Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for May 22, 2021

okay… leave Nil hanging

Hm. ✨

Piro repeat?

Nil – cold hearted? No reciprocity?

Well, well. Somebody more blackheaded than Bernice!

End of Round One!

I guess we’ll have to wait for Monday for the girl-to-girl date debrief, except I think Bernice will clam up with Luann.

There’s a 50-50 chance we’ll be off to something else altogether!

She was surprised at herself. She is not the spontaneous type. Hurrying to her car is a sure sign she is embarrassed at herself, quite so that she doesn’t give Nil a chance to respond.

Uncertainty and fear of doing it wrong.

Nothing ventured eh Bernice. Nil has a new example of the “Unsaid”

The End! or The End?

Nil what the hell is your problem don’t leave Bernice hanging.

Maybe this is the ‘Slink of Shame’ thing that @mysterysciencefreezer was describing…

Well I stand corrected.

Nil IS going to be “abandoned in the parking lot,” after all.

After a week of what appeared to steady progress, Bernice reverts back to the predictable “nerd stereotype,” pulls a “Bets” and splits.

And from the looks of things, Bern was “repelled” by her Own kiss this time around. A VAST Luanniverse FIRST.

The town of Pitts had better send someone out to analyze the town water supply.

Because there must be something in the water that’s driving the town’s (female) youth,Nuts. ;)

Obsessive Bernice will be up all night thinking— reliving, analyzing, studying, scrutinizing, interpreting, rehashing and tormenting herself over every detail of this meeting with Nil. Nil behaved exactly as he should have. Anything more would have put her over the edge.

I believe Bernice sees spots before her eyes in Panel 2. Something she didn’t see with Piro’s kiss!

Can’t anyone in this comic make it through the night without running away???

Okay we saw the kiss coming but did we see this coming.

Is it still the best night of your life, Nil?

Aw crap, is Bernice about to ghost Nil just like she did Piro?

I don’t believe that Bernice has a clue of how to handle a relationship. She’s just quick to tell everyone else what to do.

Dang – that kiss spanned over two days (of strips).

Ugh, I don’t get this at all. Nil pays her a massive compliment, she gives him a nice kiss, and she gets NO response? Wtf? That would have bummed me out at her age—no wonder she turns away, looking embarrassed. I very much hope that Nil doesn’t let her drive off like this.

So the smartest, most interesting girl you’ve ever met kisses you….and you don’t grab her and kiss her back? WTF?

Nil is stunned as others noted, and Bernice is shocked at herself.

So will next week be her & Luann discussing & analyzing THE KISS to death?

The consensus seems to be that Bernice is hurrying away because she’s embarrassed about kissing Nil. It;s been a long time we’ve seen Bernice kiss anyone. She has passed herself past her comfort-zone to do that and now the reaction has set in and she has to go pronto. Next week Luann will pester Bernice about what happened. Bernice will claim nothing happened while wondering to her self why she did it.

This would be a great story arc if it happened to Luann, you know the titular hero if the strip.

It’s been revealed, Nil is a terminator. It all makes sense now.

Blew your chance Bernice.

Like his art- said nothing.

Can none of these characters have a normal interaction with a love interest? It makes for some pretty lethargic storylines.

Waste of a perfectly good rear seat …..

Nil the artist isn’t artful; Bern the psychologist is nuts!

Panel 2, they’re both in a state of shock and awe. And for the same reason: i can’t believe that just happened. Now Bernice is trying to leave to prevent Nill from giving her a return kiss, she wants to be in control of the situation. I can foresee her going home and Luann asking “so how was your date with lover boy?” And Bernice will bite her head off with “it wasn’t a date. i don’t wanna talk about it.”

Still thinking, she remembered Jack.

Awwwww …. so sweet and so confused ♡. They both can’t understand what just happened. Nil needs to get back to his Art Show, I’m afraid it will remain a lot of unsaid between them, at least for now. I hope Bernice doesn’t start avoiding Nil now because she doesn’t know what to do.

Is this a situation like with Piro? Bernice felt nothing during the kiss? Or is it simply she is mad at herself for doing something impulsive.

Nil said he thought Bernice was smart and interesting, he did NOT say he loved her or wanted a romance. She overreacted because she’s disappointed that Jack isn’t interested in her and is ready to throw herself at the first guy who shows interest, and now she’s embarrassed.

Hopefully the first person she runs into at home is Nancy and not Luann, who gives terrible romantic advice.

Bernice, don’t be afraid to show Nil that you love him.

What a nice capper to Nil’s day.

Dooooooooooooooooooofus!

in cold shock ( no blood in hands ,feet or Brain ) it renders the very young & very old catatonic .

There does seem to be a similarity in the last two arcs, no?

I think Bernice was right to leave. Nil provided no words, no smile, no movement of the arms.

Stunned. And so is she.

Yeah, may as well just cut it there.

On to the next arc. Maybe it’ll be actually funny….naw

the unsaid kiss!

Well, they were still kissing at the start of today’s comic.

And that’s exactly the response any girl wants when she gives away a kiss. Nil is so incredibly boring! What a loser. Move on the someone else Bernice, he doesn’t deserve you!

Undone.

His art showing title is “The Unsaid”. Thus, B leaving and Nil standing there saying nothing is….the unsaid.

Bern should leave. She didn’t kiss Nil because his deceleration of love swept her off her feet and changed her feelings for him. OK, I used the word love due a lack of a better word. She kissed him because his deceleration was heat-felt, genuine, and provoked a bit of empathy in her. It was a “bless your heart” kiss, not a romantic kiss.Can a bless your heart kiss become something more? Possibly. What are the chances? Pretty much Nil.

Shock, all around.

Here is your chance Nil

Bern: “What did I just do?” Nil: “Whoa! Did that actually just happen?”

The next move is his….if he has cojones?

Aspergers was mentioned in a few comments.

Just mentioned. Nothing more.

Anybody do any research on Asperger’s?

Anybody else Google Asperger’s + comic + strip + character.

This could get interesting.

Sunday: Frank and Nancy ponder TV shows.

Bernice is surprised at herself. Frankly, Nil’s expression in that second panel looks like the tiniest beginning of a smile.

Bernice…A hunka hunka burnin’ love!

More Shannon lol

Sorry Bernice, NIl is just not feeling it.

Thank you was implied, I think…..

Who ordered the anti-climax?

Ah, the world of asexuality

Is Nil autistic?

Welcome to disfunction junction!

Unsaid- the Mind of Nil! I wonder if Bernice will keep the kiss to herself, dream about it loud enough for Luann to hear and ask questions, if she doesn’t when she first sees Bernice. I don’t see this relationship going anywhere. Please surprise me! ;-)

Girls have been walking away from guys in Luann recently

Maybe it’s just me. I looked closely at yesterday’s last panel and today’s first panel. There are slight differences, such as the number of buttons on Bernice’s jacket. So, one panel was not copied from one day to the next. Not criticizing the art. Just wondering….Did Bernice kiss Nil twice?

But I did sort of see THIS coming…

I was thinking Bernice should become a romance novelist. She created the perfect ending to Nil’s “best night of my life” story.

He is probably in shock!

Okay, okay, it’s a start at least…

Whaaaaaat?

Bernice is not ready for dating…yet

She stunned herself. That unexpected compliment (It’s been a long time) undid her defenses. Time to regroup

This love scene is so sizzling hot, the street may melt.

If you look closely, Nil’s countenance is a bit sadder in the last frame. He looks disappointed that Bernice is leaving.

It puzzles me why so many posters here are constantly asking whether first Gunther and now Nil (or maybe B) are autistic or on the autism spectrum. There are plenty of other ’toon characters (here and elsewhere) who behalf oddly from time to time, but I only see this question raised here.

Nil is blind in one eye and can’t see out of the other!

Bernice seems just as shocked by the kiss as Nil. Again, wow!

I was originally going to say that Greg should have put more nuance in Nil’s expression but now I think he was taking advantage of the way Nil’s hair covers one of his eyes to make this panel and its meaning even more ambiguous.

Stunned?

Late commenting, story I can tell another time, bit I used to shake my head at 75 people getting mowed down in traffic, and a scary, but less lethal version of that happened to this 75 year old dude. but on the arc, a colder (not in a bad sense, in an Ingmar Bergman sense, there is something very dramatic about Scandinavian drama, as opposed to the warmer love drama surrounding Bets and Gunther) version of love where a protagonist leaves in a car, after some dramatic, expository event this is very well done, brilliant actually. Gunther needs to be expressive, enough to either commit Bets to him or let her go, Bernice needs to be NOT repressive, to gain Nil, a potential life love. Bets needs to be honest about her true feelings, and Nil needs to DAMN SAY SOMETHING, other than expressions of heartfelt love. Bernice needs to be romanced in a smart way, as Bets needs to be as well. But it takes two to Tango. Is the Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring of love?

Next time Bernice dreams of Jack, he will be naked…..

But with Nil holding up a picture of grapes and a banana, covering the private parts.

Luann wakes up to insane laughter.

I don’t see a second date happening

Nil is not reciprocating well, but he is Nil. Can’t expect a standard or well poised reaction from him. We may see them as a couple later on…

POP!

—That was the sound of any fantasies that a romance might be brewing here exploding. Nil’s “nil response” is like a large bucket of very cold water….

I imagine that next week will be Bernice and Luann debriefing the “date”. It’s worth noting that we don’t know for sure if Nil asked Jack to set him up with Bernice.

Has he ever kissed a girl before? She looks pretty ticked.

A lot of messed-up romances around here…

Well, all soap operas are basically romances with plots of business, criminal, and medical double-dealings tacked on.

Geez! Will you please hurry up and get laid?

A LOT of things “Unsaid” going on there.

Well, now I think they’re both confused.

It is the “Unsaid”

A new arc next week!

Haha! I love crazy, annoying Shannon!