Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for September 11, 2015

Thought she was caught.

And then, five seconds later, the Director sounds like an irate Dave Seville, when she sees all the “non regulation” stuff in Bern and Dez’ room, and when Piro falls asleep in one of the stairwells….

Wake UP, Bern. You’re DREAMING!

“Hit And Miss”“Weather..Or Not”“No Rain, No Gain”“Narrow Passage”“Everybody Needs A Shower”“People Are Strange” (♫)“Just Want To Bang On De Drum All Day” (♪)“When All Else Fails, Sic Your Escape Goat On ’Em”“De Nada Chance”“Serendipity Do Dah”or“Pay It Backward”

The director considers a party in the rain responsible? Guess the college somehow got moved to Seattle.

Quick, feed the director a brownie.

This was well-planned?

wow… even I’m impressed by the director’s impressions on Bernice

Pretend everything is as good and innocent as the director thinks it is.

Had to “stretch” a bit, on that one, Lol! – Of course, there is the whole “hashtag” thing…that’s one cultural reference I don’t “want” to get, heh, heh…

“Now that it’s an officially sanctioned event, anyone who catches cold can sue the University.”^Given some of the recent “sue happy” stories of late, this scenario would probably not be as odd, next to them…

“Good Responsible Fun.”. (I have heard of it).

Bullet dodged like she was Neo in the Matrix!

I read about 2 dozen comics every morning. Luann is the 1st comics I read.

Ok, I don’t want to be a wet blanket here, but wouldn’t getting wet stretch the drum heads making them unplayable?

Bernie ducked a big one. Now she owes Dez!

The director must be related to Gracie Allen.

why does the “director” look like Quill, with a wig on?!

They’re having a party. They’re just not having a party in the dorm.

Okay, the scene was set for Gunther and Tiff: both wet, both together, both on campus near Tiff’s dorm.

Anyone else think Dez looks like a 30-year old woman?

Yes most colleges support an open fire on the quad!

“Who’s going to be first to criticize Bernice for taking credit for Dez’s activity?”*Gary 13- I will! I will! It really ticks me off when someone does something good and/or smart and a lowlife takes credit for it. However, Bern CAN redeem herself by making sure she does Dez a favor in return.

Isn’t there something about having enough brains to come in out of the rain?

You go to college to learn to stay in the rain…and get stoned.

Thank you for speaking up on that. Being cold from the rain or anything else can put some strain on the immune system, but I cannot believe in this day and age there are still people who think that getting wet in the rain might give them a cold.

She ate the brownies, had a really good time and then she didn’t get in trouble!

Wow. Bernice came down quick…..must have been the rain.

Well…. actually… when I was in College one of the RA’s lead a lot of the students outside to play in very heavy rain. We were all young once…

I think she just heard about the brownies and wants one, since she was a big pot-head in college. LOL

Implausible, you stated:“Getting wet makes you cold, and being cold for an extended period of time makes you sick”Actually, being cold for an extended period of time does not make you sick. It can, however, make your ability to fight off existing pathogenic agents in your body (bacteria, viruses) lower. A person (or any animal) can be cold for extended periods of time without ill effect if their immune responses are strong and they can still fight off infectious agents they are exposed to. If this were not the case, then all the wild animals of the northern US would have colds all winter long. :)That said, my take on this whole drumming in the rain “event” is that it is not a particularly long one. I would suspect it would last perhaps an hour or so. That is only a modest amount of time to be wet and cold in the rain. They should all be fine. I still think the “marijuana brownie” debate is interesting. I am still on the side of the argument where I think in the end Bernice’s reaction will all end up being “in her head” so-to-speak. I do not think Dez put marijuana in the brownies… and the notion that she did was simply a red herring thrown to us by Greg. With that idea in mind, however, the question that I personally find interesting to think about is…. If Bernice’s reaction was simply the power of suggestion… it suggests that Bernice presumed there was marijuana in the brownies…. and she willingly ate them. That choice by Bernice is the item of the day, IMO (if it proves true that there was no marijuana in the brownies).

They are probably are probably rain drums, so the heads should be OK….

Implausible… I hope you did not take offense to my comment about the “cold” and illness. I did not mean it to rile you up. As an educator in life sciences, I can state that there are MANY folks who DO mistakenly believe that being cold can give you a cold. I talk about that to many of students going into health related careers. It is a logical assumption that this “cause and effect” relationship would seem plausible. I presumed with your intelligence level that you did not really think that being cold would give you a cold. That is why when I clarified relationship, I ended with the somewhat silly example of animals in the winter, and also ended with a “smiley” emoticon. So, once again, I did not mean offense. I could not tell for sure from your reply if you were offended or not, but it read to me as if you might have been. I do apologize if that is the case, for it really was not my intention.

Rain does not cause colds.

A cold is a virus. You can catch a cold in rain about as often as you catch one after taking a shower. ;)

New stoner?

Those drums are toast. Soggy, wet toast.

Come on, was that just another cameo for Gunther and Tiffany? A gigantic tidal wave of passion isn’t necessary, but at least, let them share a little embrace, Just let them “like” each other.

Isn’t it amazing, or merely coincidental, that as soon as an authority figure shows up, Bernice isn’t “high” anymore?

It’s not that I enjoy seeing people get into trouble, but, as a reader of mysteries, I most like stories where those who do something that’s wrong don’t get away with it. (Even if there is no ‘justice’ in the legal sense of the word.)

Since I am in the minority here that believes that Dez did put mj in the brownies, and I figured that Bernice ate them more out of compulsion while worrying about all the things that were out of compliance in the dorm, I am still hoping that Dez somehow learns that it’s not kosher to give someone drugs without a warning.

Otherwise, I worry about the message that the 5 people who read this ’toon and are under the age of 50 might be getting…

And . . . Bernice comes out smelling like a rose! Thanks Dez. #NeverForget

And they lived happily ever after..A happy ending, not foreseen..But we still have Saturday in this arc. That could supply a twist. Maybe back to Gunther and wet Tiff?

Gunther and Dez could have a bunch of curly red headed kids together.

It “the Director” male or female? .At first I had assumed female..But I see no real evidence of that. (Can’t count the hair length.)

(S)He is Androgynous.

“Shoulda said “extended pinkies”^Yeah, that’s another one, too! Good show, sir, and pip, pip and cheerio, and all that! (chuckling like Buffy and Stuart Poshington the III would do)…

“I would hope the brownies are addressed tomorrow, otherwise the moral of this week’s story is “Kids, take drugs and everything will magically work out for you”.”*Imp – Agreed, but I think we are out of luck. My guess is that Mr. Evans is reliving a college experience in this episode. As we all know, art majors can get by with anything!

Whether it’s on how many species of bird there really are in existence, or “Why is the sky blue?” or, “Just what does cause a cold, or the measles?”, there’s usually an improvement in understanding, or maybe there could be future advancements, or a broadening of understanding, in things. Actually, there’s a lot we go back and forth on,in this world, scientifically. And not just talking about “we’ve come a long way since toothpaste was invented”. I’m talking in about our understanding the heights and depths and breadth and length of the wonders in God’s creation, or all the possible ways to make use of it…. and learning just how everything works. – Here are some examples: (1) One week, coffee is good for you, next week, tis’ not.

(2) One day, It’s “4,4,3,2” (what was once the “slogan of healthy eating”, the then “required amounts of nutrition”), the next, all kinds of “plates”, then “pyriamids”, next will probably be a “spiral staircase”. Or maybe a “six degrees of Kevin Bacon chart” will replace it all….

(3) One day, Pluto is that cute little dog with the toothpick for a tail (going for a walk with that “round-eared Mouse”), and also happened to be considered as a planet. Next thing you know, both Plutos are “in the doghouse”.

(4) And probably, the most “infamous” of all? The long list of side effects for all the medicines that give you constipation, dry mouth, hallucinations…itching, sneezing…some reports of hair falling out, a possible allergic reaction….. an increased risk of HBP, or Hypertension, running to the bathroom… may make your skin turn blue.. perhaps an increase of 35% more of a chance you can turn into a mutant, and star in your own action flick… could cause you to choose the wrong color paint for your walls, and throwing off the whole scheme of colors for your furniture and curtains… may cause you to be forever nagged by your spouse….may cause unwanted tax penalites… may cause “Britney Spears earworm” to play in your head, all day… could cause non stop nails on a chalkboard… and finally, possibly death. But…. at least the medicine will work “like it’s supposed to”, and finally get rid of your hiccups! And maybe you won’t have that unsightly mole on your face, anymore….

The students are too dumb to get out of the rain. They aren’t even using umbrellas anymore.

Nothing is going to rain on their parade, not even…. rain.

Gary…. I agree with you that if there was no actual marijuana…. the really interesting question is about Bernice’s willingness to consume what she may have believed contained marijuana.

Dave…. I apologize for the redundancy… I did not see your citation or comment.

Take the good with the bad.(You have to take the bad regardless.)

Okay, I know the timelines have always been warped in this strip, starting with how long Luann and friends were in high school and how the age gap between her and Brad changed during that time, but I’m really starting to see far too many discrepancies here at Moony U.

1. We have established that at practically every university with on-campus housing known to mankind, the RA is (a) at least a junior and (b) does not have a roommate. Does this mean we somehow missed Bernice’s entire sophomore year? (Not that we saw all that much of her freshman year.)

2. Even if Bernice is a sophomore and not a junior, we met the characters of Viper and Hair early in her “tenancy” in the dorms. From the attitude Viper had when that first party was thrown, she wasn’t a freshman … but apparently she is still living in the dorms when she has to at least be a junior by now? (Ditto Hair.)

3. Dez may not be in her 40s, but she certainly isn’t in the usual age range for a university underclassman. And what kind of arrangement allowed her to be away from the campus for a whole semester and still have her dorm assignment held? This means she was not likely a freshman when first introduced, so again we have someone who is at least a junior living in the dorms … and one who should have her own apartment somewhere else in the first place.

In my not-so-humble opinion, this recurring business of story arcs at Moony was poorly set up in the first place, and then compounded as the characters “age”. The new characters should never have been established as anything other than typical 18-year-old freshmen, Dez should have been a tangential character, not a dorm resident, and there should have been more character development in the “freshman year” … all I know about Viper is she has those weird giant holes in her earlobes that seem to be popular among some young people and that she makes weird hair ornaments. All I know about Hair is that he plays the drums. All I know about Sun (if she’s even still in the cast) is that she has a pet ferret. And all I know about Dez is that she seems more interested in saving the world than actually going to classes.

If Greg and Karen really do read these comments and take suggestions, here is mine: Drop this convoluted story arc and its conflicting characters ASAP and get Bernice back at home and going to the junior college so she can return to her BFF Luann’s life. That was always the continuing basis of this strip, and now I feel lost amidst all these attempts to move on (the warehouse, Brad and Toni and the longest engagement in history, Gunther and Tiffany, Luann and Quill).

Hell, I’d even settle for Delta coming back home, and I thought she was the least important regular character back in the day …

Now that the “spontaneous” drum circle has been decalred an official University-sanctioned “event”, as that event’s director, Bernice is now responsible for replacing about a thousand dollars’ worth of warped wooden drums and a shorted-out Karaoke machine. Have a brownie, Bernice.

Hey typical Evans ending to an arc. Bernice tries to seriously enforce rules in her new position, she gets waylaid by her college dorm mates, and her earth mother roommate, things look like they are falling off the rails, then suddenly they come together in a sweet one frame scene, that has Gunther and Tiffany as the focus, with Bernice being a willing participant in the outdoor party, that does not violate any of the self-same rules, and any issue about the “brownie” is left open to interpretation, and in the end, everything is cool, and she gets compliments. I love this strip!!!

If you think seismic is an unhappy camper, you’ve obviously never read any postings by comicsfan (sp?) at For Better or For Worse

Waaait a minute…she ate a pot brownie and this storyline has not concluded with the utter ruination of her RA and academic career?

You’re all right, Evans.

I think he only posts where the main character is female, because he has a serious hate thing against women…

The director in panel 3 looks like Sean Young from the movie Blade Runner

Why not have 20 or 30 “planets”? Why is 8 considered the right number?

Jupiter has 67 moons. Or do you want almost all of them to be classified as “dwarf satellites”?

“I started to look up the meaning, before realizing it was a typo!”^Good thing it wasn’t “de-carl -ed”… Then somebody would have to tell Carl to stay home,from the school, on that day…

LOL!!!

Eh. Those brownies really were clean, just as seismic said!

I do think Bern got a bit stoned; her behavior was very uncharacteristic of typical Bern (who is NOT the acting type). But going out into the cool rain always slaps one into reality when high on alcohol or pot. As with other arcs, a lot of things are left to our imagination and I think that is how Greg wants it. Readers can think what they want. I think this arc has been all about Bern learning how to loosen up and roll w/ the punches, and if it took a little MJ to do it then so be it.

If only the Director Knew..At one of the dorms I lived in during college, we got together one afternoon and decided to set up a Bonfire Pit in the courtyard.The inspiration may have been when one of the residents discovered a place where the University had been disposing of a bunch of old utility Poles (All the Electricity had been moved Underground) cut into 3 foot lengths.We loaded a pickup truck full of this conveniently sized bonfire wood and bought hot dogs and marshmallows..Everything was going fine until a couple of the guys decided the fire wasn’t Burning well enough and tossed on a Second Layer of logs,.Pretty soon, we had Flames reaching 20 feet into the air and everyone had moved back against the building Walls to get away from the heat..After a while, the flames began to die down, mostly because we refused to let out resident Firebugs throw any More wood on..Then, someone heard a Loud Knocking at the front door: The University Fire Department was LOOKING for the source of the Flames that had been reported in our area by someone who spotted them from the Library..We Lied Our Butts Off and swore we knew “Nothing, we are Innocent like Little Children”..We were also more careful on subsequent Cold Nights. Cookout over bonfire? Great. Stereo playing nice loud Music? Fine.More Visits from the fire Department? We’d rather Not, thanks..

LDover said,Bern has somehow accrued a cap!.From out of nowhere it seems..If it were blue, I might think it was from “wiener boy” — assuming that the barbecue-person is a male.

Yes,true- and that’s something I figured would be the rationale in looking back at the week, and is sort of akin to what the Evanses posted for yesterday’s strip, on the Luann FB page…though their description of yesterday’s strip was more so as a “snapshot” of looking on that as one of those pleasurable “memorable moments” in life…

But what’s the point in getting Bernice to mingle with these dorm-mates in September and then make them go away in mid-October, never to be seen again until the start of the next school year? Either use them throughout the year or never introduce them at all.

Don’t forget that Piro arrived with a bedroll ready to crash for the night. .A sort of habit with him.

Most of us get tired of waiting for the switch here, it takes such a looooonnnnnggggg time…

Still difficult for me to believe…