Volume 23 – Bonding and Building

–> Note: While it reveals some useful backstory about Brad and Toni’s families, this collection (including Greg’s commentary) was created in 2016 as part of the lead up to Brad and Toni’s wedding.  Their entire dating saga was collected in 39 “albums” which you can revisit here if you’d like.

Volume 23 – Bonding and Building

Behind-the-scene commentary from Greg Evans:
” The first strip in this collection sums up what I think is a fairly common male/female dynamic. Men tend to …Read More







Behind-the-scene commentary from Greg Evans:
The first strip in this collection sums up what I think is a fairly common male/female dynamic. Men tend to say whatever words pop into their heads, often slanted toward “fixing” a problem. Women tend to be far more nuanced in terms of what they say – and hear. In this case, for example, Frank uses “Walmart” as a word meaning “a place to go buy stuff.” But to Nancy, it means “don’t spend a lot on a dress.”

When I was pulling dates for these Brad and Toni collections, I didn’t notice that I’d inadvertently included the throwback strip of 3-17, marking the 25th Anniversary of LUANN. It’s fun to compare that strip to the strips surrounding it. Drawing a daily strip is all about evolution. One day you draw something a bit differently and go, “Oh! That looks better!” Other changes are intentional. The artwork in LUANN has definitely gone through some major evolutions. I don’t think the complex, realistic stories I do today would work if drawn in my 25 year old, gag-a-day style. But it’s interesting to see that Luann’s assumption that she’ll know everything when she’s 18 is vividly contradicted by the two adult women above and below her.

Here, we at last learn Toni’s backstory: her parents were killed in a car crash, she and brother Jonah were raised by an aunt, Jonah got a girl pregnant, she bailed and poor little Shannon is bounced around between an immature dad and an over-worked aunt. Whoa! Funny stuff, huh!?

Sometimes I do wonder how LUANN morphed from the simple strip it was 25 years ago to this complex, tangled soap-opera of today. I certainly never planned it that way.