On a side note, I was realizing how many male jocks there are in this strip. Jack, Kip, Ox and now Vale. That’s at least half of the male characters (of Luann’s age).
Ask kids who’ve lived in toxic marriages with parents who hated each other how well that worked out for them. And have we ever seen JJ’s father in all of these years? What kind of a dad was he to her?
Yes the current reaction is very different to how the strip was understood at the time. (I wrote a post about this yesterday – I think the arc was based partially on the movie Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.) People also forget that Clint demanded custody (probably for revenge) and Joanie gave it to him. They also forget that even though she was going to have to start at ground zero developing job skills she turned down alimony during the divorce hearing. The judge told her “You is weird, honey.”
Men give Joanie a lot of grief for leaving a toxic marriage. (There was much less judgement when the arc originally came out as it was based on at least one contemporary film and probably social discussions about marriage at the time.) Her husband wanted custody during the divorce hearing and she gave it to him. Yet we’ve seen nothing of JJ’s dad since then, and he certainly didn’t show up for his daughter’s marriage (and probably not for her first one either). Maybe he has something to do with any issues his daughter may have?
Joanie’s leaving because her daughter didn’t have a ring she approved of? (I might have declined attending the PPV wedding, but whether they chose to wear or not wear rings seems a pretty trivial aspect to cause the mother of the bride to walk out.)
Wow. Of all the characters, that would have felt like a stretch on a few levels. I don’t remember the arc that Greg did use on drunk driving, or whether Aaron was drinking (and driving) or not. While I think an arc about the death of a character would have been valid, I think I would have chosen someone else (one of the regulars rather than Luann’s unrequited crush).
I think it would be a terrific change in trajectory of this strip to have an arc featuring Luann having learning adventures somewhere other than Pitts. If it were up to me I wouldn’t bother having her travel with any of the familiar cast of characters although Tara would make the most sense in this case. As for Quill, I definitely like him much more than you do although the travel scenario I would like to have seen with him and Luann would have been working in theatre in New York.
While I will be thrilled to be proven wrong I think it’s very unlikely that we will see an Italian arc with Luann. I think as has been the case up until now, anything involving her will, sadly, remain in Pitts. It’s almost as if comic strips think that it would cost money to place their characters in other locales, particularly out of the country. (I know Gunther was a brief exception but was quickly returned to his mother’s house and the status quo in Pitts.)
On a side note, I was realizing how many male jocks there are in this strip. Jack, Kip, Ox and now Vale. That’s at least half of the male characters (of Luann’s age).