Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for July 05, 2014

It’s not clear whether she’s actually happy that he’s coming with her to Peru, or she’s merely happy that he’s changed enough to be willing to come with her to Peru. Rosa has a whole lot more things to do once she gets there than just spend time with Gunther.

“It was the best of timing….it was the worst of timing….. Worrying is Gunther’s M.O.!

“The Agony Of De Cold Feet”“Just Another Nervous Wreck” ♫“What, Me Worry?”“Doin’ The Jitter Bug”“Pepto Abysmal”“Butterflies For Dinner”or “I Ate Some Rocky Bologna And Some Boogie Woogie Stew” ♫

Hmm… Now, Rosa says she’s happy… only one thing left…. To force her to submit to a lie detector test… no, wait- first, some truth serum “Honestly Good Soft Drink Beverage”… for celebration purposes, you know….yeah, that’s the ticket! …. – Gunther should be alright! That was just the effects of Rosa’s tight embrace… and that’s why he should learn to let go of that top button….

SPIN-OFFI SMELL A SPIN-OFFWell, maybe not but the times, they are a changing

Gunther “Jack” BergerRosa Jillian Aragones…..

Next up: Knute follows Crystal on her pilgrimage to Stonehenge, the Tower of London, and Dracula’s Castle.

I’m confident that they are wise enough to only go up hills that they can actually climb…. – Especially after Quill gave him the “father/ big brother” talk in teaching him the “consequences” of rolling down hills…..

Yeah, these kids will be alright! If you don’t get even the smallest bit nervous before a big endeavor, then “you’re not human”

Ha ha!! – I didn’t even notice my bad grammar! I forgot the “!” that goes after Quill!’s name…..

The king of cool, he ain’t!

I think we’ll hear from Gunther and Rosa again – or at least Gunther – just not regularly. At least, I hope we get an occasional update!

I see two possibilities for Gunther: 1) he gets involved with a local dance or puppet company once he gets to Peru, returns to the states and pursues a theater career, or 2) once in Peru, he sees how valuable engineering skills can be, and he eventually returns to the US to get that engineering degree. Either way, I see this as time of growth for Gunther. He’s going to leave Peru as more than just an appendage to Rosa.

Gunth is going to do the Ralph of True Love, International Edition.

Which could possibly lead to subsequent benefits for the clinic, down the line!

You may need a drink of water…. – But I suggest not getting it from the “run-off”…

> he may very well find a way to help get Gunther into an engineering school there in Peru.>Does Gunther understand Spanish well enough to attend engineering lectures that are taught in that language? (They’re hard enough to understand in English!) For that matter, does Gunther even understand Spanish at all?

Yes, it’s conceivable that Gunther took 4 years of Spanish. It’s also conceivable that he took only 2 years of Spanish, because that’s all that Pitt HS offers. It’s also conceivable that he took no Spanish at all. Under the present circumstances, it seems strange that he’s never mentioned his fluency, or lack thereof, in the language.

“…and am just now finally having a beer..” ^i.e., the “big boy kook aid”……

Come on now, Rosa, the boy’s willing to give up everything for you, some nervousness is natural. Quill, for his part, came to America on his own and just happened to meet an American girl while he was there. This boy’s leaving behind all he ever knew in hopes you’ll make him a man.

He is developing into the man you want him to be, he’s not quite there yet. But he’s showing you he wants to be there.

good thing about gunther. he is honest, and he is willing to go despite his inner fears about himself

“I’m also afraid they won’t let me bring my sewing machine on the plane—how can I make a candystriper uniform for volunteering at the clinic without it? I’m afraid a llama will spit on me when I get there, too!”

“I have a message. Gunther’s plane… was shot down… over the Sea of Japan. It spun in … there were no survivors.”

.Okay, maybe not. And maybe he’ll turn up next year in Victoria Principal’s shower.

Asperger Man strikes again…

It’s a comic strip. Assume Gunther has all the tools he needs till the comic explicitly states otherwise.

Remember, the Deus Ex Machina is strong in this one.

Actually, I think we need to give Gunther credit for having big brass ones here. Fearlessly going to Peru the way Rosa is isn’t particularly courageous, it’s simply doing what you want to do.

Being sacred to death of doing a (good?) thing, and then doing it anyway? That’s courage.

“Courage is not the absence of fear, rather, the judgment that something else is more important then fear.”

In this case, Rosa is that ‘more important’ thing. Gunther is hardly the first fictional character in history to decide a woman is more important then fear.

Go easy, Rosa! Gunther’s has made some big changes in his life very suddenly, for your sake. He’s entitled to be feeling a bit dizzied by it all. Just stand by him and help him get over it.

Even if Gunther hasn’t studied much, or any, Spanish in high school, he’ll do all right in Lima, which is a big, cosmopolitan city, while he learns one or more of the native tongues….

I think we are going to find that, like Brad, there is a lot more to Gunther than we have seen so far. Rosa is a fascinating character as well. This has excellent potential as we move past Pitts High School and into adult living. I’m very much intrigued.

Here we go. Best wishes to both.

Rosa’s RIGHT, Gunther.

SAVE the “Illness” Bit ’til after You get to Peru and drink the water….,

Sometimes I wish Greg could skip the 3rd panel.

Gunther will learn things that the protected environment of serious academe cannot teach. He may get bruised along the way but he is smart, kind, and responsible, so he will come out the other side as a man. A good man. A man with experience who was willing to get his hands dirty. Big lessons make big men and women.

Yeah Gunther. Suck it up if you’re going to be the man she expects you to be…

That, and English is still considered a major “business language”, so it’s possible that University students there may have to learn some in their preparation to go abroad, if that’s where their vocation plans lead…

Ha, ha! Those things come in pretty handy ! – The only other vice I’ve had got erased a while back…. had to make room for “the best of Al Roker”. VHS only has but so much room, you know….

Gunther is so friggin’ stiff, he can’t even hug Princess Rosa or be romantic in any capacity!

I seriously hope Sir Greg makes Gunther join the military soon because this story arc is unbelievable!

C’mon Gunther, you can do it.

Gunther needs a little practice being different than he is now, but he just graduated HS, so this is a good time to change.

Time to start learning the language, Gunther.

Gunther needs to change NOW !!

So Gunther should go on with his life in his little box. Afraid of anything and everything that is even slightly out of his comfort zone. Greg wrote Gunther with an obvious (to most) character flaw just like he has every character. Gunther is the lucky one that is going to go through a life changing experience and come out the other side a brave new man while his mother gets to also discover herself and have a life. I’m trying to see the problem here, but it just won’t reveal itself.

Who says he’s written out. Horizons are expanding.

I said earlier this is meant to be Gunther’s equivalent of Brad’s becoming a Firefighter. The Gunther that comes back, if we ever see him again, should be about as changed as Brad the firefighter is from original Brad.

Good one Brdshtt!

Poor Gunther, doing something he really doesn’t want to do because he feels pressure from others. I hope he learns to stick to his own values after this mistake. He has his own goals in life, things he does want to do and they do not involve going to Peru.

N.F.L. – they’re going to PERU – a LATIN AMERICAN country – where Uncle will stand-in for PAPA as necessary, and Gunther (whether Rosa wants him to or not) will maintain his “cold feet” attitude regarding preservation of skin in one piece until Rosa is safely double-ring-ceremony connected to him at the hip.Gunther is s-l-o-w-l-y becoming a Red-blooded, All-American boy; he is NOT going to become a Wild One overnight!

Gunther does NOT want to go to Peru, he just wants to be with Rosa. His motivation for this trip is all wrong and on some level he knows he is making a mistake

Bingo. The people here who really want Gunther to be his own man should root for him to go to Moony and study engineering, since that is his ambition. Rooting for him to follow Rosa to Peru just to be with her isn’t encouraging him to be his own man, it’s encouraging him to be Rosa’s man. How is that different from continuing to be a “Mama’s boy”?

“in other words, if he stayed he’d be another ReallyBad or Seismic.”.It’s not that bad. I went into engineering and still went to several foreign countries.(Married the girl from down the street, though.)

Rosa will be doing exactly what she wants by going to Peru. Gunther will be doing the opposite of what he wants. Giving in to others will not make him a strong man. He has good plans for his future, he should stick with his goals.

Well, look at it another way. Suppose he wants to upgrade colleges. “Volunteered in a clinic in Peru” looks REALLY good to a college admissions board, if you think about it. He doesn’t have to tell the college board he went there because of a hot chick, originally.

Gunther, your feelings are normal for a high school senior or recent graduate. It’s a big world out there, and right now it feels like you are jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. In reality it is more like jumping off the high dive for the first time. Once you emerge from the water you will find that it was hard but wasn’t that bad after all. ~Greg, you have done a great job in capturing the feelings and fears of the majority in that age group.

Suppose Rosa wanted to go to Antarctica to study elephant seals. Should Gunther, who has no interest in wildlife, devote a year or two (or more) of his life to accompanying her on that quest? (And at least in Antarctica, he does speak the language.)

@everyone

Applying Occam’s Razor allows us to deduce that Gunther has obtained reasonable fluency in Spanish -via one means or another- because otherwise we would have heard him, or someone, exclaim “But I [you] don’t speak any Spanish!” by now.

@everyoneApplying Occam’s Razor allows us to deduce that Gunther has obtained reasonable fluency in Spanish, via one means or another, because otherwise we would have heard him (or someone) exclaim “But I [you] don’t speak any Spanish!” by now.

Why is no one in the strip cautioning Gunther in any way against this extremely serious spur-of-the-moment decision? Mom’s okay with it, Quill and Rosa are okay with it, we have yet to see if Uncle is okay with it but the way it’s going he probably will be. I’d give more of a crap about this arc if it were even the slightest bit more realistic. Does he speak Spanish (done to death already in the comments)? Does he care at all about the Peruvian culture? How is he paying for all this? What is he going to do at the clinic? What is his exit plan, and what is he going to do about his dreams for higher education? And so on. And why does Rosa think it’s such a great idea? She’ll have to hold his hand even more than she does now, and she doesn’t like doing it now. They could be fine, but there sure isn’t much planning going on here. I’m betting something scotches this deal in the end.

I don’t recall that Gunther showed a particular passion about getting an engineering degree. The only thing he’s been really passionate about is creating costumes and story telling and such. Besides, he could easily go to Peru for the summer or even a year and then return for that engineering degree. I agree that in some ways this “brave step forward” is really the path of least resistance for Gunther. But at the same time it will be a radical change in environments, which may be just the shaking-up he needs to be able to identify and follow his own passions. “All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” – Martin Buber

Wow Gunther hope you aren’t expecting emotional support from this one.

Yah, this don’t make sense, but people do like to come up with ways to explain it—a task I would find EXHAUSTING!

To be fair, that didn’t end so well for Jack, even if we all cheered because Dicaprio kicked the bucket.

Gunther,

Don’t live your life in fear.

Gunther,Don’t live your life in stupid.Or at the end of the leash Rosa is holding.

“People just don’t want to move to Antarctica which very different from any other continent. A real ridiculous exaggeration here.”-I want to go there once it thaws.

My point is that if it were somehow possible for Gunther to accompany Rosa to Antarctica (say, the expedition were funded by another one of Rosa’s uncles, who is rich and interested in seals), it would be stupid for Gunther to go along just to be with Rosa. Now substitute “Peru” for “Antarctica”, and it’s still a stupid thing for him to do.

Gunther needs to stop being one and start getting some.

How does one go on a spur of the moment trip to Peru? Okay, he somehow has his passport already, but he just so happens to get the last seat on the same plane as Rosa? How much would that cost? Isn’t the price like triple or something at such short notice? Gunther and his mom must be rolling in dough. Hey, I know, they just coincidentally happened to win the lottery to pay for everything! Even though I predicted he would go with Rosa, I don’t think it’s a good idea unless it’s just for the summer, and in that case, good thing his mom bought that lottery ticket.

Other than that, the strip was pretty funny today :)

Have to wait a hundred years?Maybe we can speed things along with increased greenhouse gas emissions.

Well, if you want to go to Peru with Rosa, Gunth, it’s up to you. I just don’t think this is a good idea for someone your age to take. Sure, this is love with Rosa, but take advice from the King, “Wise Men say, only fools rush in.”

It’s bad down there in South America and you don’t have any family down there except Rosa. What if Rosa does something that will make you angry or if you have any problems? Your Mom won’t be around if you need some advice. Gunth, I think your Mom might’ve messed up because many people would call you a “Mama’s Boy.” I don’t care what other people think because I was an only child too. It’s rough being an only child most of the time and it seems like your mother is not doing well. My late mother helped me out with my life’s problems and I returned the favor when she was alive. When my Mother past away back in 1994, it’s too late to ask for advice from my Mom because she went down that road called life just as you did. Quinn is NOT your brother, got it? Quinn might would like to go Down Under too.

Anyway, forgive me for going off the subject, but I agree with Airman and Tech Talk guy about Gunth going into the military. I don’t think Gunth isn’t a really “macho” guy who wants to kill everything in sight. Thus, being a US Marine is out of the picture. If someone wants to do that stuff, that’s fine. Our military is an all-volunteer force. Army is alright, Coast Guard Ok, and Navy you have to stay of ships and subs for several months. Gunth has brains. Therefore, being a US Airman will be the ideal military branch for Mr. Berger. Heck, Gunth could be in the US AF Reserve or in the Air National Guard to do 2 days a month, 2 weeks for every year. That way, he can go to college under the GI Bill and checkup on his Mom every now and then.

This is what I have to say.