OK, so this comic strip from December of last year isn’t exactly “rare.” It’s Arlo and Janis sitting on the sofa, for cryin’ out loud. However, there is something out of the ordinary going on here. Can you tell what it is? That’s right! In the third panel, Arlo’s dialog runs to four lines. It is an unwritten rule here (where all rules are unwritten!) that dialog in a comic strip not run for more than three lines. You’d be surprised how easy this really is. Dialog tends to be terse and to the point, and much of what I write is dialog. I believe punchy dialog actually lends authenticity; remember that, would-be comic strip artists, and writers of all stripes.
I bring up dialog, because I periodically get emails from readers who complain (always nicely!) that they have a particularly difficult time reading the text in Arlo & Janis. I don’t doubt they have problems. Newspapers so reduce all comic strips these days that they’ve become almost impossible to read, particularly for the demographic that is keeping newspapers afloat. I do wonder, though, if A&J is particularly unintelligible. I look at other strips in the newspapers, and I don’t see many of them being any easier to read. I like to think it’s because Arlo & Janis is the one they want to read. Anyway, I have two points about this subject. 1) I am aware of the problem. I have gone to a thicker lettering pen, but I think this sometimes makes me squeeze the lettering, which probably is the worst thing I could do. I have experimented with computer fonts made from my own lettering. This is promising, but I haven’t been able to develop one yet that really pleases me. Perhaps I need to expand the three-line rule to four lines. In short, I am working on it. 2) I would like your observations and suggestions on this matter. It might help.
316 responses to “A Rare Arlo & Janis”
OK, so my shrinks have told me forever that I do not have an addictive personality, reason I can give up cigarettes, alcohol, caffeine so easily. I have never had a drug addiction and dislike drugs, probably from having to take so many out of necessity for illness.
Will I become addicted to exercise and want to do more and more daily? Which I had suspected anyway, kind of like eating disorders which are compulsive if not addictive, you just eat less and less or more and more.
Not saying exercise is bad at all and if I do become addicted my body and weight will get better, so why worry?
Back to the boiler room and the endless dirty stuff I have found just everywhere out in laundry area (which is part of my sunroom and hence big) I have walked back and forth so much today I don’t need to walk but the leg lifts, etc. need to be done.
Thanks, Ghost! Love, Jackie
Since exercise produces dopamine naturally, and at natural levels, the short answer is “no, you will not get addicted to physical exercise”. Of course, that means physically addicted. Some people may apparently become psychologically addicted to certain things (sex, anyone?), but that is actually a different paradigm at work.
There was another lady locally who began WW at about the same time as my sister, who also lost 100+ pounds in about the same time frame. However, she did not follow the program that closely but rather became a compulsive walker, then runner. Today, after blowing out both her knees, she has regained most of the weight she lost. My sister, on the other hand, maintained her goal weight for several years, right up to the day she underwent the surgery that ultimately took her life.
As long as we are talking following an eating adjustment program and not crazy diets like I have done in past, I am doing just that. Three meals per day and two to three healthy snacks with no sugars, salts or caffeine, lots of water. And yes, Ghost, I am back following the program I learned from WW and also American Diabetes Association because as you say, if you don’t do that it all comes back to bite you later for what you bit yesterday.
Beginning a food diary again, deep breathing exercises, meditation and relaxation routines too, all part of a big life adjustment.
Both my knees have been blown out for years. How the heck do you think I got this weight on?
I was a size 8 when I moved here and jogged, walked a couple miles each day, did all kinds of physical hobbies. You are absolutely right on about permanent life changes.
And it is never too late. Love, Jackie
No, Jackie, don’t stint on the leg lifts…you never know when those might come in handy. 😉 And no, it is never too late.
Are you sure your dirty laundry is not breeding and multiplying in dark places, like wire coat hangers do in closets? Both can get so tangled up with each other that they certainly seem to be doing the nasty sometimes. (The plastic hangers you buy at Wally World have apparently been neutered, as they don’t do that.)
I am like Joan Crawford. Wire hangers do not exist in my closet although I suspect the plastic WM hangers may breed too because I have huge quantities. But then I do have the contents of four lives to give away and sort through.
And yes, leg lifts do come in handy, especially for climbing back into small boats and so do arm exercises for pulling yourself back in. I am packing my weights and would pack all of the sizes except I haven’t found them yet.
No Ghost, I fired one housekeeper after almost 20 years with me and this one has been fired and then given a second chance over laundry and packing stuff away so as to not have to deal with it. It is just filthy and poor workers.
But on life changes, it is never too late. The legs and arms are showing most improvement, I need something for stomach muscles, although the leg lifts help those too
Love, Jackie
Try this, Jackie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFM0_8JT8WA
And this is something else that is not just about looks…the importance to your body of the “strong core” they mention cannot be underestimated.
I’m back…and that’s because no one came by to pick me up…so I worked….just another humid day in S IN and a bent door frame that happened Friday and my husband saw it this morning…and that event is a SFYAD, paydays 🙂
OF is due NOW!
Exercise can be bad for the body. I know lots of fanatic exercise folk with blown joints. This is especially true in martial arts. There are ways of moving that guarantee blowing your knees out. It is hard to unlearn those ways and learning the correct form (you know, old dog, new tricks).
I wonder if the same thing is true for walking and jogging?
Debbe 😉 OK, hon, don’t be surprised if you wake up in Oklahoma, or somewhere, one day. 🙂
Funny how door frames just up and bend themselves sometimes, isn’t it?
I ramped up my walking/jogging the first of the year at the same time I got seriously back on the WW plan. (Down another 20 pounds and all my cargo pants have mysteriously gotten too large in the waist since 1 January.) On the contrary, long distance walking and shorter, moderate jogs have actually strengthened my left knee, the one I banged up in a motorcycle mishap a number years ago (I still miss that Gold Wing), and aggravated a year or two ago by overdoing leg presses. My knee doesn’t bother me at all now, and I baby it, reserving almost all of my weight work for arm, shoulder and chest strengthening.
As previously mentioned here, moderation in all things…including moderation.
^°^°^°^°^°^ has bad joints due to leaping out of perfectly good aircraft.
Heard from the SO. She says the weather is nice, the pool is warm, wine tastes great, and the adult only pool is fabulous. Glad she is enjoying today, tomorrow she starts the hard work of attending all those conference meetings.
And now my kids know why they have to study math beyond mere arithmetic!
http://www.gocomics.com/bc/2015/06/21
Sandcastler, my youngest daughter did her first “sky dive” yesterday morning, celebrating a significant birthday this week. She enjoyed it and was only a little nervous. I wasn’t there, no fear; the location was a place in Pepperell, Massachusetts. Her husband kept family and friends informed on Facebook; I’ve gotta tell you doubters that FB is perfect for this kind of thing. Could she hurt her knees doing this just once? (Probably not. Sorry about your joints, though.) I was mighty nervous myself but did not say anything. Was SO GLAD when Dana posted that Marge was safely down on the ground!
Thank you, Ghost! I can do those! Add it to the things I do in bed.
Yeah, me and Gracie with the straight lines and straight faces.
Seriously had not thought of going to youtube to look for exercises. I am so old school, I dug out that book on exercises for college dorm rooms, translate to motels and home bedrooms as well. I will add that routine to what I do already.
Fats Domino is playing piano and that is good old school exercise music. Or Dr. John or Dr. Hook or other oldies for oldies.
By the way, Gary I blew out the left knee which is the one I am having replaced in April back in my youth at about age 25 when I weighed almost nothing, doing a routine where you sat on you knees on floor and lowered and raised your butt, first to right, then to left. So it has lasted for 46 years anyway.
Love, Jackie
sand: See? I told you so! 😀 And this just in from the Department of Ironic Things: After giving you grief for jumping out of perfectly good airplanes, I’m still seriously considering trying a few jumps at least.
Charlotte, tell your Marge she is an inspiration to me, without even knowing it…or me. 🙂
Trucker, looks like some of that geometry that I wondered a few days ago (“Near Vertical Takeoff”) if they still teach in middle school.
You are very welcome, Jackie. At the point where you can easily get down on and up from the floor (yeah, I know, bum knees), you may want to start exercising there on an exercise pad, for the additional back support. “It’s never too late.”
Ain’t kiddin’…been doing this a few years. (On and off.) Attended enough otherwise-all-female aerobics classes I could teach one. Wouldn’t be as much fun watching the cuties from the front of the room, though. 😉
Actually, I was perfect gentleman, and they all loved me. And I think it made them work harder with a male there. Anyone who says females aren’t as competitive as males, if not more so, knows not of whence he speaks.
^°^°^°^°^ front teeth knocked out, L5 disc reptured, left ankle broken, left ankle badly sprained, C3-C4 vertebrae crushed, right rotator torn, right knee injured; last three unrepaired. Plus side, no combat injuries.
Most yoga classes we’ve attended I am usually the lone male. 🙂
Ghost, I own the exercise mat if I can find where the heck it is. In fact, now that I think of it, I own an exercise bench too for the arms and weights, etc. And ankle weights and wrist weights and five sizes of hand barbells. Boy, look what happens when you get a little more fit, you start remembering! It is like childbirth only in reverse?
Told you I used to be quite tiny lady. Well, I don’t know about the lady part!
Ghost is right about competition, don’t go to a gym full of hot chicks if you are not one, you will get left in the dust. I don’t like aerobics but that is just me. Don’t know if yoga and pilates are as competitive.
Wait, I own a pilates ball too and a bunch of other exercise equipment too. Wonder what happened to it all? That second warehouse is a bottomless pit forty feet deep and it ain’t all boats.
Love, Jackie
Jackie, better send your deputy and his partner in first, if that stuff hasn’t been touched in a while. No telling who is making their home in there these days.
I really got a good laugh out of today’s strip. Being somewhat of a nervous disposition, sudden loud noises can bring results out of proportion to the cause, like Arlo. While in the Navy, I was helping a SeaBee rewire an outlet in a barracks. Didn’t know it was live until he crossed the terminals with a screwdriver. Loud pop, bright flash, and we were both standing on the other side of the room. I don’t remember crossing the floor, so maybe I can teleport with sufficient cause!
Obviously, Jackie, you should open your own gym. Sounds like you already have half the equipment.
Aerobics and Pilates; liked them both, although they are a two different animals. Pilates (core strengthening and flexibility) will help all your body parts move like they did when they were young. Well, most of them. 😉 Never tried yoga, but won’t rule it out, even though I have to say what I’ve seen of it recently strikes me as a bit too “New Agey”. Probably just need to find the right instructor and class. (Come to think of it, I think my aerobics instructor may be doing yoga classes now. Need to check on that.) Gym I’m going to offers “Zumba”. Watched part of a class; wasn’t that impressed. Plus, sounds more like a noise than an exercise program.
I agree that 5’2″ and 107 qualifies as “tiny”. And I suspect you have have fallen somewhere between “lady” and “broad” then. As I use them, both are complimentary terms.
OF due at 6:19 MT, give or take :10. Crowd is gathering.
Meant to ask…does today’s cartoon demonstrate the opposite of a “butt call”?
“…have fallen somewhere between…”
Dang keyboard. Think I’m going to take a pressure washer to it next.
“…would have fallen somewhere between…”
Must be time to eat.