Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for December 19, 2015

Oh, indeed…

Does this mean he stopped recording, the lights went down for the show, or is it a “Sopranos” ending to the strip?

I see what Gunth is looking at.

… and at that moment a power outage hit the entire Pitts region …

What an awfully small brain Knute has.

Since when does Knute do what anybody tells him to do?

In a way, I am reminded a bit of some of the recent stories of Broadway actors who have had struggles with audience members who either got in people’s way in order to record the shows or were on their phones, “jawing, instead of awe-ing”….

“Yule Daze” probably makes Quill’s George Washington play (the one with nothing going on except George kissing Martha) look absolutely brilliant. That NAME!

“Epic”“Art Of Darkness”“In The Black”“An Inkling”“A Pound Of Obscure” (♪)“Caught In A Device Grip”“A Flash Flood”“A Kick In The Posterity”“What Were Once Devices Are Now Habits” (♪)“Even If They’re Just Dancing In The Dark” (♪)“Radio City Killed The Video’s Start” (♫)“A Big Turn-Off”or“Button, Of Course”

Okay, I’m in the dark, too. Did Mr. Gray import some pros from Vegas? Did Pru work some kind of scenery miracle? Did they really recruit the girls from Hooters? Has anybody ever seen this mystery cast? Did Greg learn how to draw Lady Gaga? A power failure is out of the question after all that has gone into this effort. A show must go on. Does Knute own a pair of long pants? Will Bernice loosen up?

Is Crystal wearing one of Piro’s scarves?

Why isn’t Luann really helping?

I have a few questions:

1. What happend with Quill’s late night call to Prudence?

2. What happened between Tiffany and Bernice after “The Meeting of the Scarves”?

3. If Gunther was so intent on asking Bernice out, why didn’t he do it before the show- rather than sitting in the back watching her?

Bravo! Bravo!A major story line ends in a brilliant artistic climax worthy of the great Zébo himself.Months of buildup and a final goosing of expectations, all culminating in … black nothingness. An inevitable tragic ending brought on by the frailty of the human condition (i.e., Knute’s literally incredible stupidity). By now, readers of Luann know what Charlie Brown never learned: every time he goes to kick the football, Lucy will pull it away. I applaud the Evanses for breaking new ground in finding ways to avoid wrapping up a comic strip story line in a conventional manner.

So … no Sunday Luann tomorrow? Or are the Sunday strips in an alternate Luanniverse that are separate from the story line universe?

Well, one thing’s for sure… the background silhouettes and the “front and main cast” in the strip all look pretty much the same, now!

I don’t know anything about producing stage shows, so maybe someone knowledgeable could help me out.If someone writes and produces a stage show, do you suppose that they might arrange for the premier to be recorded by someone trained and competent, using decent equipment? Whose job would it be to supervise this — the Tech Manager, maybe? Or would the whole production just disappear into nothingness, never to be heard from again? (I’m talking about the real world, not Luanniverse.)

I’ve been to a number of cafes and restaurants that had hostesses to seat people, and others where there was a sign at the door saying ‘please take any seat’. It depends on how the management wants to operate as to whether they want to pay someone just to direct people to tables or not.

While I don’t spend as much time in art galleries as I do in museums, my experience with galleries has been that the person closest to the front is most often the cashier accepting payment for a work of art, and not someone who is telling folks to keep the noise level down or what…

Never fear. Your Congress is hard at work directing Medicare funds away from paying Medicare bills, and using the funds paid into the Medicare trust fund for expansion of Medicaid, payment for pre-kindergarten, or for Congress’s own medical bills. But the Congress is very happy to have Medicare pay for ‘end of life’ counseling (even for folks with very curable ills), and tickets to the nearest hospice.

There will be lots and lots of Soylent Green…

And it kind of reminds me of what it looks like, when I see the back of my eye lids, and I keep repeating the letter “Z”, every so often.

“I would see how the play turns out on the first night.”Oh, of course. A dress rehearsal – if they even have one – would give no clue as to whether the production would turn out well. And if opening night in front of a packed house is a disaster, everyone will want to forget about it. This might be the best way to get rid of Pru — the show’s a disaster, she disappears and is never heard from again. Later in New York, she could deny that the whole thing ever happened or that she ever even knew Quill.

Did anyone seriously imagine the Evanses would get around to finally delivering on something?

Berni, grumpy as usual.

Fade to black.So much for any record of the premiere of “Yule Daze.”I doubt that we will see the musical much, if at all, though we have a few days before Christmas to fill….

I think it would have been funny if Berniece was wearing Piro’s scarf and walked up to Crystal and Tiff both wearing Piro’s scarfs just when Piro enters the picture. (wearing a scarf of course).

Where is this going? Lots can happen in the dark. Or did Frank forget to pay the Electric Company.

Bernice has really turned into a Debbie Downer.

This might be a device to bypass showing the play.

Forget this story line. On Monday, Toni & Dufus will be planning their wedding.

Gunther???

Actually, the last panel is simply the greatest, most brilliant punch line in the history of comic strips. I just chose to color everything black. Cheers!

The doors would be closed with the show starting.

They just turned the lights off right before the play started. It is only dark for a second before the play starts, no big deal.

So Gunther is obsessed . . .-—————————————————I noticed where he was looking as it seemded to explode out of the cel. Probably because he is centered!

Who’s “performing” Luann’s duties while she’s off doing snark?And if they didn’t want Knute to record the play, why was he given a front-row seat (in a plasticcshair rather than comfy theater seats)?-——————————————Tator tots, art provided by a community college teacher, and stackable chairs in the performance area. Man, was it a Gray or DeGroot idea to go cheap for this place?

Attention – the lights always go down in a theatre prior to the start of the show! Maybe we will get to see this work of art from Pru. I hope it is over before Christmas eve!

The house lights just went down because the performance is about to start and they want all of those rude latecomers to trip in the darkness and fall on their butts.

Duh, what do you expect? The play is copyrighted.

So Gunther is obsessed with Bernice now? Boy this is forced.Kudos to Team Evans for being self-aware here. We all knew we weren’t going get to see any of the play, at least they made it a punchline.-———————————-Let’s not be so negative. .Tune in next week

SPOILER ALERT -

No connection, connexion, or anything else directly related. (My newspaper delivers the Sunday comics on Saturday.)

And did Lu change garb, or did she have this little black dress hiding under her vest & pants?

So, the only key figure in the play might be Qu (though I think his job is as technician).*I respect Knute for turning off his camera, but he should have asked permission to record earlier— thus preserving the memory of the play AND respecting the playwrite’s copyright.*Let the action begin!

Not some kind of cryptic death sentence!"

*NG – That’s what I thought too until my father was in the VA hospital— conscious, eating, drinking, talking, laughin— and the doctors asked permission to stop giving him any fluids.

In the dark with Crystal? Could think of worse things.

Silhouette sitting to Gunter’s left is Tiffany(can tell by her hair) !!

You might think that unless you realized that you were also being told that Medicare will not pay for services that were routinely paid for by your employer’s insurance before you hit age 65 (which is why, though I am old enough to go on Medicare now, I pay to stay on my employer’s insurance.) There is no reason to automatically decide not to pay for treatment for pneumonia just because someone has reached the age of 65.

You need to read the report of the Auditor of Health and Human Services, who is a professional and not a partisan figure. That man audited the Affordable Care Act and provided the results to both Congress and the President. The results were ignored.

The Auditor explained that, with the requirement in the Affordable Care Act that only a certain amount could be spent each year overall for the Medicare program in order to divert the funds from the Medicare Trust Fund to finance Medicaid expansion, strict caps were required both for each type of payment to doctor or hospital, and caps were required regarding what types of services would even be paid for.

The Auditor further reported that the caps had nothing to do with the actual cost of providing the services, rather, they had to do with how much money had to be taken away from Medicare to pay Medicaid claims. This is a picture of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

The Auditor ended up by reporting that, because doctors and hospitals still have expenses that have to be met (insurance, rent, overhead, salaries for nurses, etc.), that at least 10% of doctors and hospitals would refuse to accept new Medicare-insured patients each year as the Affordable Care Act “progresses” through the population.

This is already happening. Cancer patients I know who retired and went onto Medicare, and were previously treated at cancer specialty clinics near them, are now being told that the clinics will stop accepting Medicare. My own gastro doctor has told me that since certain Medicare supplement policies have strictly capped any reimbursement for annual procedures needed to check the large intestine for cancer, they advise their patients not to buy those supplemental policies.

Blown fuse at The Fuse?

More loose ends here than my ugly Christmas sweater.

I guess we’ll see the audience’s reaction to Pru’s play on Monday. This is like the 4th Harry Potter movie where the beginning built up to the big Quidditch match but didn’t show it. (Yes, I know the game was covered in the book…)

Who are the actors and actresses? Drama and theatre students from Mooney?. Ox , Luann and TJ are staff (white shirt black vest)..I don’t see Tiffany in the audience. Maybe she has a part.

And Crystal has that “my boyfriend is such a doofus” expression on her face …

“I am stumped…”Details, details.The Evanses don’t worry about realistic details like this. The strip is basically about what’s going on inside the main characters’ heads at any one time. All of the external activity is just ill-defined backdrop. Even the characters’ actions are sketched out just enough to show what they’re thinking. Situations, build-ups, hints of things to come, all appear and disappear, usually without being resolved.Readers who expect well-defined, realistic, stories are always going to be left hanging.Hagar the Horrible can be stranded on a South Sea island one day and storming a castle the next. Luanniverse may look like it’s more realistic, but it really isn’t.

SPOILER ALERT

Something that will warm some hearts appears, but not all hearts feel the same way…