LISA'S LEGACY TRILOGY:
1. PRELUDE: Lisa's Story Begins
2. LISA'S STORY: The Other Shoe
3. THE LAST LEAF: Lisa's Story Concludes
I recently (yesterday) completed a months-long project of reading all of The Complete Funky Winkerbean from 1972-2007, twelve volumes (so far), and wondered what I would move on to next. While I am waiting for the thirteenth volume to be released (January 2024), I thought I'd slide into The Last Leaf, the final volume of the "Lisa's Story" trilogy, which picks up pretty much exactly where The Complete Funky Winkerbean v12 left off.
PRELUDE: This volume includes every significant "Lisa" story up until she is diagnosed with cancer... the first time. She meets Les Moore, they date, go to prom together, then break up. She disappears from the strip for a while, and when she returns she is pregnant. Les is not the father, but he agrees to become her childbirth coach. she has the baby and gives him up for adoption. The baby is adopted by Westview High School principal Fred Fairgood and his wife Ann. the adoption records are sealed. the fairgoods name him Darin. The Lisa leaves the strip for a while. She returns in 1992, after the timeline has made a four-year jump into the future and resumes her relationship with Les. The rest of this volume deals with Less and Lisa falling in love and getting married. Three epilogues foreshadow things to come.
LISA'S STORY: As I recall, this volume was released, individually, first. Later, prequel and sequel volumes cam out and were collected in a slipcase. The main story deals with Lisa's breast cancer, from the day she experienced her first symptom until the day she dies. Between "Lisa's Story" and "The Other Shoe," she went into remission for seven years. As soon as she died, in 2007, the strip jumped another ten years forward in time, to 2017.
THE LAST LEAF: This is the volume I am reading now for the first time.
Replies
Out of curiosity, I looked the book up as if I was going to order it. It told me that I ordered it in September. I also said "only 3 left in stock (more on the way)"
When you requested a replacement were you able to tell them why?
Yes, and I sent photos of the worst pages. Our contact seemed to understand, and assured us that the replace would be visually inspected before being sent, but when we received it it was still in its shrink-wrap. I'm now halfway through 2016, still awaiting word from Kent State Press.
Whenever they do a "tip of the funky felt-tip" is that a Sunday done in the style of the artist being tributed, or by the artist himself?
It's by the artist himself. (Many of them are signed.) What threw me, I guess, is that the artists were drawing more-or-less in the style of Tom Batiuk. (I thought it might have been the other way around.)
I heard from Kent State Press yesterday. They are going to replace my copy and follow up directly with the printer using my photos.
Meanwhile, I have finished reading through 2016. I have already mentioned some highlight from 2014. Continuing...
2015:
Dick Tracy and Sam Catchem appear January 19-25.
In March, Batiuk satirizes the comic book field (in general) by saterizing the "Spider-Clone Sage" (in specific).
The "Tip of the Funky Felt Tip" for March 15 is an homage to the cover of Batman #156 and is signed "Frenz & Buscema after Kane" (although I think the actual cover was ghosted by Sheldon Moldoff).
The "Time Pool" story runs through July. (These are the pages marred by the printing error, making me that much more eager to have the volume replaced.)
2016:
In May thestrip crosses over with Crankshaft continuity for a week or two, making for some choppy reading. glad they included it, though.
Much of the second half of 2016 deals with the making of the Starbuck Jones movie.
Tips of the Funky Felt Tip:
Unsurprisingly, I received a new message from Amazon:
We’re encountering a delay in delivering your order. We'll make every effort to get the delayed item to you as soon as possible. We know this delivery is important, and we apologize for the inconvenience.
That is so weird! I haven't heard back from Kent State Press since I sent the photos, but they didn't ask for the misprint edition to be returned. After I receive my replacement copy, if you still haven't gotten your Amazon order you can have my defective copy.
Between the publisher, the printer and the seller, it's like nobody knoews anything. Who will wind up eating the losses?
In my case I'm confident that I read all of these strips when they were first printed. They haven't even charged me for the book yet. I expect them to come up with a good, clean copy for everyone who ordered it.
Now Amazon says the book will arrive on Tuesday, December 9.
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