Bad Headache

"Marty, it's been great teaching you, the time just flew by, but you gotta get out of here. Cole is downstairs, and he was saying something about a certain crabby little girl giving him a headache. Not to point fingers or anything. Oh, am I pointing? Oh, do you not call your father Cole? Get out of my studio."

Marty Who?

Nothing cures a headache like a long conversation with Lu Ann. Thank goodness she's here to offer her expert medical advice.

It's very appropriate Lu Ann got a fat check from the Governor to sit down and have cawfee tawk while leaving a child unsupervised in some other section of the art gallery. Teaching is so easy! It feels great to give back!

Just a Headache

OH MAN OH MAN!! Guys! It's another "Lu Ann deals with the crippling addiction of an emotionally isolated male character in an art gallery setting" story!! Remember the last time that happened? Guys? Were any of you alive for that? It featured Lu Ann's junkie artist boyfriend Alan, who got mixed up with the wrong crowd and then killed by another junkie. Which was kind of the most dramatic and wacky the strip had been since that time Lu Ann was seduced by a ghost. Fun times ahoy!

The Infinite Abyss

Lu Ann: "You're OK to do your art by yourself right?  I know I'm supposed to be teaching you, but I really can't take away from my job as curator, or Margo will eviscerate me.  You don't even need me to teach you...it looks like you've already learned a non-traditional pencil grip that will give you little to no fine motor control and you've got your ice pick there as a back up."

Marty: "That's fine...can you find my dad?  I really want to show my dad my drawing.  Which I'm just about to start by poking the paper with my ice pick.  It's my process.  You might want to take the frame wrapping off that Bed, Bath and Beyond decor before you hang it in the gallery...it's kind of noticeable."

Lu Ann: "Great!  I'm already starting to shrink and grow younger because I've touched the the oddly placed doorknob on the portal to the infinite abyss.  No turning back now!  I'll see if I find your dad out there, although I probably won't recognize his tiny hands and giant child head.  Be careful with that ice pick, don't stick it in the European electrical outlet by the door."

Not Now

Hoo boy. This setup reeks of heartbreak. Marty shows her dad a blank piece of paper just to see if he's paying attention. He's not, even though there's literally nothing else to do in the gallery but look at art. And if Mr. Marty doesn't forget to wait for her, I'll go out, buy a hat, and eat it.

Taking It On the Chin

So I downloaded Saturday's strip.  The faces looked a little funny, but I chalked it up to my browser having an off day, so I downloaded it and blew up it up to original size.  It was then I realized that Frank is done.  I mean stick a fork in him, the fat lady is singing, the referee is banging on the mat done.  Done.  The man can't draw the same face in two panels if his life depended on it.  In the first panel Lu Ann looks a blonde Delta Burke.  Which reminds me that I really wish they still showed Designing Women reruns.  Maybe Casey and I can start a write-in campaign.

Mr. Spencer

Marty is back!! I'd recognize those beady little flesh-colored eyes anywhere.What I didn't recognize was that Marty and her father Cole Spencer (or Spencer Cole?) are both part of the same religious order as Lu Ann: the Cult of Many Buttons.

Too Soon

"If someone loved me the way Greg loves Margo, I wouldn't even consider my own feelings because I'm just a silly woman anyway."

Lu Ann, I'm a little fuzzy on the timeline here (have you even gone on your date yet?), but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Greg and Margo don't have you and Peter beat by much in the "time before falling in love" department, so there's that.

(I guess how Greg "loves" Margo is very different from how Paul "loved" Lu Ann?.... Yeah, he's James Bond, it definitely is.)

Not Willing

Margo! Didn't your fling with Trey Brooks (whose last name I definitely just had to look up) teach you that you can't hide from life, and that you need to be brave and resume treating men as objects/sex slaves? I mean, that's what I thought that interlude was about. And why incidentally we've never seen Trey again. Margo put him on a shelf somewhere and forgot about him.

The Many Faces of A3G

Seriously, who are the people in today's strip.  It's like a fun house mirror in the second panel.  Lu Ann's eyes are growing and retreating toward her ears, while Margo's jaw and cheekbones are jutting away from her forehead. 

What a shock.  Margo and Greg's romance has fizzled.  What could have gone wrong?  Was Greg not comfortable with a publicist who owns a kerosene lamp?

On the Computer

I literally just lurched forward and grabbed my computer monitor to see if that felt like a natural thing to do. It didn't.

Work

I'm backlogging this post from Saturday, because I think Lu Ann's shaky grasp of politics is pretty cute. "Um, so, can you date me if I'm not a Republican? Will I get sick? Or does the female convert the male?" Meanwhile, Gov Trog admits outright that he will sleep with anything that votes.

Secrets

Tell me about all your wildest fantasies, Lu Ann. For example, are you in to governors who send you pictures of themselves in their underwear? How do you feel about powerful men that like to wear women's negligees? How about elected officials who can only get turned on if their cat is watching them when they're with a woman? I know, me too!!

Telephone

Oh Peter, when you want to creep outside someone's house, it's best not to do it in a car bus filled with giant windows! But you've got to hand it to Frank.  He's really trying to draw a car as a backdrop instead of a room with squiggle art and drapes, so let's at least acknowledge it.  Do the Governor and Lu Ann not know that they can turn down the volume of their phones instead of holding them an inch away from their ear?  I can't wait to see what Frank does with the governor's mansion!

Governor's Ball

Wait, is this all happening before Lu Ann's movie date in Albany? If so, I think Governor Troggypants is coming on a little strong. And yes, hopefully this means some Scott Wiener-style hijinks are coming soon. Perhaps involving the Governor's ball.

But JEEZ, Lu Ann, show some civic pride! I didn't rag on your pink cardigan so you could change into a sweatshirt for your date at the mansion. At least dress it up with a pillbox hat or something.

Brace Yourselves, Ladies

Oh my gosh, Lu Ann Tommie is being whisked away to fabulous North Dakota Dallas Italy for a month until she becomes interesting by comparison to Lu Ann!! Presumably this is so that readers will stop commenting things like "what happened to Tommie?" or "did Tommie die?" or "how does the apartment stay so clean if Tommie's not around?"

BUT! There's a slim chance we're in for some Dawn Weston-esque mopey adventures around Italy! Tommie could definitely pull it off, especially in that green sweatshirt. Maybe it's time to pull out the dress you got from I Dressed in the Dark.

Omigosh!

That is a way fatter missive than the one that Greg sent Margo.  It also seemed to included extensions specifically designed to enhance bowl cuts.  I do love when we get to see Margo display her prodigious wit.  Are we starting a Tommie storyline or are these tickets just an excuse for Tommie to be missing for the next year?

Another Fat Missive

As if getting mail that ISN'T a bill or credit card offer isn't exciting enough, Margo's not even excited about a letter from her boyfriend? Who also happens to be a legit movie star?? I would think at the very least, she'd be excited for an opportunity to scan his signature and start producing official Greg Cooper merchandise. But that's our Margo! More overwhelmed by Greg's neediness than his affection.

Is It Serious?

It does? Did I miss something, or are you basing that entirely off the fact that Marty didn't answer a rude and intrusive question from a complete stranger? Oh well, either way, glad the ladies can smile about it!

Honestly, Margo

I don't get it. We could totally be getting all this information first-hand from my new favorite character Marty, instead of relying on Lu Ann's dumb brain to remember stuff as she relates it to Margo in their funeral home apartment. Like Margo is capable of empathy anyway! "Soooo, her father IS around! What's the problem then?"

Lean In

I apologize for this strip being slanted.  That's the way it was uploaded to the site where I get it from.  I'm trying really hard not to let it bother me, but I hope for my OCD's sake that it was a one off and not Frank slowly slumping to the right in his wheelchair at the home.  For those of you who didn't even notice, it must be wonderful to live in your world.

In other news, it's our beloved blogmistress Maggie's birthday!  She got a birthday strip where Margo displays her trademark lack of empathy for the plight of her fellow man, and the return of the old-timey walking candle!  Let's all take midnight strolls through the corridors in our nightcaps! 

Challenging

PFFT. Lu Ann, I hope you are planning on relating your "Truth or Dare" session with Marty through a series of flashbacks, because I feel like I'm being robbed of precious Martytime right now. So give me Marty via flashbacks, or give me Margo saying something like "Ok, but when's the last time you made us any money?"

If You Dare

I'd be afraid to cross Marty.  Her fingers look like she's punched a lot of dumb blondes in the face for playing coy with her.  I'm pretty sure we know everything we need to know about Marty.  She hates her mom because presumably her mother abandoned her to serve her country in Iraq.   Although, there is a large possibility that A3G is not forward thinking enough to have women in uniform, and Marty just hates her mother because she's stuck with her while her father is in Fallujah.  Either way, she's acting out by dressing in gender ambiguous clothing, trying to grow in a mullet and wearing glasses that don't appear to have a full frame.

Kiddo

Welp! This is all a little more than Gov Trog can process. "Back to work! See ya later, little..... trans... kiddo. Take care of Lu Ann for me, she's straight up melting into a puddle of desire in the first panel. I'm very charming, you know! You don't seem to have realized it, but it's true!"

Already, I'm thinking Marty could be the greatest A3G character since Hobo-Tramp Dan. Those are some big, holey shoes to fill!

Confused Children

Now I really wish Lu Ann had said "dude" yesterday, because it would segue nicely into the fact that I have Steven Tyler in my head screaming singing "dude looks like a lady."

Either way, there's so much happening in this strip! Possibly transgendered children! (That's not the kind of thing with which the Governor should be associated.) Children who possibly aren't really children! (I was going on the assumption that Lu Ann just taught kids, but that is one tall child, so who knows.) Art that isn't just squiggles!! (Not everyone can be Jackson Pollock.) A kid/woman/dude who is finally unimpressed by Governor Trog!

I'm so excited for what this storyline will bring, and I don't care that I'm destined to be disappointed!

Thanks, Doris

There is nothing cool or interesting to say about today's strip. The only kind of funny thing is that I originally thought Lu Ann said "Thanks, dudes." in the first panel, which wouldn't make any sense but would be fun. Imagine what a different strip this would be if Lu Ann said things like "Thanks, dudes." Maybe she'd be a California surfer chick who moved to the big city, or a stoner burn-out who never grew up after high school, or a grown-up Michelle Tanner. All of which are kind of the same thing in my head, when I think about it.