The best series you ever ran in my opinion was a few years ago. It was the mermaid series with Janis as the mermaid.  I just loved it!!!   Didn't realize how great it was going to be so I threw out the first few newspapers.  Then it was too late to cut out each day and save it.  I have thought of it so many times. Would you PLEASE try to find it and post it on your website?

 --unsigned

Sit back. You're going to learn more about Sunday comics than you ever wanted to know. There are several formats in which Sunday comics might appear, and a common one--the format used for A&J--involves three tiers, or layers. Think cake. Because newspaper editors appreciate flexibility when laying out the rather complex and crowded Sunday comics section, the top tier in this format is designed to be dispensable. For example, imagine this cartoon without the top tier--that is, the first two panels. The top panels are new material and relate to the joke but are not essential. Without them, the joke stands. Often, cartoonists working within this format employ a standing logo, as in this cartoon. Only one panel in the top tier relates to the joke unfolding below, and still it is not essential. Yet another option, and one I have employed the past few years, is to make the entire upper tier a standing logo, since many newspapers are going to lop it off, anyway. This example is an earlier version of the bookends logo I use today, the "long" portion of my strip to which the writer refers. Obviously, I've played around with this over the years, and I currently am using the "long" logo, because I art lazy.

By the way, I liked the mermaid sequence, too, and it will run on arloandjanis.com in the future, I'm fairly certain.

---

I'm stationed over here in way-too-sunny Kuwait, where our job is to fly in and out of Iraq, hauling troops and equipment.  I just got back from a Baghdad run this afternoon and realized that I hadn't looked at Arlo and Janis in a while.  Gotta have Arlo and Janis. Stars and Stripes arrives only sporadically, and they don't carry Arlo and Janis.  Luckily, I found out several deployments ago that Arlo and Janis is to be found on the web, so off we go.  Today, I finally found arloandjanis.com.  Hallelujah!  It had my all time favorite strip, the sailboat fantasy with Jimmy Buffett, " Hey, it's your dream."  I have a tattered copy of that on my desk from when it first came out. 

I have often looked for a book collecting all your old strips, as I have
only known about them for 10 years, but I know there are plenty more out there.  I have told my wife that you obviously have a channel directly into my brain.  I often wordlessly hand strips over to my wife, whereupon she gives me a dirty look.  I can't help it if I'm not the only one who thinks that way.  I like Buffett, lived on the Gulf coast for a while (in Bluxi, flying with the Hurricane Hunters), like beaches, oysters, would love to have a boat, and often have trouble convincing my wife she really should wear the bathing suits I buy her. 

My wife bought me tickets to a Jimmy Buffett concert in Minneapolis as a welcome back present when I got back from my last overseas deployment.  I marveled as he played the whole concert barefoot and in shorts.  I'm just grateful that someone could live the life he does, making great music, going to wonderful places, flying his own airplanes, and going to work barefoot and in shorts.  He's my hero.  You're my other hero, as you can zero right into where my mind goes constantly in four small boxes.  Please keep it up, it makes life in a drab place a lot more bearable.

--Rob
Air Force kinda guy

When I contemplated adding "The Mailbox," I told myself I would refrain from going overboard with words of praise, but I couldn't resist posting this special letter, embarrassing though it is. Here's a former Hurricane Hunter who's now flying in and out of Baghdad, and he's calling me his "hero." I know he's being nice, and I appreciate that. Brave and capable young men and women willing to go when those we entrust with power say "go" are an invaluable national asset, and I hope Rob comes home safely.

I hope Rob won't mind: I'm forwarding his letter to Carson Cooper at Radio Margaritaville. (If there's a Parrothead out there who, through some quirk of fate, has missed this site, you should check it out.)

---