It’s fun to do something like this, from 2007. I think we can all agree we see a lot of Arlo and Janis sitting on the sofa. A&J is a dialog-driven strip, which is not to say, I hope, that it is wordy, but much of the vital characterization comes from verbal interchange. Still, this can create graphic sameness, and just varying the scene for the sake of relieving visual boredom can be a challenge, especially on deadline where *ahem* I sometimes find myself. Anyway, that’s what I like about the above example: it involves Arlo and Janis with their morning coffee, having a mundane husband-and-wife conversation about dreaming. Or is Arlo still dreaming? I should be this creative more often. I know.
31 responses to “The Stuff of Dreams”
And the dialogue-driven A&J is most welcome! But so is the visually creative—I really love it! Like today’s A&J about the telephone in the restaurant. Why *did* so many mai·tre d’s have noodle necks?
I have a lot of dreams like that. Sometimes I am in my boyhood house and go down a hallway and I am in my present day house. Another one is that I am running a marathon, but my legs won’t move so I am pulling myself along with my arms
I often think about Arlo as a crocodile. Or was it an alligator?
Alligator, more likely. JJ resides, or used to, withing alligator range, but not crocodile. Wiki has a map of crocodile range, below.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_crocodile
Peace,
Good retro today Jimmy. And I bet you like the kind of strip that turns your imagination loose to run wild. It reminds me of that classic Chuck Jones cartoon with Daffy Duck trying to complete a storyline while he and the background go through multiple changes. And that one ends with Bugs Bunny appearing as the animator who is having fun with his rival.
Shot put?
Neither Ghost nor I remember this one. Still here ghosting.
Thanks, emb! No one ever put it to me so clearly before. I never found the shape-of-noses explanation to be that helpful, practically.
Shot put with a turn-of-the-previous-century ref!
Duck Amuck is one of my favorites as well.
http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/sammondn/clips/duck-amuck/view
And I have dreams like Arlo’s, with shifting locations and characters, all of which make sense until I wake up.
I wonder, is Janis in the first panel supposed to be Loweezy from Snuffy Smith or Mammy Yokum from L’il Abner? My vote’s for Mammy Yokum because of the corncob pipe she’s smoking.
I have always enjoyed the imaginative strips, I especially remember the one where Janis was a torch singer and Arlo ass the grasshopper. Been gone for a while, any word on the book that was supposed to be a premium for the Parsonage fundraiser?
There’s another version of that cartoon, Mark, with Bugs getting harassed by Elmer, but I don’t remember the name right now.
That was Rabbit Rampage:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x18o05g
Oh, here’s what I did last night:
https://bit.ly/2J5xY1h
From my front porch, using my new telescope and my iPod Touch.
@DJJG7
The difference between an alligator and a crocodile is the former, you’ll see later, the latter, after awhile.
What are A & J doing in the last panel?
I think Ghost is right. Arlo is measuring Janis shot put distance.
A & J doing T & F? Ok.
The retro strip reminds me of the Nightmare Song, “When you’re lying awake,” from Iolanthe, especially as neither Arlo nor Janis seem to be aware of the transformations.
I dream of running down halls ala early Doctor Who. And generally there is a restaurant
somewhere along the way.
Then there are those like the above.
Two geese again, on that redtail hawk next.
https://explore.org/livecams/birds/red-tailed-hawk-nest-camera
Peace,
Mark in TTown
Here is a challenge. In the 1950s there was a program (Twilight Zone?)
where a woman was offered a million dollars ($20+ million today) by the Devil.
But someone must die – that was the conundrum. Finally she was told it would
be someone she didn’t know – she agreed. There was squealing brakes –
The person she did not “know” was her husband.
This was early Television – basically radio with pictures.
Does anyone else remember that?
Before my time. I am just old enough to have faint memories of watching the westerns of the late 1950’s. I was old enough to better enjoy The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits and the like when they came along.
That sounds like something from the Lights Out type of program. It was gone before I came along, but they had an LP done by Oboler recreating the show and I had it. Spooky stuff.
Sweet dreams are made of these, and who am I to disagree?