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

Est. 1985

Extra, Extra!

Hardly Harvey

By Jimmy Johnson


Buy the new book, "Beaucoup Arlo & Janis!"Today's "Arlo & Janis!"
Today, I’m going to begin a series of cartoons that first ran in 1997. It ran for two weeks in newspapers, and before we’re finished, I intend to show the entire series. So, I hope you enjoy “Hardly Harvey,” because Harvey will be visiting with us for days to come. Harvey is a giant dust bunny visible only to Janis, and he is, of course, based upon the title character in the 1950 movie starring Jimmy Stewart, which probably would make my list of 25 favorite movies.

Recent Posts

Ghost of Christmas Past

This holiday Arlo & Janis comic strip from 2022 is similar in concept to the new strip that ran yesterday. I thought the latter ...

Spearhead

I have produced a number of comic strips related to Veteran’s Day. Especially in latter years, I have tried to emphasize the universal experience ...

Dark Passage

Remember: it’s that weekend. The return to standard time can be a bit of a shock in the late afternoon, but I rather enjoy ...

What’s old is old, again

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to build a web site, but there are similarities. Everything needs to be just right, or ...

Back to the ol’ drawing board

I don’t have a lot of time this morning. I wasn’t going to post anything, but I’m tired of looking at that old photograph ...

Thursday’s Child

On Sunday, I teased you with the suggestion there are more changes coming here. There are. They will appear soon, and I think you’ll ...

68 responses to “Hardly Harvey”

  1. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    Harvey looks like the giant wad of lint I just pulled out of my new dryer! From one load.

    Needless to say, my scratch and dent new dryer is working great but my old one didn’t for a long time!

    Love, Jackie

  2. Lilyblack Avatar

    Good morning, Villagers.
    The Man In My Life’s best friend (other than me!) is a funny guy whose favorite movie is “Harvey”. It doesn’t even make my top ten (“Casablanca” is number one. If I lived in those days, i would have been one of those fabulously dressed and coiffed patrons in the Cafe Americain trying to get Rick to drink with them, and wondering about the strange furtive men who hung out at the bar). I had a good run this morning, seven miles and a bit sticky. We are expecting a cold front Friday. Bring it on, says I.
    Jackie, we used to drink iced tea out of urine measuring containers. I still have a jagged piece of skin that a doctor (not The Boss Of My Life) cut out of a pretty girl’s knee, preserved in an old Lidocaine vial. It is kind of a talisman for me

  3. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    What did I say about protocol on contagion? My own personal worse was pulling blood samples to SEND to disease control on a patient and we knew what he had. We used big old glass syringes in those days and this one broke in my hand, no one can tell my fortune correctly now. Of course the blood went into wound.

    Lily, are you sure of the occupation of those well dressed women in Casablanca? They probably weren’t AIDS workers.

    Mike is in watching FOX endlessly. He does it at night and turns it back on when he gets up in morning. While I don’t watch, I have trouble not hearing! I am grateful for the weed eater outside my office but he turns it up. FOX, not the weed eater!

    Bogart was never a favorite. I had to learn what “Bogarting” a joint was from one of my boating friends who was in Nam and other places. Not having some vices limits your knowledge I guess, like smoking.

    “Harvey” is a cute movie. Jimmy Stewart could pull off a lot.

    I need to get cracking here, we are out of eggs and mama didn’t get any with her biscuits and sausage!

    Love, Jackie

  4. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    I promise I didn’t cheat and look this up. I remember this is the “Harvey the Dust Bunny” series in which, at its end, Janis shows her butt. Literally. Stay tuned.

    Lily, I understand “Bio Hazard” zip-lock bags make good sandwich bags.

    I went to college with a guy who swore that his mother, who flew a lot on her job, collected airline barf bags and packed his school lunches in them.

  5. Lilyblack Avatar

    Jackie, I think they were supposed to be wealthy expatriates. Like the guy that used to be “The second biggest banker in Amsterdam” and that lovely Chinese lady. The round-heeled ones were the ones that hung out at the bar like “Yvonne”, the gorgeous Madeline Lebeau. When I read the part of The Winds of War (which I frequently do) about when the gang was in Lisbon, talking about noisy expatriates in the bar, I picture the tables to look like that.

  6. Lilyblack Avatar

    Okay, I broke down and bought a “Love Tee” from Victoria’s Secret online. scoring a free pair of leggings and free shipping, all for $25. How could I turn that down? (Can you tell I got paid today?)

  7. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    Say what, Munchkin? And I’m still mulling over your recent comment about the “Wonder Woman position”. 😉

    I always dreamed of being the disgraced and slightly dissipated remittance man scion of a wealthy Southern family, exiled to Tahiti in the early 20th Century.

  8. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    You know Oklahoma is FULL of Texas ex-pats like us and most of us used to be the “second best” something or other. I used to go on stage and used a running joke that they had to settle for the “Second Best” always a bridesmaid, never a bride, runner up for Texas Designer of the Year. Five times!

    It seemed to me that my local area was populated by Texas has beens who moved north. I laughed at one of my Louisiana customers who told me that you shouldn’t play “Losers Poker” with a failed Cajun oilman. We were comparing notes on what we didn’t have any more.

    That is what ex-pats are, of course, Lily. Not glamorous but failed.

    Which just means the money may be gone but we kept whatever taste we had usually. That’s why they dress well maybe?

    Be good or have fun, whichever,

    Love, Jackie

  9. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    With a schooner, Ghost. Got to have a schooner.

    Love, Jackie

  10. Lilyblack Avatar

    Ghost, the “Wonder Woman Position” is standing straigh twith your arms akimbo and looking powerful. No more than two minutes allowed and no men any closer than the waiting room 😛

  11. Lilyblack Avatar

    Jackie, the British expatriates of WWII were those that scurried off to neutral countries like Portugal and the USA with their money in portable containers, to enjoy the safety, lack of rationing and extra work of wartime England. As Bunkie Thurston observed, “The British embassy isn’t crazy about them”. But the expatriates of “Casablanca” were symbols of all the refugees of WWII including Berger from Norway and the glamorous Chinese woman. Yvonne was a local. Have I told you about the hat I have that says, “I’m Texas born and Texas bred, and when I die, I’ll be Texas dead?”

  12. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    Oh. I was thinking the “Wonder Woman Position” meant something entirely different. 😉

    Nah, Jackie, wouldn’t need a schooner, as my wahines and would only be travelling the “grass hut-beach-bar” circuit.

  13. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    And I probably also have the wrong idea about the Victoria Secret “Love Tee”. 🙂

  14. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    Ghost, you would like my friend Kelly McGuire who plays the beach bar circuit but to support his wife and daughters. He will be here next week to play for my wannabee’s. One of his songs is “Boat in Belize” which has great lyrics, in fact, all Kelly’s songs are great lyrics and poetry, besides being a great guitarist.

    I think he majored in English lit or something similar in college, not boating and playing tiki bars. Wannabee is nother of his good ones.

    And yes, Lily, he has won Texas songwriter of the year, musician of the year, album of the year, everything Texan and is from Kemah area. He was a yacht broker along with my Mike but for different companies. Sailors when they have time.

    Love, Jackie

  15. Lilyblack Avatar

    Poem of the day, in honor of it’s fainally getting to be October:

    A Vagabond Song

    Bliss Carmen

    THERE is something in the autumn that is native to my blood—
    Touch of manner, hint of mood;
    And my heart is like a rhyme,
    With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.
    The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry
    Of bugles going by.
    And my lonely spirit thrills
    To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills.
    There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir;
    We must rise and follow her,
    When from every hill of flame
    She calls and calls each vagabond by name.

  16. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    You can major in boating and playing tiki bars?? Dang, now you tell me!

  17. Lilyblack Avatar

    Quote of the day: ““I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”
    ~ LM Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

  18. Galliglo from Ohio Avatar
    Galliglo from Ohio

    Love the dust bunny arc!

  19. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    Ghost, apparently Gardener McKay did and he ended up on the Leaky Tiki. Ended his life teaching in Paradise at the University of Hawaii, which incidentally is my husband’s second alma mater.

    I think I know others who majored in tiki bars and beaches, if not boats.

    Love, Jackie

  20. Boise Ed Avatar

    I’m afraid I have to thank you for the explanation, JJ; I hadn’t sussed that it was a dust bunny.

  21. Jackie Monies Avatar
    Jackie Monies

    Another quote or two, from my lunch fortune cookies:

    “People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

    And “People rely on your dependability.”

    But they were probably just hungry and waiting for their Chinese food and eggrolls.

    Love, Jackie

  22. Lilyblack Avatar

    Jackie: The first one is from Abraham Lincoln. I have it framed in my office

  23. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    It just occurred to me that my pop up ads might get a lot less annoying if I hit some sites like VictoriasSecretLoveTees.com, ItsyBitsyTeenyWeeny.com, ShortSkirtsLongLegs.com, SheerDelights.com and 95%_Naked_I_Did_The_Math.com.

    OK, I made those up…so sue me. Besides, knowing the InterWebNet, any or all of them could all be real.

  24. Village Loon Avatar
    Village Loon

    Less annoying, more frequent. Choices! You make them, you live with them.