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

Est. 1985

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Sea Fever

By Jimmy Johnson


Buy the new book, "Beaucoup Arlo & Janis!"Today's "Arlo & Janis!"
I’m not much of a sketcher. I don’t have a lot of doodles or rough drafts lying around my office. So, what is all this junk lying around? But that’s another topic. I attribute this mainly to being a writer first and a graphic artist second. All my life I’ve had a knack for drawing, but it turned out to be a secondary talent. I marvel at the manic impulse to doodle that possesses so many of my cartooning peers. I wish I were more like that. However, every now and then, I turn out a sketch for the sake of warming up, or improving my chops, or—rarest of all—because I feel like drawing something. Anyway, I drew this one last week; I think it was a subliminal desire to be at the beach. I thought I would share it with you.

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290 responses to “Sea Fever”

  1. Jackie monies Avatar
    Jackie monies

    Great news, got off most insulin, from five to one a day injection
    And taken off an another assortment of meds. All good, things were too low now. Celebrating with grilled salmon asparagus and quinoa green salad for lunch. Yeah!

  2. Galliglo from Ohio Avatar
    Galliglo from Ohio

    Welcome back, emb! We missed you.

  3. Galliglo from Ohio Avatar
    Galliglo from Ohio

    We have been blessed weather-wise. Rain, but nothing bad… the gardens and flowers are loving it! We are to have more tonight. Perhaps it will “tinkle” on the air conditioner in my bedroom and put me to sleep at a decent hour. That would be a welcome change…

  4. sandcastler™ Avatar
    sandcastler™

    emb, welcome to what we call the Village. Always nice to see a new face in the neighboorhood. 😉

  5. ursen Avatar
    ursen

    Jimmy I agree this would be a great t shirt or book cover. Wonderful rendition of two of my favorite cartoon people.

  6. curmudgeonly ex-professor Avatar
    curmudgeonly ex-professor

    JJ, if you can somehow (electronically?) draw Arlo more in proportion and produce a T-shirt from the resulting view of A&J, I’d be a buyer. While, as a public service, I do not wear T-shirts, I know people who do wear ’em and wear ’em well.

  7. Charlotte in NH Avatar
    Charlotte in NH

    Hallelujah! My computer is back to normal again and I am so happy! “Frank” stopped in and worked on it, an hour and a half at least. He is a very affable and expert middle-aged fellow. He started with a System Restore and went back to early June when everything was working okay; that was really all it took! What wasn’t so easy was, to get Flash Player updated properly; I hadn’t been updating it as I should have. When daughter Nancy explained this and tried to fix it, it got all tangled up and I think that’s when it got so bad. It took a lot of wrangling but he persuaded it to install the up to date version. Then he didn’t want to take any money for all this! I made him take forty dollars; seems little enough to get rid of that awful stuff and get my favorite Web sites again. And get my Internet radio stations again — can’t live without them!

  8. Jackie monies Avatar
    Jackie monies

    Does Frank travel?

  9. Mark in TTown Avatar
    Mark in TTown

    Welcome back emb. I noticed your return earlier but was just taking a quick peek when I had gotten up from work computer. Looked at your Manet link. One question came to mind: why are the women nude but the men in suits? Seems like all four should be one or the other. Unless the men were trying out their new camera.

  10. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    Because no one in the target audience gave a fig about what the men were wearing, perhaps?

    Me, myself, didn’t notice Arlo was in the beach scene until about the fifth time I looked at it. 🙂

  11. emb Avatar
    emb

    “One question came to mind: why are the women nude but the men in suits?”

    Manet never split, as far as I know. It’s scandalous, maybe in order to have to start an alternative to the more proper annual show. The impressionists did very well over the next few decades, so it worked. [The woman in back is not nude, and is also seen from a different perspective, but that is harder to tell when the horizons are not obvious.] As in JJ’s drawing above, the viewer is standing or at least seated well above the reclining figures.

    “Arlo is just a little further behind Janis than the water line would indicate.”

    Sorry, that won’t do. Anyone walking at the water’s edge, assuming that the viewer is just above it, will have his eyes at or near the horizon. At this scale, it matters not that Earth is round. The water is flat, the horizon is flat, and everybody at the water’s edge will have eye-level at or near the viewer’s eye level, assuming she is standing. If she were sitting or sunning, nearby people’s heads would be well above horizon-level, but those far away would converge twd. the horizon. Ask Jimmy.

    Peace, emb

  12. emb Avatar
    emb

    Insight into emb’s take on art. I don’t insist that landscapes be photographically accurate. Van Gogh’s sunflowers and distorted buildings are fine. But when an artist is attempting to portray something accurately, she should get it right. Case in point [if it comes through properly]. I have a print of the George Inness landscape below on the wall I’m facing. But it’s deliberately placed so that the lower right corned is hidden by shelving. Why?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Inness#/media/File:Brooklyn_Museum_-_June_-_George_Inness_-_overall.jpg

    Peace, emb

  13. David in Austin Avatar
    David in Austin

    EMB,

    Using your comments on perspective I moved Arlo back down the beach so that his eyes were slightly above the horizon. It was a much more balanced image, but Arlo was much further from Janis. I put him back on the last/top curve of the beach. It does look more normal. I don’t have anywhere to post it, so I can’t add a link. Interesting information. Thanks!

    David

  14. Mark in TTown Avatar
    Mark in TTown

    emb, I don’t have your eye, obviously. It would seem to have something to do with the stream, looks too wide? But it looks to me as if it is a small pool in the widening of the stream and does not bother me. Perhaps if I had an actual print instead of looking at a small computer monitor, it would be more noticeable.

  15. Mindy from Indy Avatar

    emb – Iso that a person in the far field? If so, they must be huge up close.

    Alive, barely. As I told my boss today, I’m tired of feeling like I’ve been knee-capped and then told to run like hell. I’m giving it a couple more weeks, and if it doesn’t get any better, I will be seeking other employment.

  16. Galliglo in Ohio Avatar
    Galliglo in Ohio

    Good for you, Mindy! You are a good employee… It is “the powers that be” that need to get their act together!

  17. Mark in TTown Avatar
    Mark in TTown

    Mindy from Indy, here’s your song of the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzGoDtmTllg

  18. TruckerRon Avatar

    The lower right corner of that print of the George Inness landscape bothers me as well — the reflection of the tree is in the wrong spot.

  19. Old Bear Avatar
    Old Bear

    emb & Trucker

    That reflection is discombobulating – but if it was done Plein aire is that not what he saw?
    The top of the tree is bent enough so it “might” look like that.

  20. Mindy from Indy Avatar

    Mark – That has been my theme song since the beginning of the month. 🙂

  21. curmudgeonly ex-professor Avatar
    curmudgeonly ex-professor

    Just which painting are you discussing? There are several in the given page reference.

  22. Mark in TTown Avatar
    Mark in TTown

    Just for laughs: http://www.ohenryscoffees.com/showandtell.asp?id=2221

    cex-p, it’s the one titled “June”. Stream winding through a wooded landscape with the stream ending at the bottom right.

  23. Mark in TTown Avatar
    Mark in TTown

    If you think that tree’s distorted, look at this: http://www.nuclearblast.de/static/articles/132/132484.jpg/1000×1000.jpg

  24. Charlotte in NH Avatar
    Charlotte in NH

    In the Inness painting, the lower right corner seems too bright and attracts the eye so much that I can hardly notice the rest of the picture. It doesn’t help that it’s a poor and rather blurry photograph.

    Very glad to hear that Mindy from Indy is still hanging in there, but is ready to tell the bosses where to go — or so it seems. You have been extremely patient and dedicated, dear.

    I am reveling in my newly come back to life computer, and imagine that it and I are wandering hand in hand through flowery meadows.

    No, Jackie, I don’t think Frank would travel that far, but golly, when I needed an expert, it was such a great relief to find a friendly helping hand. And I got acquainted with Frank when I asked a neighbor if they knew a computer repair person!

  25. Mark in TTown Avatar
    Mark in TTown

    For Debbe and the crew at the chicken house: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnBlst3T7bY&index=83&list=PLE1InrZfsJQmzE4Cq8OTDGzr0dPvpsn8d

    The tune sounded familiar but it took me a while to get it. It’s a parody of a Talking Heads tune.