Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for September 18, 2015

You want to get married next 9/11?

Brad had a life-changing experience in 2001. So now the premise is that he’s about 30 years old, but Luann is only 18? That really undoes much of the strip’s history.

Brad must like where this is going.

Hopefully for them her idea involves the fire pole and coordination.

Sure, pull over. I can see the headlines: “Firefighters caught on fire”

Professor oak: Now’s not the time for that ! haha

Cue a Pinky and the Brain, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” gag.

If he were in his early 20s, he would have grown up knowing about 9/11 nearly all his life. It couldn’t have changed him, because he always would have been the same.

I don’t understand the posters who are suggesting some sort of “Pull over” scenario. What would happen – Brad and Toni go at it in the back seat, while moaning “9/11! 9/11!”? I surely hope that’s not what Team Evans is implying!

“Brainstorm And Enlightening”“Seeds From Ashes”“Circumstances” (♫)“Something From Nothing” (♪)“Bright Thoughts From A Dark Time”“Backstory And Forth”“Demanding A Recount”or“Assume The Exposition”

yes…yes….pull over..right now…even if it is wrong pull over….jeez how many time i did not …..well never mind…..PULL OVER….even if it seems stupid….pullover…

Hmm. This could be interesting; the arc could go in so many different directions! What will Toni and Brad do, in fact?

So the strip explicitly anchored Brad’s HS graduation to before 9/11, back then. I figured that had been dropped from the current continuity (like Superman’s being old enough to take part in WWII), but today’s strip shows that it is still “true” that Brad was a HS grad during 9/11. Hence, he is now about 32 or 33. No wonder Nancy was hoping B&T would have kids right away.

“Go Comics only goes back to 2005”

Nope. In Luann’s case it goes back to September 1, 1985.

Why couldn’t Toni suggest that her ‘scary exciting’ idea be that they head for a Justice of the Peace right now, and get married?

I thought he did because of Toni. Way back when Toni first appeared, she was dating Dirk. Brad got into shape for Toni then applied to be a FF when he found out she was doing it.

I think she’s going to say she wants to run to the JP right now.

I think maybe Toni’s got a little fire that needs putting out right now.

I agree. If he learned about it in depth in school, it still could have had a profound affect. Some of the stories still get me teared up.

She might want to get married in NYC at the WTC Memorial….not every girl’s dream venue, but…this is a comic strip.

OK, I’m quite on the hook for tomorrow…

“It GAVE me YOU???”

Hooo-Boy, POSSESSIVE, Brad! Most Gals DON’T Like It When You Get Possessive. When You Do, You’ll end up Enduring a 45 Minute, “You Don’t OWN Me Speech.”Never Mind That Her Last “Boyfriend” was a Possessive, Brutish, GORILLA that She Spent Several Years Willingly Dating, Before Noticing that YOU Presented a Viable, SAFER, More Controllable Alternative.

Now Repeat After Me LOUDLY: "You DON’T “Own” Her, SHE OWNS YOU!"

Good! Now DROP and GIVE Her 50…..,

I agree, he didn’t need to be adult to be effected by what happened that day.

If you’re wondering how he eats and breathes And other science facts, Just repeat to yourself "It’s just a show, I should really just relax

Toni is so out of Brad’s league that their relationship and engagement never convinced me.

Maybe it’s get married at the fire station!

No Brad, don’t pull over. but keep her excited & hurry home! The weekend begins & they are off shift so they can enjoy it as well as us!

I was thinking the same thing. He could have been 10 or younger. I think watching the events made him want to become a firefighter. My daughter was born in 2001 and is affected by 9/11 – how could any American not be?

Schwing!!!!!

It will be interesting to hear what Toni things is both “Scary” and “Exciting” about her idea. Scary, to me, never seems good.

According to predictions there will finally be an interesting story-line frame in this week long string of miscellaneous jabber. I suppose that is Saturday.

“Yeah…suppose we get married on the NEXT 9/11 — of 2016! The 9/11 of that year will be a Sunday, and maybe we can have the Fire Department Chaplain do the wedding vows…”

I have a hard time figuring out how 9/11 could be sexually stimulating.

Just go with it. One doesn’t want to over analyze fantasy. To put it in a way that the more mathematical might understand: This is the equivalent of the “Doogie Houser Threshold” of belief.

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” — Emerson

Now here is a cliff-hanger.

If the strip wants us to think that Brad was just a kid in 2001, it would have him say, “I’ve always been inspired by the heroes of 9/11.” However, by having him say that the events of that day changed him, the strip is admitting that he was at least a teenager then, just as the original strips showed. So Brad is acknowledged to be about 30, at the youngest.

Err…it sounds to me like she wants to get married at the firehouse. These other ideas never crossed my mind.

Lemme guess…the fire station for the place , Toni rides a fire engine to her wedding, and a firefighter arch of crossed fire axes to walk thru !

Agreed. Let’s hope that’s not what Toni means. That sort of palm-to-the-face “I can’t believe what this strip just did!” hackwork is the domain of Funky Winkerbean.

Dear Internet: Can you cough up some numbers for me? How many thousands of couples have gotten married on December 7?-———————There’s the bait. Takers?

“Brad’s decision to become a fireman was illustrated in January 2002.”^True. The reason I didn’t put up that strip where the inception began (a couple of weeks prior to their EMT training) was only because I decided to show it, according to the point raised by “redwinger” in question, as to when Brad and Toni existed in the whole “timeline”, and also to specifically show just how Toni and Brad’s relationship has changed, in it’s nature, since their first encounter with each other. – Of course, though, I don’t mean to take away from your fine point- and what you have shown (which is the “beginning of the beginning”), the true “point of origin” for this whole “new life for Brad”.

This wouldn’t have anything to do with that 9/11 wedding that happened last week, would it?

“If one wishes to go back to the very first Luann strip on March 17, 1985, they do not even have to mess with the calendar. Simply click on the two left facing orange arrows immediately above the right side of any day’s strip. One step…"^This is very true, what you’ve said… one easy, simple click of the double orange arrow takes you to the very first one ever! – And I should have put that in there, as well. I choose to blame it on the “late starting time”…

Folks – it’s called “comic book time”. Alternately, a “floating timeline”. You can look them up on TV Tropes and Wikipedia, respectively. As the author of one webcomic put it, “This [comic] is not gradually going to become a period piece.” If you don’t want that to happen, this is how comics have to work!

remember an incident in a “swimming hole” that a few of us frequented, as teens. One of us got into an incident and was starting to drown. One girl in particular came to the rescue, though, out of everyone else. Her care and courageous actions really came through, and though she herself didn’t become a rescue person as an occupation, what you said just reminded me that it’s good when people can “step in and help”, and even better when we have people who “invest time, etc.” to become professional emergency care personnel, which is a true service to our community!

I can’t believe Toni would suggest getting married on 9/11. That is a terrible idea and she is usually portrayed as being smarter than that.

Yes, that is a vital point, indeed! Good show!!!

Perhaps, instead of this being an “idea” of being wed on that date, what if, perhaps … this is an “idea” that they “get married in New York City” ?- (Of course, much respect and consideration for the losses also suffered in Va [the Pentagon, in Arlington], and PA [near Shanksville])

I wonder what Toni’s idea is? I suspect Mr. Evan’s will surprise me, like he did with Dez’ outdoor drum circle party. I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s episode!

I just don’t see what good idea, whether “scary-exciting” or not, could possibly emerge from this context.

Let’s hope she means “Let’s hold the wedding at the fire station!”, since that’s the blandest possible idea, and since 95% of the people herein already predicted it ages ago

On the other hand, if she actually does suggest they get married next year on September 11, let’s hope the very first person to whom they tell their wedding plans responds with “Will you just listen to yourself? Do you understand what a truly stupid idea that would be???” And then they admit that they hadn’t thought about just how insensitive such a ceremony would be, and they drop the plan before telling anyone else.

Why do say they are morons? First of all this is a comic world to begin with. Their back story is not only interesting, its actually quite dramatic for a comic. What have they ever done moronic? They might be joking around now, like young couples do, but that is not moronic. I don’t understand the basis of this negativity. I mean criticism is fine, but this I simply must ask, where does it come from, and what is the context behind it’s basis?

Taking a sledgehammer to the walls to look for a missing child seems less than a brilliant idea (for a trained rescue professional!), too.

I wish this comic would’ve been unveiled on 9/11 (7 days ago).

Hey, Luannfan1212 – " I don’t understand the basis of this negativity." — It’s all about attention seeking. The last laugh and ridicule takes place at the watering holes when cartoonists get together. Creatives stick their necks out and hecklers chop away — or so they think.

And I don’t understand this “It must be jealousy” characterization of criticism. I have never been a professional athlete, nor have I ever tried to be one, nor have I ever wanted to be one, but I can (and do) still criticize a player when he makes an obvious mistake. After all, he is a professional, so he should do better. That’s not jealousy, that’s realism.

right ..there could be dire consequences from even small changes … just ask Vice President Zork..VP Zork of the united counties of America? That one?

Conversations between Toni and Brad when they are alone together always seem like one sarcastic or otherwise heavily loaded remark (with hidden meaning) after another. It’s almost as if they still aren’t comfortable with each other enough to just act normal. It makes their relationship always seems like it is on edge. Sure, Luann and Quill have these moments but at least there are some happy love moments too. We never see this with Toni and Brad. They seem to have this snide ominous stalking kind of interaction.

> didn’t use the word “jealousy” that I recall ….>Right, the words that you used were “unable” and “envy”.

They get dropped because someone takes offense and writes a letter to the editor. All it takes is a handful of complaints to get a strip pulled.

Let’s hope today’s strip was just a “teaser” (like Bernice’s eating the brownies, or Luann and Quill’s turning out the lights), and Toni will suggest only that they get married at the fire station, in uniform, with a chaplain officiating. No particular date planned for the ceremony.

My first thought on the morning on 9/11 when I heard the news: “Pearl Harbor all over again”.

Letter writers are quite capable of jumping to their own conclusions without any prompting from online posters, and indeed, they are often eager to do so. However, the letters of complaint will start flowing only if the strip does indeed go in the hinted direction, so let’s hope Team Evans was just being coy about Toni’s true meaning.

Blondie doesn’t make references to the Great Depression or World War II. Most older strips stop mentioning historical events when they took place so long ago that the characters would be unrealistically old in the present day. I would have thought Luann would do the same, but apparently they are still adhering to the “Brad decided to become a firefighter as a result of 9/11” premise, instead of updating it to some more recent event, such as the California wildfires.

Who here has said, “I could write a better comic strip?” I get back to my previous comment about how you don’t need to be a professional athlete or claim that you could be one, to criticize professional athletes whose performance you deem lacking.

Aren’t weddings supposed to be joyous events? It’s hard to mix that with “reverence”.

“Let’s all observe a moment of silence for the thousands who perished on 9/11. OK, now everybody to the dance floor!” It just won’t work.

The whole idea would be astonishingly tacky and tasteless. Let’s keep our fingers crossed for a few more hours that this turns out to be a false alarm.

So nobody ever does things which on reflection were moronic? The strip you showed was not moronic, is was romantic drama in the context of them both painfully growing up and reacting to some pretty dramatic things that had occurred, and eventually realizing how much they loved each other. If there is a romantic couple out there who has not had moments like this, I want to know. That is not moronic. Moronic means without any thought or reason, here there was thought and reason AND emotion. Not moronic.

It’s just that now we have one specific date, 11 September 2001, so if the strip takes place in the current day, Brad’s “life changing” event took place 14 years ago. That’s why the usual procedure in comics is to change the event in the original story (namely 9/11) to something more recent, such as the CA wildfires I mentioned. For instance, in Apartment 3-G Lu Ann Powers was originally a Vietnam war widow, but now she’s a widow from war in Afghanistan.

AGREED!!

Not the ones this year. I was referring to other major CA fires in the recent past, such as the Bolles fire last year.

After all, Brad has been a firefighter for some time now, so the events that inspired him to join the force couldn’t have been this year.

I mostly skimmed the comments today as I got to them late. So I apologize if this has been suggested.·My take is that Toni wants to set the date before 9/11/16. Then they can honor the heroes while visiting New York City during their honeymoon.·Maybe some would find that offensive too…

The world won’t go to Hell. The comic strip, however, may go to the editor’s waste basket. Let’s see what reaction this incredible act of insensitivity inspires among the newspaper subscribers of America.

Like you and Sir Dave have helped me appreciate, sometimes you try to help them see, hoping to “crack through with some light”… but some days, ’tis not gonna happen…

That wasn’t the point of that song, and you know that very well.

I’m really stunned by this decision. At the very least, it’s in poor taste.

Yup… I had several of my colleagues, and spiritual kin also to sadly perish in that tragedy, and they would agree…

And as we find out, will it even be any wonder? (Heh, heh!!) -I at least know one hint: It ain’t Stevie…

Do you see the difference?^Yes, I do. Hitler wasn’t invited.

I am also reminded of how locally in my area, many have recently lost their lives in a spate of violence. And yet, many still go on and have celebrations on that day, weddings and so on, in the years after on that same date, even though a tragic loss of life/lives happened on that day in particular, as well…

Thank you! – I guess it’s time for the new strip?

And for the record, I am not one to get involved in the political affairs of this world. I have hope in a future that won’t be marred by divisions and strife, brought about by a Source that won’t get embroiled by such things. But my point though is the same as what Brd just stated: Life is to live, not to be not lived, due to the evil that men do….

But as I was just mentioning, many other lives have been lost on this day, 9/11 and other days. No one bats an eye on, say, holding their celebration on 9/19, today, the same day as “Joe Public” lost their life a few years back. No…. they just “forget” about him. So one life, hundreds of lives, thousands of lives. Lost on 9/11, lost on 9/19, lost on other days. No one ever says to stop doing things on the other days, aren’t their lives worth the same respect?

On the same day as the Luann comic debuted in 1985, I lost my dear friend in an auto accident. I was almost going to go with he and another person, and I sometimes reflect on that fact. I remember that tragic event happening on the same day that Luann first came out. In fact, though I don’t personally celebrate birthdays, I do turn another age, on that very week. I don’t try to force anyone to mourn with me, and I don’t try to forget my friend on that day, either. But I do realize that the sun still can shine on that day….

Yes! We can still mourn loss, and yet still celebrate life!

Well, I’ve said my peace. I look forward to another day. I look forward to a time of future peace on Earth (as I believe that it will be, as the Bible says). I don’t think there will be any productivity in attempting to bring a little goofiness and hopefully a smile here tomorrow, nor would it be prudent to get “caught up” in an argument. So I guess I’ll just “call out”, today…

Nope, don’t buy it. I looked it up, looked back on it. First mention came a few weeks after, Brad over-reacted and wanted to be a soldier, but nothing came of that. October 2001. January of 2002, ONE strip had Brad saying the 9/11 firefighters have inspired him, and he wants to be a firefighter. Since then, nada, nothing until now.