From the salmon-colored sofa that is the center of the Arlo & Janis universe, this unique and quixotic comic strip has been just about everywhere. From unvarnished human drama to flights of unfettered comic fantasy, from unabashed pathos to unsurpassed observational wit, Arlo & Janis is perhaps the most unpigenholeable comic strip ever. It also invents new words!
The characters Arlo and Janis have played the parts of mermaids, squirrels, alligators and grasshoppers over the years, all while exploring the unexaggerated human condition and managing to become, with their son Gene, perhaps the most believable family in the funny pages. This unique approach has garnered Arlo & Janis an intelligent and engaged readership and guaranteed that a percentage of it will be confused at any given moment. However, readers eagerly return every day for another quaff from what has been the holy grail for a generation of comic-strip authors: quintessential Boomer humor.
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Comments (23) (Please sign in to comment)
Annie Evangelista said, 4 months ago
I don’t get it?
Kuldip Rai said, 4 months ago
Maybe Arlo changed the channel to something Janis would want to watch, only for her to decide that she is going to go and read instead. Hence the slight annoyance in the final panel.
As for his comment in the final comment, maybe it wasn’t a TV channel, but a DVD they rented?
Pataruski
said, 4 months ago
I don’t get it eith… wait, I get it!
He turns the channel.
He doesn’t like whats on.
Still doesn’t but watches anyway.
She isn’t impressed either, so goes to read…
He changes channels, maybe surfs, still displeased, flips again or flips it off.
message: “The video store is dead, replaced by 100 channels! But we get 100 channels of crap,so its back to the video store.”
George Alexander said, 4 months ago
The central theme of the strip is that while A&J are crazy-nuts about each other, on every level, they are, nevertheless, so very different. Here, Janis, ever the realist, cuts the crap that’s on the idiot tube to the quick, while Arlo, ever hopeful, gives it a couple of more tries. He ends up defeated, she quit in time, undefeated.
JDS said, 4 months ago
@George Alexander
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with your analysis.
My guess is that Arlo, like myself, doesn’t subscribe to Netflix, and therefore misses the old video store.
david_42 said, 4 months ago
@JDS
I’d agree, it’s much faster and easier to decide on a movie in a store than online.
belcherman said, 4 months ago
OK, my take: Arlo and Janis are watching TV. Whatever they are watching stinks. Janis decides to go read a book. Arlo decides to rent a video via some on-line method, hence the video store reference.
whmIII said, 4 months ago
These have been kinda dull lately…
Notgiven said, 4 months ago
I’ve got on-demand from a digital TV provider and Amazon Prime. What do I need with a video store?
Paul Roese
said, 4 months ago
don’t A&J have jobs? didn’t they have a kid once? lately it just seems they watch TV or play with their iPhone.
Cat Servant said, 4 months ago
Maybe he’s just being literal. The DVD store is dead. I can’t find one within 20 miles of my house.
finale said, 4 months ago
Anything (except Honey Booboo and the Krashdashians) but a “Lifetime” movie…..aaaargh!
comicsssfan said, 4 months ago
@Paul Roese
His kid is making up for it. He probably never even sleeps with all his responsibilities of studying, working in father-in-law’s restaurant, and simultaneously rebuilding a ramshackle house and an old sailboat. All the while he is tending to his hot new wife and her child from another man, who incidently has a Harvard law degree and will probably pop back into her life at an inopportune time, and has the resources to do it.
Night-Gaunt49 said, 4 months ago
Between Hulu and Netflix most people are covered.
Crandlemire said, 4 months ago
@Annie Evangelista
“The King is dead, long live the King” is what you say when one King dies and a new one takes over. Video stores are dead, yet the videos will always be with us in one form of another. More aptly said would be television is dead, long live TV (on the internet).