Okay, who’s satirizing whom now??
Cidu Bill on Apr 10th 2010
This Luann strip
was followed by this Shortpacked parody
which in turn was followed by today’s Luann:
Filed in Bill Bickel, David Willis, Greg Evans, Luann, Shortpacked, breasts, comic strips, comics, humor | 24 responses so far
Jessica Apr 10th 2010 at 01:33 am 1
Good job getting your pronoun cases straight!
Keera Apr 10th 2010 at 05:50 am 2
It’s obvious that both cartoonists read CIDU. Yay!
mitch4 Apr 10th 2010 at 07:43 am 3
Besides CIDU, a lot of “Luann” discussion hits the boards at Comics.com. They followed this “Shortpacked” repartee much as it played out on CIDU, though the atmosphere there is typically a little more fraught.
And both forums picked up the point that Luann’s beasts can’t really be called the largest in comics, even if you exclude big-all-around ladies like Loweezy Smif. But that doesn’t remove Shortpacked’s point that a lot of attention is being given to them, especially given that she’s nominally 16.
This twist-back with Aaron Hill was not predictable nor predicted however! And Bill’s speculation then is plausible — Evans might be replying to Shortpacked. (How do lead times affect this possibility?)
Carolyn Apr 10th 2010 at 08:13 am 4
Can anyone tell me who Aaron Hill is?
Rain Apr 10th 2010 at 08:59 am 5
@ Carolyn–Luann’s unattainable crush.
@ Mitch–tell me more about Luann’s “beasts”!!!
Igelino Apr 10th 2010 at 09:25 am 6
@Rain and @Mitch LOL!! Good catch!
George P Apr 10th 2010 at 10:46 am 7
Aaron is her friend’s older brother, right?
This could have been planned. Remember when Scotty showed up at Luke and Laura’s wedding? No, I guess you don’t.
Charlene Apr 10th 2010 at 10:50 am 8
Uh, three thumbs up?!?
Susan T-O Apr 10th 2010 at 11:15 am 9
Totally off topic here, but am I the only one who’s a little creeped out by how Quinn (Quill? Whatever) always has that cheesy little grin on his face?
Bob Apr 10th 2010 at 11:42 am 10
Charlene - weird things occur in dreams.
OMJulie Apr 10th 2010 at 12:04 pm 11
@George P - Aaron Hill is just the “extremely good-looking guy” from Luann’s school. He was her unattainable crush pretty much from the beginning of the comic (back before they aged everyone from dorky 13-year-olds to more ‘attractive’ 16-year-olds, even) up until a few years ago, when Evans magicked him away to Hawaii for some reason. The strip has struggled to find a replacement for him ever since, with a constant revolving-door of supposedly attractive men who come in and out, leaving Gunther as literally the only guy her age in her life for any significant period of time (which I doubt is a coincidence, story-wise - Evans knows nobody wants Luann to end up with him so he’s isolating the two characters, Liz-and-Granthony-style).
Her friend Bernice’s older brother Ben, whom she also had a crush on for a while, was a soldier, I believe, whom Bernice’s parents gave up for adoption when he was a baby or something like that. He came back from Iraq (I think) and Luann and Bernice engaged in some weird jealousy thing over him for a while. He quietly faded out of the strip quite a while ago, too.
Um, not that I read this strip much, or anything…. (*awkward cough*)
Mervin the perv Apr 10th 2010 at 12:17 pm 12
I give that 3 ‘appendages’ up…..
Kate C Apr 10th 2010 at 01:42 pm 13
Is this implying that the whole school play storyline has been a dream, or just Aaron’s comments?
mitch4 Apr 10th 2010 at 03:00 pm 14
@Kate — the developing consensus is that the whole West Side Story plot has been real, but today’s strip was Luann’s dream from the first panel (not just Aaron’s appearance in panel 2).
turquoise cow Apr 10th 2010 at 03:03 pm 15
@Kate - maybe everything since Quill arrived has been a dream…
maybe everything since Aaron left has been a dream…
Maybe the whole strip has been a dream and now Luann will wake up and go off to school and into life with completely different friends, classmates, and family.
Okay, probably not. But that would be an awesome restart button.
John DiFool Apr 10th 2010 at 03:48 pm 16
Kind of like that Buffy ep. where she wakes up in the nuthatchery and everyone tries to convince her that, no, she’s not a Slayer of all Evil that Walks (or slithers etc.). Luann’s new haircut (before the brunette wig that is) was modeled IMHO after Sarah Michelle’s.
starfall42 Apr 10th 2010 at 04:43 pm 17
Years ago there was a reader vote on whether Luann should go with Gunther or Aaron. I actually voted for Aaron because I didn’t like the afterschool-specialishness of “she finds the plain but ‘nice guy’ is the one after all”. I think Evans was unhappy that Aaron won because he wanted the “nice guys can win too” story, and I think that’s why he sent him off to Hawaii.
Chakolate Apr 10th 2010 at 09:58 pm 18
Interesting - the last comic was cut off, so I right-clicked it to open it in another tab, and it readjusted itself on the page so I could see it all.
Is that supposed to happen?
Powers Apr 11th 2010 at 07:29 am 19
Wait, people don’t like Gunther-Luann as a pairing? They seem perfect.
buzz Apr 11th 2010 at 04:45 pm 20
@Susan T-O — With dark hair, Quill looks like TJ, Brad’s ethnically/sexually ambiguous roommate. With dark hair, Luann looks a lot like her mom, Nancy. There had been speculation the WEST SIDE STORY arc was going to have some hot Nancy-on-TJ-action-by-proxy but that doesn’t appear to have panned out.
DavidF Apr 11th 2010 at 10:20 pm 21
People seem to think the “lead times” issue means comics can’t be changed even up to the last minute. Cartoonists may be contractually obligated to have a certain time block of cartoons ready to go ahead of time, but that doesn’t preclude substitutions. Even in the pre-internet days, strips sometimes did last-minute replacements by fax when needed (I think this happened with the infamous Bobby London Popeye abortion sequence). It has to be even easier these days. Whether the substitution gets to every single market is another matter, but they can try.
Cidu Bill Apr 12th 2010 at 06:16 pm 22
DavidF, certainly syndicated cartoonists can make emergency substitutions, but this sort of thing is reserved for things like a space shuttle gag that’s scheduled to run two days after a space shuttle blows up. Writing, drawing and distributing a last-minute replacement strip for the sake of tying into a Shortpacked comic… probably won’t happen.
Hunt Apr 13th 2010 at 08:49 am 23
I thought Quill was the sexually ambiguous one.
DPWally Apr 14th 2010 at 01:16 pm 24
I think “Luann” is headed for a brief, implausible, Tiffany-Gunther pairing. Actually, I find the Tiffany-talking-to-Gunther plotline implausible. She just wouldn’t.