Set-Up: Assuming that Les doesn’t communicate with Lisa’s memory too often, this could be seen as a touching memorial to a dead comic strip character.
Punchline: …but after five or so of these remembrances since the jump, we’re bored with it.
I sure hope he told Lisa about the chess match. Les doesn’t win at anything…now THAT’s big news.
Set-Up: Our tour of Les’ New York took from the Javits Center, to the Stardust Diner, to Central Park, to ABC News World HQ, to Issac Asimov’s former apartment, and…now back to Central Park. This time, Les means war…on the chessboard. Sensing that defeat would crush the will (or plunge into dementia) of the young man, a stereotypically Jewish-named bystander named Sol hands Les the best news of the day.
Punchline: Now he’s off to tell Lisa’s ashes of his triumph.
Things better wrap up quickly on this business trip, for whatever it is Les should to take care of at Montoni’s has been left out of the story. Not that we’d care if he showed up or anything, but it appears to be a out of the norm that and there’s been no mention of Montoni’s or a check-in call to Summer since Les landed. Is a freewheeling, live-in-the-now (sort of) Les something we can get used to? You be the judge.
Set-Up: The solo walking date concludes at W. 66th street (aka Peter Jennings Way). Home of ABC News World headquarters. The world hopes for a fond farewell with a passionate kiss and the classic Les smirk.
Punchline: Instead we get a broken man grasping at straws in what seems to be a quiet and discouraging end to his writing career. Standing, eyes closed, in a stranger’s foyer? Sure. Why not?
The fates took his wife away, but Les still maintains his spirituality. It may not be of the christian church-going variety; but if a man finds fulfillment stalking domains of those who walked the Earth as recently as 1992, I say more power to him. Just don’t accumulate any protective orders, buddy.
Set-Up: Our favorite new couple makes their way through Central Park to find Lisa’s Bench : The Sequel. Searching for another route Les’ heart, Cindy asks if Lisa’s death and memory still hurts after all these years.
Punchline: Yes. Yes it does. Very much so. Thanks for asking.
Pow! We’re back to a vintage 2007 strip where you don’t feel at all humored for reading today’s FW. For those who are hoping for the ultimate seduction at the hands of Cindy, keep hoping. It doesn’t look like Les is ready for it…if ever.
Set-Up: Upon finishing their dinner in Mid-town Manhattan, Cindy and Les walk towards Central Park. Making sure to pass a hot dog stand, Cindy hopes Les gets the hint. He doesn’t so she’ll have to resort to more intellectual ways to appeal to Les’ romantic side.
Punchline: By reminding him that even after thirty years, they’re still both unhappy and lonely.
Still. We hope Cindy keeps trying. Perhaps next she take Les to a subway station to watch the trains enter the tunnels. Did you know that the top #1 hit from 1987 was the Bangles “Walk Like an Egyptian?” I imagine that being blared out of the speakers at McArnold’s fast food diner in order to chase Les and Cindy away after they consume their McDLT’s.
Set-Up: Westview’s original cast graduated high school in 1988. The year is 2008. The thirty year reunion accounts for the ten year jump. Yet, Cindy is still a success and Les is still waiting for his shot.
Punchline: The less things jive on a space-time continuum, the more they stay the same.
Take it from Cindy’s age addled face, Les. Success makes one less happier than expected. It’s like he’s waiting for his shot at the Lottery. Give it time Les…give it time.
Set-Up: Awkward pause interrupted by the siren song of the singing watiress, Cindy moves the topic to lighter, more current topics…like Les’ experience at the BEA. Much like his high school experience, Les didn’t quite enjoy the BEA as he had hoped.
Punchline: So he talked to himself the entire time.
You’ve got a long way to go before you can compare yourself to the opposite of Rowling, good sir. Perhaps you write fiction first.
Set-Up: Oh, dear. It’s been almost ‘ten years’ since Lisa’s passing and while we’re glad Les is man enough to be traveling by himself, we’re disappointed he’s subjecting Holly to the real reason he agreed to help Funky out with the New York operations.
Punchline: To ogle the wall of miss subways, of course.
…and if he just concentrates just enough, he can still hear the diagnosis. Too soon? Crickets? At first I thought there would be pizza related hijinks on this little trip, but I guess I was asking for too much. Another tribute to Lisa’s character comes and goes while somewhere out there, Wally is writhing in pain at some POW camp. Hrm…there could be an idea for a novel in there…let’s head back to the BEA before it’s too late.
Set-Up: Having made it through the flight to New York without further incident, we find Les talking to himself at the BEA convention. He gets to bump elbows with the industry’s biggest names but it only reminds him that he has fallen short on his goal to be one of them.
Punchline: Les’s life sucks.
Talking to yourself in a room full of strangers is no way to attract the publishers, but it may so happen that success will reappear in his life in the form of a goddess in a purple pant suit. The man better put away the one-man peanut gallery before she passes him once again. The NYC Montoni’s seems so far away these days…
Set-Up: As Les ponders the meaning of life in an MD-80, the business traveler seated next to him tries to milk his phone call to the last possible second. Unfazed, the flight attendant gives the gentleman a stern second reminder that phones are to be turned off. This elicits a reaction from Les.
Punchline: What? Are we twelve years old again?
As TB goes back to the gag-a-day format he so effectively utilized in the 1970’s, we see a side of TB coming through. Yes…rather than sacrifice one of his characters for the joke, he picks on an innocent crankshaft-esque stranger. Why use his characters to complain about public cell-phone use when he can just invent others out of thin air? Passive aggressive much? Sheesh.
