OK, here is the last of the running sequence from 2010. This is really getting crazy: it seems I drew this yesterday, and you’re telling me it was seven years ago!? I figure I have drawn over 11,500 A&J strips since I began. It’s strictly an educated guess, but I would say I am proud of 10% of them, embarrassed by 20% and ambivalent about the remaining 70%.
156 responses to “The Run of Things”
Jimmy, you should be proud of WAYYY more than 20%! After all you got all of us proud followers!
I’m not suggesting you lower your standards, JJ, just realize we of the hoi polloi recognize real talent when we see it. Why else would we stay here and buy your collections?
Agreed. In my opinion you are so far ahead of the pack they are being lapped. Those awards they get? Participation.
Getting ready to get dressed and take Black Jack to Tulsa.
Ghost Kitty is on bed licking his hind legs and soft fur, having exhausted the pitty pawing my pajama leg and thigh.
Must resemble his namesake.
Cats are designed for jumping, not running. They’re good sprinters, but don’t have the long-distance endurance like dogs do. Of course, dogs can’t jump as far or as high, and they’re really not good at climbing trees.
Mr. Johnson, you should know that, to me at least, you are in the company of the late Charles Schulz and Bill Watterson when it comes to great cartoonists. All three of you have/had the ability to take the slice of life and make it funny, poignant, or relevant to the multitudes.
Every one of the 11,500 are masterpieces.
I’d say I relish 85%, am ambiguous on 14%, and wonder where you’re coming from on 1%! But I don’t spend much time wondering!
Me too agreed what all said.
My mama had a deer hunting cat that ran with the dog pack. One of her hunting friends said “Miss Pauline, I thought your dog’s were chasing this cat until they all starting passing him and I realized he had been leading.”
I too would put you in the top of most cartoonist. I really am surprised at your assessment of your work. But then again the best are rarely satisfied with their work, which means they try all that much harder and continue to turn out work far superior to most of those in their line of work. Art, music, building a house, any real creative work counts. I buy your collection of works when I have so few in the house. I think that is number two collection of works that I own of any artist or photographer.
Jimmy, I wouldn’t miss your strips for anything!
JJ, a great example of your genius is discussed today on Comic Strip of the Day – http://www.weeklystorybook.com/comic_strip_of_the_daycom/2017/02/i-dreamed-i-was-there-in-crossover-heaven.html
That was a WONDERFUL strip and arc. Loved it, so subtle, so true.
Ghost, I am out in Black Jack. I love this car. I see what you mean about tall men and being able to drive it. I can see you in this but it fits my little short legs too.
Just had seat back and a very tall person will fit.
I knew you would like it. And you deserved it.
Ghost, here are my options. My first choice us Black Jac. Others are Blak Jak and Black Jak
Pays to be friends with the tag agent. She verified available names. She had seen on Facebook but loves Jack.
Uh….. is today’s live strip about…..passing wind? I can’t make sense of it otherwise. And what’s the latest on the A&J books that were offered last fall during the fundraising campaign?
Bookworm, thanks for sharing the crossover link…I loved that series of strips!
Garlic breath. Janis did not eat her garlic Salcedo with her calamari, Arlo did and his breath bothers her, she can’t stand smell. If both people eat it isn’t so noticed.
Jackie, if you mean for a personalized tag, the way I read it on their InterWebNet site, OK only allows seven characters, including a blank space and a dash, both of which count as one of the seven. That’s why I came up with suggestions like BLK JAC. Did I misread it?
And as I mentioned previously, JAK might be interpreted as JAKE.
This close and this crowded, the odor must be something.
http://explore.org/live-cams/player/orcalab-steller-sea-lion-haulout
As Bronx Zoo summer asst. keeper in ’51, I and another keeper once had the job of brushing down the algal-covered wall of the drained sea lion tank. They were all huddled against the opposite wall [no shift cage or anything silly like that]. A bull decided to come see me, ‘bark, bark’. In knee-high rubber boots, I shot up a 6′ wall of slippery algae in 2 secs.
Learned a lot at the Zoo [e.g., pay no attn. when the head bird keeper tells you to move a Slow Loris off a handrail by hand. Fortunately, hand didn’t get infected].
Peace,
Looking online, it may have been a potto, a close relative of the slow lorises, but not a close as slender lorises. Peace,
As I one time commented to a regular in here, Jimmy thinks of and draws more strips in one week than I could do in a year.
I realize that Jimmy, being a professional, is highly critical of his work.
I, being a mere mortal, would be ecstatic if I could produce a decent week’s worth of strips.
No matter our expertise, we are all laypeople compared to some professionals. Even the most diverse Renaissance person needs an expert in some endeavor. But don’t confuse amateur w/ layperson, or dilettante. E.g., the first Brit. [and probably Continental] paleontologists were ‘gentlemen’, rockhounding as a hobby, dependent on inherited money for sustenance, mistresses, whatever. Some professionals get paid, or do tasks they are not paid for.
I can draw what I see, though haven’t for decades, and am a decent copy-editor, but have never been paid for either [in a narrow sense]. As a prof, did more intense copy-editing than was required; former students often remind me of their gratitude for that. Their students may be less grateful; perhaps their gratitude will come later. At least 3 church secretaries now know / the serial comma. Fun.
Peace,