reality check as per his comment in panel two.

Brad wants to start now because he wants a lot of them.

Look at them in Panel Two. Still lovey dovey. Kids or no kids these two really love each other.

Time to take off the rose-colored glasses, Bwad! It might be “fun” to you to have a large family but that takes lots of money which you and Toni will never make as firefighters.

The guy always thinks a lot of kids would be fun. He doesn’t have to bear them.

I don’t think Brad realizes what having a lot of kids does to a womans body.

There are such thing as parenting classes, and they should take them.

Nice ending to the week. Look how doe-eyed they are!

Their first big Disagreement.

These comment exhaust me. What seems pretty obvious to me, and I am not a genius by any means seems to fuel absurd speculation an a grand scale daily.

The look on Brad’s face in the last panel suggests he is mentally calculating the sound of 7 x the whining coming from Shannon.

Who knew Brad was a eugenicist?

Gentle way to let Brad down from his wild aspirations, Toni….

They didn’t talk about this before they got married? Wow.