Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for January 15, 2021

Where is Bernice supposed to be?

Time to distract Shannon with a fun activity.

What’s a power outage in an Amish household? When they don’t have backup kerosene for lamps and natural gas for stoves/ovens.

I am confused that Luann is calling Bernice to find out if the power is over there too. Doesn’t Bernice live in that house?

Sad that they have to have Shannon start to act out again.

Gotta give Shannon haters something to hate, I suppose.

On Bernice, she may be spending more (a lot) of time with her brother and family, and step-nephews/nieces? (not sure if they are same sex twins or not). That is reasonable and if so a story in itself. We are so conditioned with the ease of electricity; Thomas Edison is a titan we should be proud of and thankful for the the historical figure that deserves more credit is Nikola Tesla. If we had a direct electricity system our world would look like those alternative kerosene burning world, where like this tablet I am typing this on, where individual use of electricity would only be for the rich.

Nancy, time to have a talk with Shannon about why the power is out and how that relates to all of the electric appliances in the house, including the tv she wants to turn on.

I’m vague on the nature of a surge protector. I thought they were kind of a fuse to prevent over-voltages. Can’t imagine why Frank would need to go check them unless he doesn’t want to sit next to his wife.

Everyone cleared out pretty quick. Someone must have had burritos for lunch. A very polite group, no one said “EEEWWWW”.

Wouldn’t you know it. Nothing on.

I think the Evanses realized that everyone could use a blackout right about now.

Silly people, don’t they realize when the lights are out, you can watch TV by candle light.

Even taking into account she’s a little girl, Shannon doesn’t come across as the sharpest tool in the shed.

Time to introduce one spoiled little lady to games that DO NOT require a console and a hand-held button controller. They DO exist! Break out the board games!

Shannon: “Screw that, gimme your phone! It’s Candy Crush time”

You get so use to things….

Refer to me not, as a hater. I am but a humble observer noting that the crabby kid can also switch to a cranky mode without skipping a beat.

That’s no reason to put on your mime outfit, Frank! (I know it’s not a mime outfit. Duh. It’s a ninja outfit.)

So is Bern hanging out with Ben and her family or perhaps she had a rendezvous with Jack? Yeah, I know option 2 is a long shot and it is more likely that she is hanging with Dez instead of Jack but it would be nice for G&K to liven up the story line!

Oh no, Luann’s idiocy is spreading—shannon has caught it. Shannon needs some books to read—-STAT.

It didn’t take long for Shannon’s cuteness to end.

Togetherness with 2 people staring at their cell phone screens.

Maybe the real story lies in what caused the blackout…

So Brad got called in. This kinda headed where I was thinking: either a California wildfire scenario or transformer blew and started a fire. Dark plot twist: Toni or her crew is overwhelmed/in trouble/in danger.

Shannon has the natural disposition of a javalina.

Life is rough, kid.

Unpleasant brat

isn’t LuAnn suppose to be watching Shannon? she is leaving and her mother has to watch her?

Nancy really loves children, and family time♡. It’s was good while it lasted♡. Now it’s time to turn on the radio and hear some news and music. Maybe Shannon will love that ♡.

This story is really so stupid it’s insulting. It’s like we are supposed to believe they are trapped in that one room of their house due to a power outage and they don’t own one flashlight. And no you don’t have to check surge protectors. Why is Brad surprised about getting called in? He is a firefighter. Has there never been a power outage in their town? Is the whole thing just a set up so we can see Shannon complain about no tv? What a huge surprise. The whole thing is just a stupid stupid stupid.

I’d like a story line where we find out that Shannon’s father is in prison.

Little Iodine will turn out just fine!

I wonder where Brad was originally going when he dropped off Shannon for babysitting? Clearly it was nothing he had to cancel and he was fine with hanging out with the family until he got called in to work. (Did he want Luann to babysit originally because he was on call?)

Live and learn little girl!

Tesla would have definitely taken us down a better path— he even proposed wireless transmission of electricity

Shannon, you have such a short attention for such a little girl.

Nancy finally gets back into the strip and is promptly abandoned. What’s with that?

This single strip has soooo many plot holes. I guess we just have to take it for what it is. 8^ (

Well, that lasted about 15 minutes! Shannon needs a wall to make shadow animals. Get creative, Nancy or a Shannon tantrum is next. What’s to check on a surge protector? Either they work or not when the electric is restored? Guess it gives him something to do.Bernice must be visiting her family if Lu is calling her. Save those batteries! ;-))

My parent’s house had a “whole house” surge suppressor. It’s supposed to protect the large appliances, but not necessarily the small ones. Even though they had it, the power supply on one of my dad’s computers failed after a lightning strike in the neighborhood.

I like Frank’s ninja suit. Greg did a great job indicating a black outfit and how it should look in a dark room. I’ve always said he has good artistic skills.

I was right, Bernice is visiting her parents and having dinner at the Halpers with brother and kids!

Look Shannon, you need electricity to watch television! Having a conversation with Nancy Degroot is not your style?

Having realized that none of these people will ever stop catering to Shannon, the universe itself stepped in to teach the kid what it feels like to be denied something she wants.

Time for panic mode.

Togetherness can be overrated. My Mom was a contrarian. Even if you agreed with her, you were agreeing for the wrong reason. On a family visit, after one such “discussion” my father told me he was “going out to check the cows” and invited me along. As we walked through the pasture, I told him, “Dad, if I were living here, I’d be checking the cows all the time .” He just laughed.

Our advancements are so brittle and fragile. Stop the electrons and we are back over 100 years before electricity. Batteries help as does home solar and wind power too would ease the strain.

My wife sometimes likes to watch TV while she is on her exercise bike. I told her that if she wanted, I could put a generator that runs off the flywheel on her bike to power the TV, that way, the longer she pedaled, the longer she could watch TV. You listening Peloton?

As I have speculated before, this week has been a series of unrelated vignettes with no consistency from day to day.

I think Nancy is my favorite character in the strip.

Considerando que el fondo es negro, es de suponer que es de noche, por lo que quizá ya es hora de que Shannon se vaya a dormir.

Good luck on that Shannon.

And when the Battery Charge runs out on Bern & Luann’s phones, they will not be able to find their way out of their own rooms.

I just bought a $4 75watt light bulb that has a built in battery. It’s suppose to stay on for 90 minutes when the power goes out. We’ll see if it works.

tomorrow: Bernice and Jack, in the dark.

Shannon is too bratty for this comic strip. Relegate her to the Junkyard of Forgotten Characters!

Take care, Brad! Godspeed!

Alas, Nancy, so much for “togetherness”….

What a waste of a great setup – clever destructive brat finds candles and doesn’t burn the house down.

…

But we do get to see Greg’s mastery of chiaroscuro.

One time during an extended outage, we went to a relatives. Every so often I would call our house to see if the power was on. My mother-in-law says “WHO are you calling? There’s no one there!” and I was like “If the power was on, the machine would pick up…”

Another time, a big tree in our yard fell and took out a transformer. We went to my mom’s a couple of blocks away, and she made a big dinner. She had power, but her cable was out. At the dinner table, my oldest was about 5, and he started to pray. He said “I’m asking God to puut the TV back on!” When we finished, he runs into the living room and turns on the TV and it worked! I was like “You couldn’t have asked to win the lottery?”

Reality… a real bummer.