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

Est. 1985

Extra, Extra!

More Computer-Generated Humor

By Jimmy Johnson


Buy the new book, "Beaucoup Arlo & Janis!"Today's "Arlo & Janis!"
Judging from the appearance of this simple Sunday cartoon from May, 2007, I was in a hurry when I drew it. Believe it or not, it happens. Its saving grace is the joke, though; I like it. It’s humorous and—I like to think—original. That’s what you shoot for. Many times over my career, I’ve had conversations with people who ask a variation of the question, “So, you could, like, draw six months ahead and take six months off?!” Technically, the answer is, Yes. The question almost always is asked with the breath of incredulity, and I know they’re wishing they could work that way. Perhaps they could. I can’t. I can’t get so much as a week ahead, and I do try. For 30 years, I have tried. At least I am reconciled to the fact that’s the way it is. I’m just lucky to have this gig at all.

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 ...

221 responses to “More Computer-Generated Humor”

  1. emb Avatar
    emb

    P.S. It’s ‘Pharoah’s handmaids.’ Lucky pharaoh. emb

  2. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    This version of Blind Willie McTell is on one of my Spotify play lists.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AygowPLl06k

  3. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    In high school, I read a sociologist who opined that humans wore clothing much more as a means of protecting themselves from climatic conditions than to protect their modesty. I didn’t quite believe that at the time, but one look at the way modern people dress, especially those of the female persuasion, lends credence to that view.

    Happily.

  4. Old Bear Avatar
    Old Bear

    it’s archeological finds (that is what I wrote – dumb internet)
    Also left out the most damning Bible was written by committee (s) of men.

  5. Old Bear Avatar
    Old Bear

    GR6 – makes logical sense – also protect from getting snagged on the briers.

  6. sandcastler™ Avatar
    sandcastler™

    GR6, why do you think I go so deeply in debt to *$$? Good coffee, sure. Lovely ladies, yes. Those who share selfies, priceless.

  7. Old Bear Avatar
    Old Bear

    I am sure they can tell – but since Hebrew is written right to left, was it started by left handed
    people? Just seeing how left handed people have trouble writing left to right.

  8. Mark in TTown Avatar
    Mark in TTown

    Old Bear, so are Chinese, Japanese and Arabic. Possibly derivative of first encounter with written language?

  9. sandcastler™ Avatar
    sandcastler™

    Old Bear, some texts, so I am told, go like this.
    .tefl ot thgir morf seog enil enO
    While the next goes left to right.

    Some will claim our written numbers are actually right to left.
    467, from largest unit to smallest.

  10. sandcastler™ Avatar
    sandcastler™

    Mark, traditional Chinese does follow right to left. Much of the simplified Chinese follows the western left to right. Can make for great challenges.

  11. Llee Avatar

    sandcastler, I wrote like that in junior high -algebra. The teacher wouldn’t explain/ I couldn’t understand. Finally I decided if I was going to be confused he could be as well.

    I got in trouble big time.

    🙂

  12. emb Avatar
    emb

    ‘Standing on the corner, Watching . . .’ is definitely better as spring moves into summer. Actually, some lovelies [and not so . . .] really push the season.
    “““““““`
    ‘how the Genesis week didn’t really need to mean seven 24 hour days’:

    I suspect the writer really meant plain days, but: 1. didn’t know any better, which is fine. 2. and the sequence doesn’t fit what we’ve learned from the fossil record, which is also fine. It’s not a scientific treatise. It’s also funny, which the Jews understood and their captors probably not, and many 21st C. ‘religious’ people also not.

    In Gen. 1:1-2:4a, in Babylon, with their captors in earshot, the priestly writer [if I have it right, the one who referred to the creator as Elohim, the first name for God in the Hebrew Bible, the plural of ‘El’, but treated grammatically as singular, with exceptions] uses previous oral tales to create a seven-24-day story and justify the Sabbath [which is tomorrow], and to subtley mock the polytheistic idol-worshippers around the exiled Israelites. It worked; you don’t hear much about Marduk anymore.

    The writer and everyone around, captors and captives, lived in a small, flat, three-story world, with fire below, the waters around separated from the waters above kept back by a hard dome [firmament], with holes for rain, and the abode of God or [some of] the gods above. No reason for him to suspect otherwise, and no faithful reason to blame Elohim for the text. ‘The animals’ [mostly mammals, but not whales–created the day before, with the fishes and birds] and ‘man’ both male and female were created on the 6th day. Elohim was happy about what he’d done, but tired and had to rest on the 7th day.

    Gen. 2:4b-25 is an older, ‘dry’ story, with a different sequence not divided into days, with the man created first, then the animals, in no meaningful sequence, and the woman last. It is written by the Yahwist, who names God Yahweh, or Y*w*h. Some naïve Christians and maybe some orthodox Jews ‘know’ that men have one less rib than women [I’ve seen it in letters to the ed in our local paper] because Eve was created from Adam’s rib. Even if she were, why should all their male descendants lack that rib? Middle school genetics.

    There were Renaissance priests who would not look through Galileo’s telescope at the four moons which showed that not everything revolved around us. Faith?

    Peace, emb

  13. emb Avatar
    emb

    Sorry: ‘four Jovian moons’ [Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto]. [Speelczech recognizes only the first three, but I’ve seen all 4; Callisto is there.]

  14. sideburns Avatar

    Old Bear, it’s not hard for anybody from Uncle Sam’s Navy to make an Army man blush. One of the reasons we spend so much time painting things aboard ship is the fact that the paint keeps getting blistered by our language.

  15. Nodak Wayne Avatar
    Nodak Wayne

    That’s a good one sideburns, never heard that one:)

  16. Old Bear Avatar
    Old Bear

    The view depends on where you are standing.
    We are standing on the shoulders of many giants.
    The ancients were standing on the shoulders of a few large men.

    The ancient Israelites were not as monotheistic as they were supposed to be
    until the contract was reread (between JHWH and the Israelites) it is all explained in the program. (No commercials).

    Then I wonder what archaeologists in three thousand years will think we worshiped if they came
    upon the sculpture garden in Oslo Norway – MOMA in NYC – or the Spoon & Cherry in Minneapolis.

  17.  Avatar
    Anonymous

    People tell me I have a special way of lighting up a room.

    It is called arson and those people are called witnesses.

  18. Jackie monies Avatar
    Jackie monies

    Excuse me but do we have another troll? What is happened here?

  19.  Avatar
    Anonymous

    Does Jackie fear the flames? LOE

  20. emb Avatar
    emb

    Old Bear: Archaeologists in 3,000 yr.? With our varied forms of record-keeping, each now distributed physically worldwide, and maybe space-wide later, they should have clues other than sculpture. If so, they will realize that not all sculptures are idols, and that some 21st C. thinkers had integrated their concepts of the transcendent to include our understanding of the much larger, older, more complex, more enchanting physical universe that we live in today. In 5,015, they will doubtless have an even deeper understanding of it, and maybe even of its relationship to the transcendent. Unless they have somehow lost all current history, they will likely still credit Darwin and Newton among the giants on whose shoulders we and they stand.

    It was Newton who wrote that he stood on the shoulders of giants, no?

    Peace, emb

  21. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    My new lens is aligned properly. The incision is closed and healing. My visual acuity is continuing to improve. My eye doc is happy with the outcome so far. I am, too.

  22. sandcastler™ Avatar
    sandcastler™

    Great news GR6 given that we are on the cusp of sundress season. You may learn you were you’ve been missing some of the offerings.

  23. sandcastler™ Avatar
    sandcastler™

    “You may learn you were you’ve been missing some of the offerings.” s/b You may learn you’ve been missing some of the offerings.

  24. Jackie monies Avatar
    Jackie monies

    Well, that is truly eye poppin’ news, Ghost. In truth I am happy you are doing so well so fast. Clean living?

    Sand, you need that J. Buffet tee shirt, growing older but not up. My collegiate team, Domino

    Much happier tonight, both my broker and lawyer were both happy to see me when I dropped in and totally shocked, Pleasantly it would appear, broker loves both boats I am thinking about. I’ve known him for years and my lawyer’s uncle taught me to drive Then found out my estate CPA is a classmate from Tensas. South has a lot going for it besides sweet people, sweet tea and grits.

    And to improve my attitude three grand dukes or whatever they call Knights of Columbus and two Baptist deacons invited me back to eat with them at restaurant next Friday. The Baptist said he’d always wanted a grandmother who wore leopard skin pants. I had just told him the reason he didn’t know me in high school was he was still in grade school when I was there. Funny lunch.

    Made up for over spiced and indifferent shrimp etouffe which I didn’t eat. But still laughed a lot. I told them the entertainment was worth it.

    Think I will stop, I am tired tonight. All that laughter is exhausting

    Love Jackie

  25. Old Bear Avatar
    Old Bear

    emb
    We hope things progress upward – but the only permanent writing is in stone (or plastic?)
    Without equipment tapes are just ribbons, CDs are mirrors, MP3s are trinkets.
    Vinyl and 78s could be made to work – but what language?

    “I’ve learned…. That the easiest way for me to grow as a person is to
    surround myself with people smarter than I am.” Andy Rooney