A pithy comic strip about life, love, lust and puthy cats.

Est. 1985

Extra, Extra!

Generating Controversy

By Jimmy Johnson


Buy the new book, "Beaucoup Arlo & Janis!"Today's "Arlo & Janis!"OK, so you probably have gathered that the new approach to the Web site, the new attitude if you will, hasn’t kicked in yet. You’re not surprised, now are you? I thought about lying and telling you yesterday’s simply failed to load after I’d carefully chosen a cartoon for you and placed it in the hopper, but you’re too smart for that. So, we’ll limp along this week. I do want to go back to the beach and pick up where we left off last week, with this series from 1995. It can’t be Wednesday already.

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69 responses to “Generating Controversy”

  1. sandcastler™ Avatar
    sandcastler™

    JJ, Chuck Jones and Tex Avery would be proud of your contribution to the Acme School of cartooning.

  2. Llee Avatar

    Acme anvils!!!!!!! 🙂

  3. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    Do the rock bands of the 60’s and 70’s still trash their hotel suites when they do reunion and nostalgia tours? Perhaps not, as those canes and walkers they have to use to get around now probably slow them down a bit.

  4. Symply Fargone Avatar

    @GR6,

    No they Symply take us out to eat after the show(Jonathan Edwards) and then go to Fargone bed…lol

  5. David in Austin Avatar
    David in Austin

    Apparently there IS a course in cartoon physics. It isn’t at the famous repository of knowledge in College Station or the one in Austin. It is taught at Ithaca College in New York. (Get a rope!) [yes, I know it’s upstate, not in ‘The City’]
     
    Looking at the course schedule, it seems the class isn’t available this fall.
     
    A link to a paper about the course is at: Link to Article
     
    If the complicated URL that I’ve hidden in HTML doesn’t work, Goggle search for “Physics Cartoon Ithaca PDF” and click on the first link, that will take you to a copy of the article.

  6. David in Austin Avatar
    David in Austin

    Depending on your browser, you may actually have to go to the downloads list and look for the PDF file and open it from the download listing. Other browsers may take you directly to a copy of the file.

  7. Mindy from Indy Avatar
    Mindy from Indy

    Ha! Weren’t we just talking about the Roadrunner the other day? Perfect. And I am ashamed to admit I didn’t figure out what rhymes with “woes” until I read the comments. #fail

    To everyone treking back up the mountain of wellness, or helping someone who is, (literally, spiritually, emotionally, or all of the above), I wish you all the best of luck. *This* is the best part of this place. Although the bulk of us have never met, we really do care about one another.

  8. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    I’ll admit I just scanned the “cartoon physics” sheet, but the academic value of this line of study is…? To expand the students’ minds, perhaps? Yeah, well, so did (supposedly) taking LSD. To come up with innovative ways to spend all the student loan money flooding institutions of higher learning?

    It seems to me the course is about itself.

  9. sandcastler™ Avatar
    sandcastler™

    Easy there GR6. Our generation had ‘Under Water Basket Weaving.’ The world survived in spite of it.

  10. Bonnie from Gloucester MA Avatar
    Bonnie from Gloucester MA

    Ok, so curiosity got the best of me. I’ve read the posts from Monday. I’m back for an encore.

    Thank you for your thoughtful comments about the blog. I want to be clear that I have nothing against the community/village.

    To Mark in TTown, Rocky & others: For me, there are only 3 topics that I visit the blog for: discussion about the daily newspaper strip, discussion about the archive strip and discussion about JJ’s comments if he’s posted (like today!). Really, that’s all. I’m not trying to be “regimental”. It’s just that it’s an A&J website, so that’s specifically what I expect to find here.

    To Lilyblack: My experience was the opposite of yours. I used to be a semi-regular poster. But as the blog got off-point and more clique-y (is that a word?), it became less fun for me.

    To David from Austin: I wholeheartedly agree with you that one needs to be willing to state their case. That’s why I’m here. But having many years experience in Customer Service, I know that dissatisfied customers don’t voice their thoughts/concerns/complaints. The vast majority of the time they simply and invisibly…….just leave. So the sad reality is, we don’t get to hear their point of view. Everybody’s loss.

    To the few who described the virtues of scrolling, it’s certainly a useful tool. I just found myself scrolling more than reading.

    To those who charged that some poster rebuttals get too aggressive and personal, all I can say is there’s no excuse for that. Behavior like that drives people away, too. But on reflection, some of the problem stems from the fact that with the written word, you can’t see whether someone is smiling or not when they respond in a “sarcastic” way. But sometimes people are just mean. I have no personal experience with it here.

    I guess, at the risk of assigning labels (usually not a good idea!), some of us fall into 1 of 2 camps – the Purists and the Free-Wheelers. Different strokes for different folks. The Purists merely expect different things from the website.

    That’s all – I’m done. Sorry for the length. Thanks for listening. In the interest of reconciliation, the only thing we can ALL agree on is our affection for a little strip called Arlo & Janis which touches our lives every day. JJ – You’re The Man!

  11. sandcastler™ Avatar
    sandcastler™

    If the work boot fits…Your great miscalculations http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27782731

  12. Steve from Royal Oak, Mi Avatar

    Good Job Bonnie…I hope my response was not too personal or aggressive! lol 😛

  13. Lilyblack Avatar

    Bonnie, I really see no clique here, except the whole Village is one. It is a very friendly place, really.

    Good morning, Villagers. Sunny and pretty, here. The Boss Of My Life did a percutaneous cholecystectomy this morning, “and I helped.” Mainly by sitting there uttering encouraging words. Then we made rounds and I pushed the dressing cart. I love our patients. I have christened one of them “Blinky,” cos he is always asleep when we get there and cross till I josh him a bit. Then he starts smiling. No, he is not a wombat but it is a wonder he is still with us.

  14. DJJG Avatar
    DJJG

    Dear Mindy from Indy,

    I am in your company: I couldn’t figure out at all what rhymed with “woes” either. But I am bad at crossword puzzles too. They’re really letter puzzles, too far removed from syntax and meaning for me. I’d much rather read cartoon strips!

  15. Lilyblack Avatar

    Heh, The Boss Of My Life does the New York Times crossword every day. In ink. I am hopeless at it, and as for tha number one, forget it

  16. Laura in Upstate Avatar
    Laura in Upstate

    Since Ithaca was a hotbed of the film industry before the other coast took over it is probably a hold over from then. I do get a kick out of seeing the Twighlight Zone episode where the guy gets stuck in the bus station in Binghamton trying to get home to Cortland. I am sure people in other parts of the country don’t know that those are real places and that Rod Serling grew up here in the area.

  17. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    Nominees for the “Underwater Basket Weaving Award, Actual Courses of Study Division”:

    Parapsychology, PhD in Ufology, Surfing Studies, and (I swear I’m not making this up) The Phallus.

  18. Lilyblack Avatar

    Sounds like a frustration dream, like trying to get an operation done and nobody will give you instruments or help you. I have that one quite often

  19. David from Austin Avatar
    David from Austin

    Ghost, it’s a physics course for non majors. It is a way for them to talk about vectors, force, mass, gravity, levers, inclined planes and bunches of other science stuff that would otherwise be painfully dull to them.

    🙂

  20. Lilyblack Avatar

    David, at my school, that was called “Physics for Poets”. 😛

  21. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    Oh. Or “Physics for Philosophy Majors”? 🙂

  22. Blinky the Wonder Wombat Avatar
    Blinky the Wonder Wombat

    What we really need is “Physics for Public Policy Makers”.

  23. Lilyblack Avatar

    At the other end was Geology 101-2, AKA “Rocks For Jocks” and Art Appreciation 105-6, AKA “Darkness at Noon”.

  24. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    Guys, obviously I can subscribe to either “School of Blogging”. I moderate one very rigid, stay on topic one (I didn’t set the rules) I moderate one that is more free wheeling but polite and you should somehow tie in topic of building boats or boating (I don’t set rules) and then I have one where it can wheel free as long as we are polite and don’t get political
    (I set rules on this one) I am an owner of all forums I moderate, which gives me some or a lot of say.

    I have seen others disintegrate due to “no rules”, trolls, drunks, political and religious attacks, etc. Personal warfare, rude comments, none of that is fun. Some of these were groups I had helped promote and build because I thought them worthwhile in the beginning.
    None of that is fun and yes, I withdrew and yes, I said why.

    I made a personal “rule” that if I participated in ANY group, I would be upbeat and positive and try to find that same connection in those I read or address. Our lives are too short for anything else. I did lurk and read you guys a long time before I decided I’d join in the conversation.

    Obviously I love comics. I can sit around and read and discuss comics until the cows come home. But JJ has a strip that roams and veers and takes circuitous routes to make his point and that is what life/lives are like too.

    Lordy, I know that is true! No matter how high or how low we go, we are all important as the other and no one is less valuable. Nor opinions, so long as they are polite.

    I have to go to Dollar General while I have someone here to sit with mom and grandson.

    Love, Jackie Monies