Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for January 31, 2014

Dark powers???

I sure hope Crystal is better at plotting than Tiffany is.

Crystal’s a good cook… because she seems to be fixing something, right now….-Some women, when they get that “calm” in their eye… whoah, boy!….especially when they feel they have no other…. "alternative"…-Knute may be at the sink with water running, but that’s sweat still dripping on his brow…. In puddles… because she makes people…nervous… you could even say that Knute’s got a case of “Crystal Sweat”…. – She’s about to catch a fly with honey, sitting on top of a sticky trap, on top of a fly-swatting machine…

“The Calm Before The Storm(?)”“Secret Weapon”“I Don’t Know Karate, But I Know Ka-razay!” (J.B. style)or “A Queen Trumps A Joker”

Aha! -Crystal-Is going to handle the Les problem!…maybe. If she reports about what happened, he’s going to point to Knute as the instigator…now there lies the problem. ;)

Turn him back into a toad?

Have the IRS audit his family?

Drone strike?

How about a nutria?…its a very ugly animal that swims around in murky, yucky standing pond water…just like the inside of Les… ;)

“WOMAN powers…” YES! ;)

@Swalb%515: Woman powers: Even more potent. Haha

Well, I have an Irish Setter here who is bugging me to put her to bed… And, she has Woman power! ;)

“Brought to you” by….Slight Guard Deodorant Substitue…… “We’ll help you where we can.. Just don’t hail any cabs!”…

No kiss. Bah. Maybe tomorrow…?

The set-up in this restroom is majorly whack.If Monday’s panel is to be believed, that sink backs up to the wall of the first stall.I’m still shaking my head over the urinals in full view when you open the apparently ambidextrous door.

Hmmm special power huh? I always thought there was more to this girl.

There doesn’t need to be any revenge. Les got revenge for being choked in the first place, and then he didn’t take it further. He didn’t beat on Knute after the punch and he didn’t peep on Crystal. It’s over, let it go. By attacking Les they are once again instigating this and being bullies themselves.^^This time I agree with you, but still, I can’t wait to see what Crystal does to Les, once she sets her tender trap

Creepy girl……wonder what she’s into that goes along with being Goth…………..?

Got no idea what Crystal is planning. How does a hot, sexy woman who is actually a good person achieve justice? Evans – Make this believable, good, and there will be 400 responses on this site.

So much for Knute’s statement to Les that “(Crystal)’ll be done in a sec”. She’s still dawdling.

Move along, get out of the Men’s bathroom. I hope you didn’t leave the seat down.

If Crystal’s powers work as well as your “strangle hold”, Knute, you’re going to end up with peritonitis.

I don’t like Les but I also don’t like Crystal. I wonder if her revenge plan will be like TJ’s take on Ann Eiffel. Crystal will be Les’ girlfriend for 6 month, make him happy, then . . . dump him, or expose him as a jerk. That will show him!!-I want Evans to write an intelligent villain sometime. Ann, Tiffany and Les are all just . . . dumb.

She has a cousin working for the NSA ……

We have lots of problems caused by people that feel their individual rights trump the rights of others – cutting across 2 lanes of traffic at the last second to not miss an exit; cutting diagonally through parking lots; using cell phones in theaters; using the men’s room because the women’s room is crowded.

I knew it, Crystal is Morticia Addams daughter

Why do the “heroes” and Heroines" of this strip behave as badly as, or worse than, the “villains”? And why do the strip’s fans cheer them on wildly. from one injustice that they perpetrate to another? I do hope children don’t read “Luann” and take it as a guide for how “big kids” ought to behave.

Crystal gonna protect her manas it should be

Crystal’s special power will set up Leslie Knox for a big fall. And all the bully’s wile and all the bully’s men won’t be able to put his pride together again….

“It’s OK, folks. No one is soiling himself outside; you two linger all you want.”.Further proof the rest room is seldom used and its use is not normally a problem for others.

Whateve, girl, but it’s been a week and you’re STILL in the boys bathroom.

Les may be a jerk, but what he did here wasn’t that creepy — he was in a CHOKE hold, and people will do almost anything, instinctively, to fight for air. Then, as far as we saw, he just used the bathroom, as he had a right to do, without pausing to harass Crystal — who of course had no right to be there anyway.

My powers only work once a month.

Just a five minute job for Crystal … Make Les fall in love with her, then break his heart. Simple. Many women have this power, but Crystal knows how to use it wisely and appropriately. Revenge, sweet revenge!

Crystal’s Power – think “What would Elvira do”.

Lure Les into the ladies room where he can be handled/reported?

Karma will bite Leslie and not in a good way either.

You know I hope Knute didn’t just blow it by calling Crystal “freaky.” He might not get that kiss after all.

She will come on to him and set him up for a very embarassing moment. He will want to find a place to hide and never come out.

Of course, when Knox hit on Tiff, it was because she totally deserved it for the way she dressed, didn’t she, Crystal ol’ ghoul?

Crystal the Vigilante!

I’m guessing that her Power is the ability to spread a rumor faster than a speeding bullet. One finely crafted damming rumor could be the undoing of “Les the Cool One” to “Leslie the loser” for the rest of the senior year. It’s still High School and rumors always rule popular perception.

-something similar was said back in the late 30’s, early 40’s, in a mid European country, about some trouble makers -There was an English Prime Minister who tried to achieve what he called ‘Peace in our Time’ by letting the ‘trouble makers’ in Germany lay claim to a few other European countries. He thought that meant Germany would leave England alone. Didn’t work. Never does.

I don’t see Crystal using her “feminine wiles” on Les.He just punched her protector / boyfriend and suddenly she’s friendly towards him?This would reek like restroom seepage that even Les would pick up on.

“Powers,” eh Crystal?Whattaya going do, DRIVE Leslie INSANE with Your HORRIFICALLY Bad “Poetry”?

Oh and Knute? Just REMEMBER One Thing: Just because You SAVED Crystal’s HONOR, PROTECTED Her From EVIL, and SUFFERED a Ruptured Spleen, Internal Bleeding, and Various and Sundry Other PERMANENT Injuries, It DOESN’T Mean That She OWES YOU Anything.

Hell, Just Ask Gunther…..,

Guilty until proven innocent, eh?

-everyday someone antagonizes him and he fights back, or one day he’s going to snap and start really hurting people-You don’t have to compare someone to Hitler to understand that if no one stops an aggressor when the aggressor starts with one or two ‘victims’, that the aggressor is just emboldened to do more and more damage. -Rationalizing a ‘take no action because you’ll just make him mad’ approach simply tells an aggressor that either you don’t care about what he does, or (maybe worse) that you’re so afraid of him you’ll let him keep doing stuff as long as it isnt’ to you.-If you want to continue the Hitler analogy, there was a minister, Martin Niemoller, who ended up in a concentration camp and survived. He became famous afterward, in part because of what he said about personal responsibility (and you can find this in the National World War II museum).-He wrote a book about standing up to the Gestapo,and one of the things he said, paraphrasing, included “When they came for the trade unionists, I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a trade unionist. When they came for the Jews, I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew. By the time they came for me, there was no one left to speak up.”

You forgot (f)….. – The ability for Crystal to get a man’s attention, and then selectively ignore him…at will….

Crystal is goooddd…she holds onto her special power just for special occasions.

I love today’s offering. Seldom, if ever, have I seen Knute lacking his vacuous grin. Reminds me of the very few times that TJ has stopped grinning. These guys seldom take anything seriously.

Eyes that look like heaven, lips like sherry wine That girl can sure enough make my little light shine I get a funny feelin’ up and down my spine ‘Cause I know that my Elvira’s mine

So I’m singin’ Elvira, Elvira My heart’s on fire Elvira Giddy Up Oom Poppa Omm Poppa Mow Mow Giddy Up Oom Poppa Omm Poppa Mow Mow Heigh-ho Silver, away

Important enough for some to base an opinion on whether Les had exited the restroom or ever performed his “business” after his “interaction” with Knute.

Wait.

“Do you know what happens in real life when you antagonize someone as unstable as Les appears to be? You don’t get “revenge” and they don’t go “oops, i learned the error of my ways”. They bring a knife to school and threaten to stab you there or off-grounds. This kind of crap happened at my school and schools in the area growing up. These kids eventually drop out or get kicked out of school but until then YOU DONT ANTAGONIZE THEM. What good does that do? Les is harmless now but if you push the envelope who knows what he’ll do? People that are jerks are easily able to go down a dark path. Just let him be.”

Les is so unstable that he might stab someone if he gets pranked, but Knute had no reason to fear for Crystal’s well being when that same unstable Les talks about having “fun” with a very vulnerable Crystal in the bathroom?

Doesn’t parse.

“Should be fun” to make Crystal uncomfortable / embarrassed, hardly rises to more than a Shock Jock prank. And all Les had to do was merely be present, or maybe exchange pleasantries to up the squirm factor. And Knute had already done that himself at the beginning of the arc.Les didn’t originally set out to antagonize Crystal (and never would have been the wiser except for the blabbermouth “guard”) but to answer the siren call of the bladder.And BTW, Crystal never stated that she was in desperate need, only that the girl’s facility was “jammed up”.

Love her!

Yes, people get mad and kill.Whenever some kid at school shoots up the school, we envision someone who tiered of being bullied and went crazy, but in several infamous cases the killers had a history of thuggish behavior. (Columbine very good example.).What Crystal will do to the one who struck her beloved — no matter what the cause — remains to be seen. Maybe she’ll tell him, “I don’ wanna be your friend any more.”.You assuming she will do something awful and inappropriate is EXACTLY like those expecting Leslie to try to rape her. Ungrounded, unfounded, unlikely, irrational..Give the child a chance ere passing down draconian punishment. Don’t smear her ink yet.

All the special powers you mention indicate Crystal’s superhuman nature.Don’t forget the power to be welcome in every clique.

I knew several beauties in my school who married wormy little twerps and still seem happy together 42 years later. Will it last? Too soon to tell.We’ll just have to wait and see.

Les is no Hitler, but then, neither was Hitler at that age.If Hitler had been encouraged early on to take a non-political path, Hitler would not have been Hitler.Maybe Crystal will introduce Leslie to a person or thought process which will turn him down a different, better path..Give the kid a chance.

If I may go off topic, briefly – history has never given Prime Minister Chamberlain his due. He was no fool, he knew that war in Europe was brewing. He also knew that if England went to war then, they would lose, and fast. Germany was much further along in arming itself than England was. That’s why he very much wanted “Peace in our time.” Note that he did not say “Peace forever.” He knew that war would come, but he was willing to do whatever he could – including allowing Germany to take over certain neighboring territories – to delay it, not to prevent it. Then when war did break out, England would be much better prepared. Unfortunately, Hitler’s timetable was much shorter than Chamberlain’s, so war broke out while England was still less prepared than Germany. But they were at least a bit better prepared than they were when Chamberlain and Hitler reached their “agreement”, and that did help. It can be argued that in fact the extra time may have saved England. [/off-topic ended]

I wouldn’t be surprised if he has juvie record now; nor that upon graduating from/abandoninghigh school he soon appears in adult court onsundry charges of Being-A-Not-Very-Nice-Person, contrary to the ststute in such case made and against the peace and dignity of thepeople…. Most likely, this habitual Not Niceness will manifest itself in violence….

A bouncer has to deal with unpleasant people in such a way as to avoid losing customers.As he is right now, Leslie is a poor poospect for a bouncer.You really need Patrick Swayze for the job to do it right.

“The fatter the bank account, the fatter he can be and still win the fair damsel’s hand.”Take the current French president and his two mistresses, for instance.

I can’t believe Godwin’s Law is seriously being used in reference to a character in the Luanneverse.

OX to the rescue!

I fail to see how the match-up could POSSIBLY be rare.Most women are great beauties.Most men -—- aren’t.

“What Makes You Think his injuries are permanent?:______________________________________

Injuries are ALWAYS Permanent, JP. Ask ANY Lawyer in America.

Clearly you have never read the “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” trilogy. I recommend the 2nd book, “The Girl that Played with Fire.” The heroine was a very small child that was picked on, attacked, and beat-up by the class bully for no reason than she was a little strange and he could. Being very intelligent she thought it through and decided to “stack the odds” in her favor (applying the same rules the bully did: I can do this because I am bigger and stronger) with a baseball bat :(I can do this because I have a baseball bat. All you needed to do to be perfectly safe was leave me alone.) And she wacked him once, side of the head.

Not more correct, just more clear.Being a Hitler has a completely different meaning nowadays than being a Green or a Smith or a Jones..Hence, Hitler would not have been a Hitler had he not done what he did even though his name would still have been Hitler.It’s like saying, “He’s no Picasso,” or Einstein or Chamberlain or Ghandi or Mandella or Moses or Kennedy. The actions gave the name deeper meaning..Or so it seems to me but then I’m no Solomon.

Yes and Swayze died over my strenuous objections.

Where are the Vogons when you need them?

“There doesn’t need to be any revenge. Les got revenge for being choked in the first place, and then he didn’t take it further. He didn’t beat on Knute after the punch and he didn’t peep on Crystal. It’s over, let it go. By attacking Les they are once again instigating this and being bullies themselves.”.I agree. Les was boorish and a jerk, but he was within his “rights.” Especially since he did only hit Knute once. There is really no point in pursuing this further..Actually, I think that Knute was rude to Les in the first place by using Les’s full name, rather than the shortened version that Les obviously prefers. Les’s reaction indicated to me that this is an ongoing issue for him… even some of the comments here were mocking Les for having a “girl’s” name..I expect that Les became a jerk in large part as an over compensation for the perceived flaw of an “effeminate” name. No doubt he was mercilessly teased about it as a child. Personally, if my worst enemy had a name that they hated and wished to be called something else, I would call them by the name that they preferred.

What is this weird obsession, you have with unisex washrooms?

When did Crystal ever write poetry?^^A lot of Gothgirls write depressing poetry, for some reason, so, he’s assuming.

Ooops, She does write poetry, something I either missed, or forgot

…i think Dave was less trying to compare Les to Hitler than comparing your solution to the actions of Chamberlain…and that worked out so well…

I think I’m finding her more attractive all the time. Yikes.

Ooh, this should be interesting.

“Les first hit on Tiff, he did nothing wrong. Where he went bad is that when Tiff showed she had no interest, he did not back off.”

Same situation as Tiff hitting on Quill, only with roles reversed. Interesting….

Les was not being an “aggressor”. He was just a guy who wasn’t willing to wait while someone else (who shouldn’t have been there) kept everyone else out. Knute physically assaulted Leslie. That makes him the aggressor.

Les harmless?He harassed Rosa was going to beat up Gunther for defending and he then harassed Tiffany too.

Wednesday’s strip shows how Crystal was totally oblivious to what was going on outside her stall.Neither she nor Les would have known the either was there if Knute hadn’t blabbed.And the “space” outside the stall in the boy’s restroom isn’t hers to claim any more than in the girl’s facility.

The restroom was intended for male students (including Leslie Knox). Crystal invaded their space, so they makes her the aggressor. There is no way that her and Knute’s actions can be justified. Yesterday and today they are both admitting it.

“But Crystal has never kissed him” There’s always the first time! ;)

If Evans does something so lame as to have Crystal sidle up to Les and say something like “the way you handled yourself the other day proved to me what a wimp Knute is, and what a may-hn you are. Do you want to take me to the All Hallows Cringe concert next week?” I’ll just puke.

Leslie did not invade Crystal’s privacy. He walked past her stall on his way to do his business. As we saw Wednesday, when Knute tried to strangle Leslie and wound up getting slugged in the gut, Crystal didn’t even know what was going on out there. That’s being pretty isolated and private!

Where’s Ox?

What did the artist draw, different from what I described?

Do elaborate.Tell us what you see drawn here:

Or this one?

Instead of assuming that one person out of the three in the bathroom struggle has to be right, could it juuuuust be a bit possible…. that either: (A) Everybody is right?(B) Everybody is wrong?…..

What I see in those strips is Crystal’s being left alone in her stall by Leslie. Her privacy was not violated.

knee to the groin

“She’s Got A Way”, Billy Joel

Is her special power crying and telling the police that les did something to her?

Double Deccas… – Deuce Century….

Special power is getting all flirty with a the guy in order to get him in a position to embarrass him, to make him into the fool.

The problem is what Leslie said. “Sounds like fun” can mean anything from, “Too bad, I gotta go,” to “I’m going to take advantage of this situation. A girl in a guy’s bathroom. Red Light! Bingo!”

What actions are you referring to?

1) Les ignoring Knute’s warning that a female was in the bathroom.

2) Les showing contempt for Crystal by remarking, “This should be fun…”

3) Les brushing by Knute and proceeding inside without a care about Crystal. For all we knew at the time, Crystal might not have even been in the stall. She might have been outside the stall adjusting her clothing.

Walking into the bathroom means Knute was justified in jumping him from behind and choking him?

In Knute’s mind, yes! And in mine, as well.

Knute is fully aware of Les’ history of/pension for bullying/harassment of the other students. And Les’ “This should be fun” quip lends credence to that awareness. So am I. I believe Knute’s perception of a threat was valid, and justified. Knute acted in defense of Crystal. Doesn’t matter whether or not Crystal had a “right to privacy” or a right to use that particular facility. Once inside, human decency compels Les (or anyone else in that situation) to wait, or find another facility.

Just my opinion, of course. :-)

Les is a jerk, but he’s not a serial rapist.

He doesn’t have to be. Being a jerk is enough.

He also doesn’t know which girl is there!

Yes, he does! That’s the first thing Knute told him.He’s not going to risk 20+ years of jail time for that.

Again, no one is accusing him of that! Exaggerating his behavior isn’t helping your case, at all. At worst, it could be perceived as “sexual harassment.” But that’s enough. Knute perceived a threat, and I believe his threat was reasonable and justified.

Knute, thank you for taking off the glasses. And for getting wet. Mmm…

Being a jerk is a good reason to get choked from behind in the men’s restroom?

It is, if the perception is that the (male) “jerk” is about to sexually harass a fellow student and a female at that.

And I’m not the one that exaggerated this behavior. If you go back to the comments during these events many people were calling him a molester.

You are exaggerating it by continuing to refer to him as a serial rapist when he is not. Les is not a rapist that we know of… But he has demonstrated a propensity for bullying/harassment. And that is what I believe Knute reacted to. And he attempted to defend Crystal the best way he could… by trying to restrain Les the best way he could.

It’s a good thing Les didn’t head to the urinals by the front door, Knute’s attack from behind would have taken on a whole new context.

Furthermore, Les has already walked past Crystal’s stall. The choking takes place when there are no credible threats.

I have to disagree there as well. When Knute grabs Les, he’s only at the 2nd stall to the right of the wall. In the subsequent strip, we see Crystal beyond that stall (i.e. the 3rd or 4th). So Les could still have been heading towards her. Credible threat still active.

Get on with the romance already!

Personally, I believe he’s destined to be the bass player in an unknown Death Metal band after he leaves Pittsville and moves to Milwaukee.

“It seems to me that this particular story line will continue next week…” Oh, Please don’t let this be so! It seems a lot of posters are beating this arc to death and its getting testy…now finding out what Crystal’s Woman Power is might be interesting, however… ;)

Les is already past the second stall and is still moving forward.

I think Les is directly abreast of the 2nd stall in the 3rd frame. He’s still heading toward Crystal. Threat still on. We don’t know where they are in the last frame of the strip you’ve shown. We don’t know for how much or how long they struggles after that strip and why Knute ended up where he did (apparently, right in front of Crystal’s stall). As stated elsewhere, Hogwarts style “morphing” facilities.

But look, we’re already past this strip, and the arc has ended.So let’s just agree to disagree and call it quits… OK?