Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for November 01, 2011

Everything’s unraveling as fast as it can.

With friends like those, who need enemies!!??!?

Sure TJ, put the blame on Toni.

Someone’s going to get an ear-full!

It may seem bad now but it’s the best thing in the long run. My wife is my mightiest warrior. Do wrong by me and I wouldn’t suggest crossing her path anytime soon.

“TJ, you got some splainin’ to do!” … Has TJ always had a double piercing? I always thought he had one earring in his ear, but in this comic, he has two.

Poor Brad, slumped on the sofa all depressed.

OOOHhhhhhh. I wonder if Brad and Toni are heading for a break up. Is Greg tired of drawing them, thinking up of arcs because they are the biggest draw for the readers. The only thing left is to move their relationship into more intimate phase but the syndicated paper won’t allow it.

Toni needs to follow through on her threat to get in touch with Weenie-World Corporate.

Good eye about TJ’s ear. Didn’t notice it then, but it’s even visible on yesterday’s strip.

Uh…oh…this IS going to get interesting.

the double piercing(on both ears) has been for at least 6 months, I think

May Day! May Day! Its about to hit the fan! Everybody duck! lol

When one door slams shut, another opens. Hopefully it won’t be a second floor exit with no stairs…

Did Toni and T.J. NOT figure out that Ann would retaliate in some fashion? You can’t intimidate a bully unless you have a bigger stick – which Toni did not have.

TJ can’t keep his mouth shut or practice discretion, even on the phone with Brad in earshot. He deserves whatever he reaps. Of course, Brad is usually excessively mild with TJ….

TJ reaps nothing. Brad’s going to get a gig as a roadie for Steam Powered Giraffe.

ooooohhhhh! She is in trouble!

Oh no

Ruh-roe Reorge!

That’s right, Toni. You went into Brads place of business and physically threatened his boss. Did you think about what her reaction would be – at all? It is almost as if not only have neither you nor TJ ever had a job before where a boss was demanding; you’ve never even seen such a senario on TV. And because TJ didn’t even move to a room with a door to call you, and repeated your statements, Brad is about to have the upper hand for the first time in his life. Make it count, Brad.

A laid off firefighter would get unemployment, not go to work at a fast food joint.

Brad, first BEFORE You starting screaming at TONI know this:

1) It was TJ’s STUPID idea.

2) Toni was only doing it because she loves you or something.

Got it ? Good.

NOW, you can THROW TJ down a flight of stairs.

Now time will tell.If Brad keeps his coll it will all turn out OK in the end.

predicatable… it is, of course, Toni’s fault…. at least that is the way Brad will see it since he liked being Ann’s errand boy… in fact, Brad has always been kinda of wussie and never has had the stones to stand up for himself

ah oh . . . .

Why do women always assume men are so stupid that they have to rush in and save them? Brad had a job and a paycheck and he probably had his situation under control. Enter an idiot friend and a meddlesome woman and no job and no paycheck. And everyone is surprised.

Brad: “My future at WeenieWorld is over…Oh the humanity TJ, you suck!! Toni, well, you’re OK. You can stay”

Steam Powered Giraffe? now that would be interesting. And Ann can … his…to get backstage. Wait! did I say that?*Toni HAD the big stick: should have gone ‘way over Ann’s head, to top management…but it was too personal.

Honestly, you’re SURPRISED???? You can’t be serious

Reply to this post if you did NOT see this coming a million miles away.

Houston! I think we have a problem…

I can’t help thinking, “What is Brad still doing in his WeenieWorld uniform?” I mean, if I got fired from a job I didn’t even like, I’d rip off the polyester symbols of my shame and degradation as soon as possible.

Y’all know this is a fictitious cartoon-strip… right?

Houston, we have a problem.

Brad missed out on something special. It’s fun to have a pretty girl trying to seduce you, even if you don’t intend to act on it. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Ann, even though this arc can play through without further input from her. Now is the time for Brad to get his “friends” together and inform them that HE and ONLY HE will make decisions about which toilet he intends to flush his future down.

@mojitobabe – one of the things you’re glossing over (slightly) is that Toni went to WW with an agenda. She didn’t go there because she was hungry (for food anyway). She wanted a confrontation with Ann Awful (“I think I could get a Grand Slam right here”), and that’s what she got. In the act of staking out her claim on Brad, she knew a fight was likely.:I’ve been intrigued by the morality of this whole setup. Was Toni right to do this, apparently without Brad’s foreknowledge and assent? It will be interesting to see how it all resolves, how much maturity each of the players can bring forth.:TJ seems like the devil in all of this – egging people on, and then trying to vanish when it all blows up. I could see Brad washing his hands of TJ and even Toni for awhile. It will certainly be an interesting test of their (Brad + Toni’s) relationship.:As for Ann’s future, there’s too much to be worked out between the triad of Brad, Toni and TJ before anything will happen to Ann, if it ever does. In an ideal world, Ann would lose her job; but if I had to bet, I’d bet she stays on, seeking her next prey – this is a little more how the real world tends to work, in my experience.

I agree with everyone’s statements about “being a MAN”, and fighting his own battles. Also, I hope this doesn’t interject TOO much reality into the strip, but since Brad worked for the Fire Dept. (a city-government job), he is eligible for “displaced worker” funds to RE-TRAIN for another vocation through the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act. If he is too stubborn to see that he needs to be bi-vocational, then that is PROOF that he is still just a BOY, and not a man. What do y’all think about that ???

Actually, that might have been me. Although I was more bored at the time than obsessed. When I can’t get to sleep at night, I tend to waste time on the internet. I still think the dry-cleaning thing was a good idea, even though it’s highly unlikely…

I don’t recall Toni actually mentioning punching.

C’mon, who doesn’t assume threatening to punch your boyfriend’s boss would get him fired? Cause that’s not how things usually work, right? Toni’s a complete idiot.

Woh wants to take bets thatBrad may end up collecting garbage, WITH DIRK? Hey, it’s good honest work, somebody has got to do it, and Dirk showed a promising change in attitude the last time we saw him!

The truth comes out!

I believe that Greg should think about syndicating a spin-off strip simply called ‘Brad’. I know this has been suggested before. But the idea that the two strips could run on two very different themes, in lock-step in time, and occasionally crossing over (Brad, et al, appearing in Luann, and vice-versa), is intriguing.

Clearly, the ‘Brad’ strip would be aimed at more serious topics, like unemployment, and workplace issues, adult relationships, maturity, … While the ‘Luann’ strip would continue to address high school issues and concerns as illustrated by the current 3 ‘couples’ and how they deal with issues there.

What do you think?

Now WAIT A DAM MINUTE…..! Been readin’ all the crap above and I think yer all missing the twist….Your not giving TJ and Toni enough credit… when TJ went to Toni with a plan…. we weren’t privey to it… no details to us. Everything from the minute Toni walked into WW was scripted… by those two… including the firing and this subsequent phone call (within earshot of B-man)…. think about it, huh? While I might not see what may come next, I’m pretty sure Greg has thrown you all headfirst into a hairpin curve on his rollercoaster…. and yer all gonna get whiplash when the coaster pulls into the loading chute. I think Toni and TJ are giving Brad the opportunity to step up to the plate, since he hasn’t up til now… JUST WATCH and see if I’m wrong… now, back to the show… where did I leave that banana daiquiri..???

@starfire – depends if Greg is up for at least 2x the work. He probably has enough challenges coming up with storylines for each of his characters, and coordinating everything that happens in a single universe, let alone managing another additional, more complex universe.

About 12 hours later than I normally post these, but I have another convoluted Luann prediction/interpretation: Ann is not a fast-food manager. She is actually starring in her own reality show being filmed at Weenie-World. It chronicles a middle-aged but still good-looking celebrity wannabe’s attempts to manage a small business, make weenies, and find love. ….This show thing explains (in case anyone was wondering this) why the heck Ann came all the way from Japan to manage a small-town weenie joint in the U.S. She didn’t travel to a small town in the middle of nowhere to make hot dogs; she went there to be a star! It also explains her wardrobe, which seems far too dressy and flashy for someone who’s dealing with greasy food and greasy acne-ridden teenaged employees all day. But most of all, the reality show would explain why Ann was so gung-ho on banning Toni from WeenieWorld. Ann looked at Toni and saw a hot blond that would steal viewers’ attention from her. So, desperate to cling to her new-found “celebrity,” she (in a move that shows that she’s just an older, eviler version of Tiffany) cruelly banned Toni from Pittsville’s favorite fast-food restaurant in order to get her off the set. Any woman hotter than Ann would have suffered the same fate. …Ann was just throwing herself at Brad just to look “sexy” on TV. And when poor Brad didn’t immediately start drooling over her, she began to doubt her sex appeal. This insecurity caused her to lash out and kick Brad off the set by firing him. … Now why doesn’t anyone else in town know about the filming? In order to create a more “realistic” environment, producers didn’t want the townsfolk to know that they were being filmed. Footage is gleaned from the multiple hidden cameras concealed everywhere in the restaurant. Ann is the only one who knows that a reality show is being made. (Could you imagine how Tiffany would act if she knew she was on a reality show? It’s better this way.) … Unfortunately, Elwood somehow found out about the reality show. In order to keep him from blabbing it to the whole town, producers agreed to send over a few cameramen in order to pretend that they were shooting an “Eyez of Zeye” movie. So Elwood keeps his fat mouth shut in exchange for being able to impress gullible high school girls. All the producers have to do is listen to a bunch of cr@ppy auditions from a bunch of brainless high school celebrity-wannabes (like Tiffany) that Elwood hopes to “date.” So, yeah. That’s the movie arc ruined for you.

“This isn’t really the place to post extensive “fan fiction”.

Seconded. Not only that, this “plot” depends on Greg “allowing” a known abuser to prosper in Japan, which would be pretty unlikely for Greg, and it further depends on a reality show deliberately allowing its “star” to break the law by discriminating against customers – because of course every reality TV show lives to gets the pants sued off of it in Federal court, right?

As I said yesterday, if you’re going to go off the reservation creating potboilers, you need to apply the same logic throughout that you used to create them in the first place.

Since Ann is already a large part of the plot (or machine), it’s TJ who’s the deus ex machina here, not Ann. He’s the catalyst, or outside agent, who’ll be largely responsible for resolving the plot. Of course he’ll absolve himself of all blame and deny all responsibility, but he’s basically the one who put the wheels in motion.

I see at least one good thing coming out of this. Brad was probably upset because he thought he had been fired just out of the blue, for no reason. Now he has heard a reason, that makes sense. So it does have a meaning to him. Now he should be able to go on with his life.

My take on the next steps.`

Toni explains to Brad what happened. Brad is angry with TJ and surprised that Toni went along with it. But he is most upset with Ann – goes back to WW and tells her off. He tells her he will write corporate and tell them about Ann’s treatment of Toni and Toni’s response to her. He says he will also mention that he was out picking up Ann’s laundry at her request when this happened and was fired without explanation when he returned. Ann will be replaced and Brad will get his WW job back until the Fire Dept. budget allows them to rehire him (probably about Christmas).

> A laid off firefighter would get unemployment, not go to work at a fast food joint.

No, unemployment, last I heard, requires you look for and be available for other work.Ann had the right to ban Toni from WW, unless it was part of her plan to seduce Brad. Unfortunately, if Brad then quit just because Toni was banned, there goes unemployment.

Didn’t see this coming. Interesting plot going here…

You sure got that right. No Lancelot likes the idea of Guinevere riding to his rescue and threatening to punch the dragon in the eye.

.* sigh * T’was ever thus.