Today, I’ve chosen another really old A&J for you, from 1987. I talk a lot here about the evolution of my drawing and sometimes about the evolution of the writing, but I don’t think enough is made of how much the personality of the characters has evolved over time. Arlo and Janis both have become familiar, knowable individuals. In the early days, as in this cartoon, nothing defined the players beyond an air of whimsy that always has existed within the strip and married-couple banter, hopefully from a fresh perspective—mine—but still married-couple banter. The development of the characters is, of course, a reflection of growth in drawing and in writing, yet it’s more: while a sum of the whole, it almost is a separate metamorphosis, the satisfying outcome of the cartoonist’s craft.