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

Yesterday, Toni was a mess cleaning up the truck. Today, she’s not.

“We’re firefighters! We deal with difficult situations every day…” Is that a hint, or what?!

“Wedding Bell Blues” (♫)“InferNo Cakewalk” (III)“A Long Mile Down The Aisle”“A Trying Knot To Tie”“Enter Strategy”“For Your Love” (♫)or“There’s No Place Like No Place”

Has there ever been the slightest bit of doubt that they would get married in the fire hall? There’s no need to pretend that they’re the sort of people who might get married somewhere else, because they aren’t. Just get on with it, already.

Skip the wedding and go straight to the honeymoon…

It’s not a bad plan. Go to Vegas, Elope, live your lives together. Cheaper then a real wedding, at least.

They should have a firehouse wedding…

I called it last week… Courthouse, here we come….

Somebody hit these two with the clue-by-4: The Fire Station is the perfect wedding venue for them.

skip the wedding and go straight to the bedroom ….. er….. honeymoon …. er …. same thing.

Probably because it’s an overwrought and pointless tradition that does nothing but encourage getting guilted into tens of thousands of dollars of debt for gaudy crap you only use once.

“……suggesting they skip it entirely.”But not the honeymoon.

Ba da boom! Boom boom boom!!

Straight to the honeymoon. Geronimo! We won’t get to see that…

their first dance can be burning down the house

OR you can have a “firefighter style wedding”!!

As seen in these 3 links below, it’ll be perfect for them!!

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/58/171669785_191f85f51f.jpg

http://cdnpix.com/show/256212666271138689_0Eml9wBq_c.jpg

http://blog.shandrophoto.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/SBW436.jpghttps://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/b6/64/30/b66430b67132680c2e9662f424b127a7.jpg

To religious people hearing them say that, they would be infuriated!

Woohooo!! Go, Toni! I like the way that girl thinks… :)

Are you trying to read too much into it? Or are you just jealous of Brad?

When Toni says it’s harder to get married than be married she’s showing a side of herself I hadn’t seen before: the stupid side.

There are no banquet halls or hotel ballrooms around? This is not that big of a problem. My suspension of disbelief is suffering here.

the answer is staring them in the face

Sorry, I can’t recall why a church was totally out of the question.

elope or have the wedding at your station! There is usually a hall and kitchen available (brad’s station or toni’s)

The most obvious answer to their dilemma is a House of Worship (i.e, a church, synagogue, mosque, what have you). I know that will likely offend those who are easily offended (clue: if you’re offended by what I wrote, I’m talking about you) but Greg’s dancing around it seems awkward. Having said that, the second most obvious answer is the firehouse. And, to add to the…uniqueness of the situation, Brad’s Captain will officiate.

Could Brad be a bigger dope? Truly, his father’s son. As with his parents’ dynamic; gorgeous, sexy Mom using superior intellect and feminine wiles to guide dopey ol’ Dad to the correct conclusion. We have Toni doing the same with Brad here.

Yesterday the truck was a mess, today it is not. Lots of continuity.

Okay. Let’s just suspend any connection to reality. This is a cartoon existing outside the bounds of reality, not subject to the demands of religion and politics. Toni just wants to move in together, sleep together, and let Nature take its course. If that means marriage down the line, then so be it. In the meantime, Toni wants to live the fantasy…………..go for it.

We’ve come such a long way, from Luann crushing on Aaron Hill to a honeymoon without a wedding.

“What is the real issue here?”*RB – First, Toni is quite the deal when she can clean up from yesterday’s strip and look great today with just a squrt of a sponge.*Toni has no family and few friends. Almost everyone at a large wedding will be a stranger to her from Brad’s side. Why would she want to be married in front of a roomful of judgmental strangers?

If they thought planning a wedding was hard, try planning a honeymoon.

So, I looked up “414” to see if there was any significance. In Urban Dictionary it ranged from an area code in Wisconsin to various sexual deviations, to a code for “dad”.

“Let’s hear her say it!”-We may have to wait for them to accidentally get on a bus full of senior citizens on tour and get carted around for a couple weeks before they actually say how they feel.

There’s also the possibility of the “warehouse space” as a possible place for either the wedding or reception that they had TJ eyeing during the last week in October, as a hint of how he might spend his “insurance money”….

Since the reason that Toni proposed to Brad was that she saw Dirk with his wife and infant, clearly she should marry Brad in the same place where Dirk married Mrs. Dirk.

> Don’t confuse story-arc-time with real time.

However, ever since the summer before Luann’s senior year of high school, the strip has been progressing in approximately real time. Luann completed her senior year in one year, and the same for her first semester of junior college. Brad and Toni’s engagement has therefore also taken just as long in comic-strip time as it has in comic-readership-time, all that while without any serious discussion of the wedding (much less of their married life afterwards).

One option: Go to a minister who does weddings for couples, regardless if they attend the church where he preaches or not. Get married in that church. You don’t have to dress up fancier than your Sunday best or even that. Just dress clean and modest in respect to God because it is His house. You don’t need a crowd. All you really need is two witnesses. Believe it or not you don’t need a crowd or music to get married in a church. However, Brad wants more than that. A compromise is in order.

Really good suggestion. Much better than just calling the whole thing off.

Maybe she has the sense not to want to pay for it. She does not seem to have parents to do that.

They haven’t already?

Do you have any idea how many babies are born to unmarried parents? And not just to minorities. There aren’t always weddings.

“If we see a engagement that only happened because of Dirk moving on”

It happened because Brad caught her when she fell off a ladder, remember?

I say have it at the fire station!

Activist could mean “Strangers at a wedding” to imply those of the DeGroot family that Toni hasn’t met yet. We don’t know if she’s had the chance to meet anyone outside of Brad’s immediate family… – And too, apart from Toni, Jonah and Shannon, we don’t know if Toni has “kept tabs” on any of her family… so it could be that Toni could feel “overwhelmed” at that prospect… unless Greg and Karen fill in the back story and have Toni to keep in contact with more of her own relatives (or even Brad’s) than shown in the panels….

Actually, seeing Dirk having moved on (and changed) prompted Toni to realize she needed to move forward… -

Why so they keep protesting that it’s impossible to find a venue for a wedding? The town of Pitt has motels, doesn’t it? Motels have conference rooms and banquet rooms. Rent one, hire a minister or a Justice of the Peace, and be done with it. They are trying to make it as if there’s just no alternative to getting married in the fire station, so they’ll <i<have to have the wedding there, when in fact they’re exactly the sort of couple who do have their wedding at the fire station just as a matter of course.

Hold it at the firehouse.

We also paid for our own. But in the months leading up to the wedding day, a lot of surprise gifts came about (including a nice honeymoon package and a free wedding cake) and a couple of gifts of a small amount of “fun money” to spend on our honeymoon!

The question is, will we ever get to see Toni in some baby doll and bikini or is she going to get married in her pants from the fire house! Greg never responds as he is quite negative on her looks!

Once again, Reallybad, you are seeing drama where it isn’t there. Toni knows how men think, and is just engaging in some humorous banter that would catch any mans fancy. Why do you insist on seeing hidden hostile messages in light hearted humor. I know that Toni resisted the idea of marraige for a long time, probably becaause of her bad experience with her ex. But when she finally got over it. She proposed to HIM! Is it really impossible in your eyes for a couple to just be happy?

Somebody needs a gentle application of the cluestick… Have it at your &^&^ firehouse, dudes!

She is ready for the honeymoon to start NOW

“that’s quite a negative presumption. Why “judgmental”? "*Dave – from the point of view of a woman who knows Brad but not Toni, Toni will get negative comments because 1) she’s beautiful and many women feel a need to put down beautiful women, 2) she has no family and many women will therefore not respect her, and 3) they don’t know her.*This, at least, is what Toni could legitimately be anticipating. On the other hand, if they have it at the fire station, her friends as well as his will be represented.

The other strips that go with it show how they demonstrate how they work out their issues and learn a thing or two from Frank and Nancy’s “We” strategy (nice to see couples proactively doing so before the wedding day)…. -

-

And that last strip with them together…complete with a humorous bit of “ending where they started”, with Puddles and his bowl….

Pretty provocative statement there, Toni!

Yeah, and it seems like a good strip for the future, where it shows that they still do that sort of thing….

I agree. And I also like that they’re drinking out of ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’ mugs…

We get it. You’re going to be married at the fire station. I can’t wait for the crappily drawn group scene in front of the garage door with a fire truck in the background.

LOL, and I told you about our “dishware story”….

Here’s a novel idea. How about a church?

Umm…City Hall? A park? If they want a simple wedding, why are they looking at all the fancy places?

Toni has the right idea – lets get on with it so we can be together! Brad needs to forget the big shindig. All they need is family & close friends in a friendly place. Or ELOPE!

its a comic strip. dont get so invested

Have the wedding ceremony on Brad’s front lawn. Hold the reception at Weenie World. Stop fretting and just get married, already.

For those who are going “it’s just a comic” if you noticed you can speak to the “real Luann” on the 20th…

Yes, ma’am!

Yesterday, Toni was a mess cleaning up the truck. Today, she’s not.]]-Nice catch, bad continuity error there.]]…Maybe she stopped after the heavy work was done and cleaned up.

Um… how ‘bout a church? There’s a novel idea….

This is just a comic strip, right?

There are churches like the Unitarian Universalists where the minister won’t lord it over a prospective bride and groom, demanding that they conform to his dogma..

“Skip the Wedding and straight to the Honeymoon,” Huh?

Don’t get too EXCITED, Brady-Boy.

Toni’s “Offer” Includes taking Shannon…..,

This is one of the simplest problems to solve.Brad needs to ask himself what he wants and plan accordingly.

Do you want it cheap and fast or good?

You can go to Vegas and get a quickie wedding, then invite the family over for a party when you get home.

You can arrange for something quick at a local church with just the immediate family in pretty short order.

You can rent the local moose lodge (or other local social group’s building) for the reception.

It’s only if you want something fabulous and involving your entire extended family that the planning and expense can become a killer.

For my wedding, we chose something in between. We had it done at the local synagogue (the Rabbi is a friend of ours and wanted to officiate anyway), and rented the function room at a local restaurant for the reception. Not dirt cheap, but well within our budget and everybody had a great time.

Brad and Toni have cleaned up a lot since yesterday; maybe even changed uniforms before putting the final clean-up touches on Engine 414. Now, maybe they should stop obsessing over “where” and “how” to wed, and do it simply, locally, without fanfare or fuss….

Brad also got cleaned up as well.

Church? Free use of Church when you attend there. Or a nice backyard? They used to do it in Mom’s living room. Who needs a “venue”

They are using soap and water… :-)

TJ has the venue, Luann the vision, Gunther can make the wedding dress(if he’s watched), and Bernice, Delta and Quill can lend a hand. Simple.

Not too long ago, we were meta-tained by the “Frogger” and “William the Meat Cutter” — among others — who tried mightily to push Greg to be a more betterer cartoonist, mostly in the story crafting department.

Greg never knew his weaknesses until some of the astute online community took him to task in purely altruistic fashion. To them we owe high gratitude.

And it’s grand that others now carry the mantle [insert royal trumpets and sparkle dust]

The 69th Annual Reuben Awards weekend will be a good time for me to assess his growth. I hope to come back with hard core metrics that illustrate his improvements as a cartoonist. If my hunch is correct, he will admit he owes it all to the forum we share here.

That is, after we clean up the coffee he shot out of his nose as a preface to unbridled laughter and ruined scrambled eggs.

LOL!!! I remember ‘Bewitched’. It was a great show. Nothing like it today…

These are very good points that you’re making. My sneaking suspicion, though, is that Greg Evans is doing something totally different with this arc. -If I’m right, he isn’t talking about the commitment or the show, and I don’t think he’s suggesting that the whole thing is frivolous.-Most of the time, comedy about weddings suggests that the bride is dreaming about a big celebration, and the groom is dreading the whole thing and wanting something simple. Here we have the exact opposite, so I’m wondering if Evans isn’t remembering his own wedding, and possibly he was the one in favor of an elaborate ceremony, while his wife was looking for something much more simple?

Um, here’s a thought: maybe Toni asked Brad if he wanted to skip the wedding and go straight to the honeymoon to lighten the mood. I really don’t get the hostility toward the Toni character. She and Brad seem well-suited for each other. And, frankly, plenty of proposals are triggered after one half of a couple has a run-in with an ex they were hung up on and realizes they are SO over that ex and SO in love with their current significant other. Everyone needs a moment of clarity on occasion in order to move forward with their life.

I think most couples when planning a wedding dream of eloping and skipping the hassle.

Somebody get the hose because Toni is on FIRE!

Is it just me or has Greg decided to crack up Toni’s sexiness to 11this week.

Why would Quill, Bernice, or Delta have any roll in the wedding? They’re Luann’s friends. not Brad’s or Toni’s. Don’t these people have any friends or high-school classmates of their own (aside from TJ)? And if Shannon takes part, then there’s no reason that Toni’s brother wouldn’t be there for her, too.

> the strip is called “Luann,” not “Brad & Toni”>So then can we just skip all this wedding garbage? If we are to care about Luann, but not about Brad and Toni (and their friends), then let’s forget about these 2 losers and their ridiculous wedding concerns, and let’s get back to Luann’s art class at Pitt CC.

> Luann is Brad’s sister, why shouldn’t she and her friends be there?>As the groom’s sister, Luann certainly should be there and be a bridesmaid. Quill, Bernice, and Delta might be there too (although probably not Delta, who is likely to be in D.C. during the wedding). However, they would just be guests in the audience, not participants in the ceremony. They simply don’t know Brad (and certainly not Toni) all that well.

> Toni’s brother has proven in the past that he’s not only unreliable, but irresponsible, or he wouldn’t be constantly leaving Shannon with Toni.>Why does that make him irresponsible? He’s an actor, so he likely has an irregular work schedule of jobs and auditions, and as a single parent, he has to leave his daughter with a caregiver. If Brad and Toni have a kid, and sometimes their shifts at their respective firs stations overlap, they will do the exact same thing, Does that make them irresponsible?

> Would you want a person like that attending if you were the one getting married?>Toni would certainly want her brother to be the person who gives her away in marriage. She and her brother are obviously close, or he wouldn’t leave Shannon with her, and she wouldn’t let him.

Oh, jeez, I’m falling in love with her. … But (again, reality check)—- how did she get herself all cleaned up within one truck washing session? … Gregg, have you ever thought of making this some alternative reality, or near future sci-fi…? Anyway, carry on, my friend, you got me hooked (after 10 years of hiatus!)

“The Rollicking Adventures of Fogarty and Phipps”!

I think last week’s strips are just what they appeared to be … a collection of wacky wedding concepts.

I found them amusing and don’t expect them to have any kind of bearing on the story going forward.

So there. :P

in a RB2 world, after one season of “I love Lucy”, the show had too cancel the show, because Lucy learned all her lessons, and she stopped being crazy and her schemes, and Ricky stopped having a Latin accent so there was no more material to be funny and it became boring, when we asked the producer RB2, he said “the Ricardos had to become realistic, we can’t have the same issues week after week, the people watching TV just don’t get it”

4. None of the above…

SPOILER ALERT!!-Lots of jokes about eloping and such for a firehouse. These guys better keep their day jobs. -But I thought the donut joke was about law officers…

LOL, funny story… just found our 2nd gift crock pot, which somehow ended up in my MIL’s basement…

Uh….something…like that…. – (I will “officially” blame it on Win10…)

I’m going to miss the online chat with Luann; I have a webinar to attend at the exact same time.-Wonder what questions some of our most prolific posters will ask?

YES, YES, YES!!!!!! LISTEN TO HER QUESTION BRAD! SAY YES TO TONI! SKIP THE PARTY AND OPEN THE PRESENT!