From March of 1996, still on the phone. Many of your comments yesterday were interesting. I know we have had a similar conversation before, but these days I am contemplating doing something more, or different, with the “second cast” of A&J. Bill Bickel’s suggestion was a good one: turn the Sunday strip over to Gene, et al. As he noted, this would not be unprecedented in the history of newspaper comics. “Buz Sawyer and His Pal Roscoe Sweeney” springs immediately to my mind. When I was a boy reading The Atlanta Journal, I preferred the humorous Sunday antics of Roscoe and his “Baby Sister” to the daily adventures of Navy pilot Buz Sawyer. However, there are a couple of problems as far as A&J and Gene are concerned. The lives of the coast people have been a continuing kind of story. To confine them to a single day, even a Sunday, would change all that, I think. More important, this solution is very “old school” in a time when the industry is reading tea leaves and pushing the envelope. Apropos, Neal in Bawstun suggested making the adventures of Gene and Mary Lou into a Web-only comic. I think that is a good suggestion, too. (My editor Reed just choked on his morning croissant.)
50 responses to “The Egghead”
Ah, yes, March 20, 1996…the day Robert Penn Warren spun in his grave.
Setting up a secondary web-only comic sounds like a terrific idea. If only because once you get into it, you’ll discover that there are no real restraints (providing you don’t sell it to a syndicate). But then, why would you?
A Web-only Gene and Mary Lou comic would be great, from the humble reader’s perspective!
Jimmy, as a web-only, non-syndicated comic, you could experiment with things you can’t do in the regular A&J. Then, if you don’t like what results, you can simply drop it and try something else.
Sounds as if poor Reed had a wake up call. 😉
The Far Side was great one square at a time. Maybe you could do that online.
If Reed makes a regular habit of butter-laden morning croissants, he may find he has a worse problem than choking on them. Or even prying cartoons out of you. 🙂
**And here I am talking about another strip. — JJ**
Upon occasion my wife will read the morning strip and say, “I don’t get it.” Usually, I will explain it and she will see the humor. Upon very rare occasion, she will note that it still does not strike her as funny. My response is that it is pretty hard to write 365 winners a year, or 366 in the case of this year. Hey, they can’t all be “…there’s just something about a peek.” 😉
What is amazing is not that some Arlo and Janis strips are not bemusing, but rather that I am amused by all but a tiny fraction. Arlo and Janis bats higher in that regard than every other strip I have ever encountered, and the percentage of “Classics” is very, very high… likewise dwarfing any other strip.
So I am very sympathetic to the difficult task of Our Humble Author… who now, in addition to trying to bat 1.000 with this strip, will be starting another. Oh, the humanity! =0
Yeah, yeah, Las Vegas will not quote you odds on “another strip” out of Our Humble Author, but I wanted to demonstrate how speculation instantly becomes “fact” out here on the Interwebs. 😀
Bless you, JJ, you surely have enough to say grace over as it is, notre ami.
Write a regular strip, a web strip AND updates on the blog? If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it. Most of the strips are A&J, maybe a few to Robin, quite a few to Luddie and maybe more than a few to Gene. Of course in the past we had references to A&J’s workplace, but it’s been a long while since we have seen that.
I too have to give JJ credit for the quality of his work. It would be real easy to take snippets from our posts here at A&J. Every once in a while we are funny.
I too find Arlo and Janis funny almost 1oo% of the time. Perhaps because their “interests” are my interests as well? I see myself in all the characters, Arlo, Janis, Gene, Mary Lou, Meg, Gus.
Even Ludwig.
I read it daily, and while I don’t find them all funny, I find them all interesting. Each one stirs some thought and emotion, and it is a good reflection of what may happen in daily life. We all interact with someone else, we all daydream, most of us have either pets or children. Throw all that into JJ’s mental blender, and he produces a compelling comic strip. Way to go, Jimmy!
By the way, Jackie, how are things on the home front? Have you made contact with the minions yet to see how well things are doing?
Although it is entirely your decision JJ, I quite like having both generations in the same strip. It gives a continuity to life, and sometimes we need a change-up. Variety is the spice….
Flossie: Me, too, even with Luddie. A&J is the only strip I see that deals with a cat well. I like 9CL better than many of you, but Solange is rarely, if ever, good. Mostly a chance for Brooke to play games with panel margins. Puddles is fun.
Peace,
It’s always fun to give an editor (or manager in my case) something to choke on and sputter about!
I was joking about battery fires yesterday, but today comes this story: https://consumerist.com/2016/03/31/toshiba-recalls-91000-laptops-over-fire-hazard/
If any of you out there have Toshiba laptops, better read this one!
Mark the house is fine, thought I posted that. Storms went north and we only had rain. One minion has an older grandfather dying, they took off to see him, others are supposed to be moving a 26 foot boat onto trailer and out of my Boat Palace boat she’d where it has been hanging on lines only for years. We are moving to an enclosed warehouse.
For gut-busting guffaws Greg Cravens of The Buckets and Hubris fame is most likely score a homer but for comics that bring the most regular smiles, chuckles and occasional belly-laughs JJ has it in the bag! I can relate to both A & J like no other comics characters.
I hate being responsible for anyone choking on a croissant. Especially if it is a properly made Parisian croissant with pounds of butter rolled in between layers of dough. However, if it one of those awful Peppridge Farm pseudo-concoctions, then Reed gets what he deserves.
A web-only ‘Gene & Mary Lou’ would have its on income stream and not depend upon syndication sales. Just my two cents worth.
It got up to 72 degrees today. My first official act of 70-plus degree weather was to don my A&J tee.
Sorry, Jackie, your update was on the previous installment of Ruth. I hadn’t gone back because Jimmy had put up a new post and folks were putting comments here. Glad the news was good.
Methinks having Sunday devoted to Gene would tend to miss out on possible new fans of A&J. Gene, being only a young married, cannot have enough life experiences to match the subtle humor engendered by A&J. As I suspect those why buy newspapers buy more Sunday issues than weekday issues, such a move could be counterproductive.
In general, I also fear that the pressure to produce 2 strips instead of 1 may be a greater-than-expected burden on our esteemed author. Goose, golden eggs, etc….. Perhaps a weekly Gene comic in addition to the daily A&J would work. Maybe even 2 or 3 per week would be OK.
Evan, I’d enjoy a peek every day, several times per day, if such were available!!
Just spent $565. to find out that the reason we have no hot water and no heat is that the gas doohickey outside the abode had gone to meter heaven. That caused the burn out of a vital fan in the furnace. Maybe the company will entertain a claim for reimbursement?? More likely, those who read my claim will merely BE entertained.
Thanks, Mark. I have a Toshiba laptop, so I checked on the website, and I am okay—not one affected. Good to know, though.
It was 80 here today and felt like 87. But it had already been hotter than that in Oklahoma.
I may have missed the cool weather season to garden. I am ready to go home to garden but I am here until Tuesday morning. The cottage rented by week.
We are planning three more of these building workshops to try to finish the boats in time for the plyWooden Boat Festival here in Port Aransas which is first full weekend in October. We are postponing the cancer fund raiser until 2017 for several reasons.
I just checked my lap top and found no fire, but then it’s not even 7:30 yet.
c x-p: “I’d enjoy a peek every day, several times per day, if such were available.” As Elaine used to say, “All men are prancing, leering billy goats.”
It’s spring, right? Astronomical spring. It is not 80F, here [more than half way from the equator to the pole], only 41F or so at 2014 CDT. Tomorrow, April Fool’s, pred. = hi in the 40s, but low of 19, 50% chance of snow showers. Spent the last 3 wks. farther S [Mpls.], no ice on the lakes down there. Still thin ice on all the larger lakes from Mille Lacs to Bemidji, but some open water. No snow on the ground, but I’ve not checked the N side of the berm. Peace,