Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for June 17, 2020

what a life these two live in, huh?

Yikes Tiffany! Leslie took a pass.

Yo, I still don’t trust that it’s real. We all know how low Ann can go. Although it would be great if Les had a family member to bond with.

The best part of this is the idea that it never occurred to Tiffany that Ann would get pregnant on purpose. As evil as Ann is, you would think there was nothing beyond her. And yet Tiffany still believed that purposeful pregnancy was a line Ann would not have crossed. Given Ann’s age, the most amazing part to me is that she actually could get pregnant on purpose.

At last! A rational discussion!

Never the less still a horrifying outcome if this is truly real.

I like Les’s self-deprecating smile to Tiffany’s sarcasm. Having a sense of humor about himself is a good sign he’s growing beyond bully-Les. Bullies have supersensitive egos.

I’m not sure if that. Les just processed a bunch of stuff that Tiffany just brought in.

I still find it hard to accept that GnK would use a coercive pregnancy as a plot device. Seems cheap and desperate in a comic strip mainly about young adults. What’s next? Bets informs Gunther that she’s “late?”

Two days ago Les seemed shocked by the news, now he sounds like he and Ann may have talked about her expecting to marry Tom, and ‘really wanting to have another child’.

Gawd – It took Tiffany three frames to surf the sarcasm wave…

Okay.

I’ve got to say this even though the sky may crack signaling the coming of the Four Horsemen. But I’m actually starting to feel sorry for Les Knox. Or whatever This IS, masquerading as “Les Knox.” And for the record, the last time I had a shred of sympathy for the REAL Les was when Pru disappointed him.

Wait, Wait, hear Me out. This “Les” wants a little bro, talks about his mother in almost civil tones and more importantly is not making “sleazy come on’s” at Tiffany. This “Les” has been acting waaaaaaaaaay out of character, so far this week. And I’m telling you this AIN’T the real Les. This is a “pod person,” ”they” are here, and none of Us better go to sleep tonight!

PS: Note Tiffany’s statement about Les in the last panel. Back in 2017, Tiff even admitted to Gunther that she too, thought Les was a “scuz.” Yet she seemed willing to sleep with back in 2018. And don’t forget, Tiffany thinks she can “control” him. I dunno know about you but I’m becoming less sympathetic to Tiffany “plight” each passing day.

That said, DON’T sleep tight tonight and watch the skies! ;)

Don’t be so harsh Tiff.

Sarcasm from them both. Is this an improvement?

Or is she faking pregnancy to shame him into marrying her?

Leslie Knox is a Cat person. Punk has filled the void in Leslie Knox.

Of course the ultrasound is fake, and Ann always loses . So how will Tiffany discover that it’s fake and prove this to her father, before he gets trapped into a marriage with a gold digger?

But Tiffany never comes out a winner in the Luanniverse. So somehow she has to defeat Ann without really improving her own situation.

Ann and Tom fornicated it out of wedlock? Can you even do that in “Luann”? They’re so eeeevil!

Les has to know his mom better than this. Brightening up at the idea of having a sibling might be a wishful thinking. Hopefully this passes in the next strip and Les tells Tiff his mom wouldn’t get pregnant unless she has a plan. Then he asks to see the ultrasound – so he can inspect it.

Poor Les.

It’s amusing watching Tiffany try and wrap her head around the concept of the Honey Trap/Baby Trap. It’s like watching Betty Boop end up in a Tarantino movie.

Is Les actually turning into “One of the Good Guys”?

Tiffany has a sensitized personality formed and sustained by her little princess lifestyle. Needs to let go and move forward.

Circumstances pushes Tiffany’s growth forward and when Tiffany plays an angle to gain an advantage, it negates any growth gain by Tiffany.

Tiffany is being portrayed as a human yo-yo that frustrate the readers.

Well, at least Les is growing up. But then again, he has his Uncle Al (and Aunt Irma) providing a place to live and a sense of stability.

“When I was a baby, Ann always kept me very tightly wrapped in a pink blanket. I looked like a pupa. She barely spent time with me, but she expected people to applaud just for her showing up with baby puke on her dress. She also wore a size zero mere seconds after giving birth, and expected applause for that, too!”

“What about your father?”

“I had a father?”

Double sarcastic remarks in panels 2 & 3. Tiffany believes that the ultrasound is Ann and she will marry her dad, thus putting her inheritance and place in danger, but when Les recognizes the con calculation he believes his mother is making, she expresses surprise in panel 2, to which he sarcastically replies in panel 2, to which she reposts by sarcastically reminding him of the how his childhood turned out, sarcastically saying “you’re such a treasure.” Les though does not mind, I surmise, he is thinking what or how can he leverage this somehow, get something out of it. How can he get back at his mom. Revenge, a dish best served cold, and by surprise. They will bond in revenge, but will it turn out that maybe his mom really does want a child with Tom? Zounds, foiled again!

Mhhh… Ann pretends to be pregnant, gets married, then pretends to have a miscarriage; then get half of everything without even having to try.

So, Les is a treasure. Some treasure you dig up, some treasure you bury. Since Les is already up…

Having a child is a LOT more than 9 months of pain. More like the next 18 to 25 years of mental pain and suffering.

Ann already has a life of luxury with Tom. She seems to have him under her control. No need to bring a child into the picture.

Yes, Tiff. Now you’re getting warmer…

Unless…unless he snipped without mentioning to anyone and she is on the clock to get hitched for the timing to be appear accurate, but then he tells her of his operation and therefore obviously the baby cannot be his.

It’ll probably turn out that Tom had a vasectomy years ago and never told Ann about it. Confusion and hilarity will ensue.

Tiffany’s hair has it’s own set of eyebrows. I would think she’d be extremely self-conscious about that.

Sounds like that Jack Benny sketch… “Your money or your life.”(pause)“COME ON, I said your money or your life!”Jack: “I’m THINKING IT OVER!”

Pretty awesome when Les finds that his mama kept his ultrasound through the years. Cue relationship repair.

Wait, so it seems i don’t know enough about Ann. I thought she was already married to Tom?

My wife puts pictures everywhere, and I hardly look at the front of them, let alone the back. If she had taped a scan to the back of one, I never would have found out she was pregnant. “What’s that?” would have been my response to her showing up with a kid.

They are acting like step-siblings already!

Les being Ann son is a lot more devious than Tiffany. I will be rooting for him.

Les and Tiffany already have a great brother-sister energy. Ann is the worst, but who knows? Perhaps, after the birth of this baby the five will become more like a family. Or they will completely fall apart.

Welcome to the family, Tiffany.

And both thpse two turned out so great. Imagine the future of this one!

On a side note did anyone notice the safety bulletin behind them? “Be safe-CDC” Greg threw a PSA into the strip.

I do not think it is a coincidence that GnK recently had the arc of Gunther zinging Luann about gossip. Regarding Evil Ann, it’s hard to believe G&K would walk away from the plot device of Ann’s nastiness, but it is possible they are having Ann find true love and happiness with Tom and changing her ways. Not probable but possible. Then having Ann giving motherly advice to Tiffany? Naw.

And here all along I thought they were already married.

Might be phoney pic

Actually, knowing Ann as we do, she probably made up the pregnancy to pull Daddy to the altar.

5

A whole helluva lot of “odd” things in the last week to me:

1. Why would Ann have the ultrasound picture still in an envelope on the back of a photo that seemed to be in position for quite a while (It would not seem to be a new gift photo, nor if it was even a gift photo, why would the ultrasound still be in the envelope on the back?).

2. The ultrasound on the back of a framed photo does not seem like a “plant” by Ann to rile up Tiffany, so it reads as legitimate to me.

3. That the ultrasound photo was in the envelope on the back of the framed photo, does that mean Ann has not yet told Tom of his new child? That is the way it reads to me…. but it being on the back of the framed photo NOW when Ann and Tom have left for an extended “cottage” stay seems REALLY odd…. especially with the idea that the ultrasound appears to not have been seen by Tom (my take on it still being in the envelope on the back of a framed photo that has been in position for at least a while).

4. It seems a bit more logical/likely that Ann would have framed the ULTRASOUND photo and presented it to Tom, IMO.

5. Tiffany’s reactions have been relatively consistent so far. But, it still feels “off” with relationship to the really “over-the-top” choices she also made of throwing Ann’s clothes out the window. It just all feels incongruent.

6. Les’s reactions have been really, really strange.

7. The whole of the Tiffany “house-sitting” and being an unhired “maid” and having a mysteriously “hidden” ultrasound…. just is overall a bit odd too. Interesting…. but ODD.

This is 2020! Tom doesn’t HAVE to get married.

Facts is facts.

My beloved complained so much about newborn baby #1 that I didn’t expect her to want any more. I was wrong. And both are near-perfect some 33 – 35 years later — actually even closer than I am.

(He is kind of cute lately without the anger at the world and a few friends he can actually talk to without threatening them.)

I’m having a difficult time understanding if les understands the situation, or if he is just being, Les.

But what if the pregnancy is fake? What if Eiffel is just doing this to fleece that man out of his fortune by faking pregnancy?

Let’s see. Couple of weeks at the cabin planned. Tom and Ann get married, romantic honeymoon at the cabin marred by morning sickness. They come back to estate a done deal. Tiffany tells Dad that she has to drop out of college because her job at the fuse doesn’t cover the cost of shared room, tuition, books, etc., especially since Ann cancelled her credit cards and even though she sold her furniture to make ends meet last term. Also tells Dad that she wishes she could have afforded to continue her therapy, but Ann cancelled that, too. Ball is now in Dad’s court.

If Ann’s plan was to spring this on Tom in front of Tiffany . . . and she’s moved the ultrasound photo . . . could backfire on her. Just sayin’

I still think the ultrasound is of Tiffany, the handwriting on the envelope is her mother’s, and Tom just taped it to the back of the photo for some reason, maybe as a way to include Tiffany in the ‘family’.

I’m just catching the vibe that this is going to be one of those ‘big misunderstanding’ comic strip arcs and that Ann is not actually pregnant.

I also wonder if Ann’s nice clothes are still rotting on the front lawn.

A different strip and I’d suggest that Tom will reveal that he had a vasectomy after Tiff was born – goodbye Ann…

Occasionally I see an act by Ann that might be positive parent modeling and wonder if Tiffany is a little spoiled. Is Ann always evil? But I guess I forgot they weren’t married, thinking they were. She is evil. And calculating

I thinks that’s wrong. Its nine months of luxury for a lifetime of pain.

I still think she’s faking the pregnancy, after they get married she’ll say she miscarried so she can have her cake and eat it too.

Five bucks says the Ann’s not really pregnant.

I used to read Luann faithfully for decades. Ann Eiffel was the one who drove me off. She may have become the classic “character that everyone loves to hate,” but there are far too many of her kind of people in real life that I can’t stomach another one in the funnies. Naturally YMMV, but I can’t help it. She’s just too toxic.

What Tiffany and Bernice really need is someone to take off their clothes for.

If Ann Eiffel really is pregnant, then she has a lot of growing up to do. Yes, I’m talking about Ann Eiffel!

After her husband (Les’ father, the cop) was killed, she simply abandoned her son, leaving him to bounce around in foster care for years until his Uncle Al found him. After all that tome of not being there for him, she expected him to think of her as a loving mother. It’s her own fault that Les does not call her “Mom”, but she doesn’t see it that way.

With Tiffany, after her lingerie scam was shut down, Ann decided she was going to control her through her father (a neglectful idiot in his own right) and his money. Ann expects Tiffany to bow down and accept her “fate”, but Ann is only making Tiffany hate her even more.

Now, there may be a bun in Ann’s oven. Ann (and Tom, most likely), will expect Tiffany to add babysitting to her housekeeping duties. Does anyone else think Tiffany is not ready to be changing diapers, especially at 3:00 am?

Ann Eiffel needs to grow up even more than Tiffany does, and that says a lot.

With each day that goes by without definitive information, I become less convinced that the ultrasound shows Ann to be pregnant. I instead suspect that the ultrasound is not of her at all. It may be totally misconstrued by us (e.g., it is of Tiffany all those years ago, perhaps even Tom’s own souvenir), or it may part of a scheme by Ann to pressure Tom into marrying her sooner rather than later….

Ok… Serious Revenge of the Bridesmaids flashbacks happening right now… Ann is like Caitlin. She’s pretending to be pregnant so that she can marry Tiffany’s dad for his money and that ultrasound picture is a fake. If Tiffany, Luann, and Bernice play their cards right, they can sabotage the wedding and reveal Ann for what she is. They pla

If they trick her into the right things, they can expose her

I’m still going for Fake Pregnancy.

To be followed immediately after the Wedding by a fake Miscarriage.

Tom, being a lawyer, distrusts his paternal involvement (especially since unbeknownst to any of us, he is sterile, impotent, and gay). Just in case, though, e runs a DNA test — only to discover not only is he not the father, but that Ann is the serial killer everyone has been chasing for killing many women as they were leaving after their OB-GYN appointment.

(He also discovers Leslie is actually the son of Jim Bakker… but that’s another story.)

tomorrow: Les comes up with a name for his new little brother-to-be.

If I were Tiffany this is what I would do. Swear Les to silence and tell him to forget everything she just told him. Clean up the mess with Ann’s clothing and act like everything is fine. Allow Ann to make her little “baby announcement. Act overjoyed. Tell her Dad she wants to move back in with them and that she now sees Ann in a whole new light! Act all sweetness and light around Ann. This takes away ALL her ammunition and forces Ann to treat her better or risk looking back in Tom’s eyes. After all, no more need for “tough love”. Once she moves back in she can spy on Ann and try to find her her true game, while at the same time getting her allowance and lifestyle d back in the process. Also by living with them she will get greater access to her dad. Every once in a while the two of them can interact while Ann is out shopping, getting her beauty treatments, seeing her OB/GYN etc. Perfect opportunity to plant some subtle seeds of distrust and also try to get her dad to mentor her and her goals as a mogul—-stressing the need for alone time with him. You have to learn to think like the enemy!

Tom: Get a . . . Grow some . . . Look around . . .