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

Est. 1985

Extra, Extra!

Wavering

By Jimmy Johnson


Buy the new book, "Beaucoup Arlo & Janis!"Today's "Arlo & Janis!"
Water is tricky to draw. First, you turn on both the hot water and the cold and then stick your hand under it. When it feels just right, you plug the drain. When enough water has run into the tub, you sit down, and inevitably you’ll feel like you’re being boiled alive. Water is also tricky to depict. I was getting better at it when this cartoon ran in 1995. The wave in the first panel doesn’t look very convincing, but the foam in the last three panels looks about right. When drawing water (with a pen), less is more. Water is about negative space, what you don’t draw. That’s the way it is for me, anyway.

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 ...

248 responses to “Wavering”

  1. Lilyblack Avatar

    No, Ghost, silly. That is either the Duke of Wellington or Sir John Moore. I use things like that for a history forum I am a member of

  2. Lilyblack Avatar

    By the way, when I posed for that portrait five years ago…crud, has it really been that long, I was only 23! But I was still shy of showing my tummy. Heck, I still am! Anyway, I didn’t pose with my short open like that, though we had been out four-wheeling and I was pretty disheveled. But The Boss Of My Life insisted on doing it that way – artistic license, she says – and that is the one thing almost everybody that sees that comments on. Weird!

  3. Debbe Avatar
    Debbe

    Good evening Villagers….

    Ya know, I clicked backed on the A%J link above and was about to ‘paste’ it and realized GR beat me to it. 🙂

    It was a great strip….

    Wanna hear a funny true story?

    Today at work, the three amigos (Ian, Andrew and 15 year old Dakota) came in from the hen house. We’ve had two augers go out in the past 36 hours…..

    Anywho, Ian hollers at me while I’m packing and says “Mom, what’s that on the floor beside you/” I looked…and it’s a dang earthworm, then he diverts my attention and says “there’s another one behind you, and look there’s one on the egg tray!!” I started to panic…where and what were they doing inside the packing room. I asked where did they come from…they started grinning…and I said “Ian…where did they come from?” “And if you don’t tell me soon, I’m going to call the Boss man and tell him we’ve got worms!”

    Then I realized what I said and what an opened ended question it left me in….I quickly added…ready?…I know we have worms because I saw Dakota dragging his butt across the concrete floor…..”

    OK…guess you had to be there. Seems Dakota had been fishing the night before and stashed his can of worms in the cooler….it was a good laugh…took the anxiety down a few notches……

    But this is the best part….they decided to feed the worms to Cogburn and Junior….and they ate them……ah, the simple things in life to a simple creature.

    Sleep tight tonight…..

  4. Debbe Avatar
    Debbe

    Trucker Ron….I do remember that Bug’s cartoon….Hanzel and Gretal…..and didn’t she laugh like the wicked witch of the East at the end of Bug’s comment?

  5. Debbe Avatar
    Debbe

    I was always apprehensive about having someone do a sketch drawing of me….I was afraid I’d look like Bill the Cat!!!!

  6. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    Debbe 😉 Sweet dreams, hon.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4T3tMkjRig

  7. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    Lily, I don’t know why, but female belly buttons are sexy. Usually.

    And unless TBIYL took further artistic license with your belly button, it appears yours is an “innie” as opposed to an “outie”.

  8. Lilyblack Avatar

    Oh, yeah, and didn’t she make sure it was that way with a big fat stitch!

  9. Debbe Avatar
    Debbe

    GR 😉 great tune, great voice……dang good ragtime piano too….thanks.

    Nighty-night ya’ll

  10. TruckerRon Avatar

    Debbe: Yep, she did a witchly giggle at the end.

  11. emeritus minnesota biologist Avatar
    emeritus minnesota biologist

    Debbe: Wicked Witch of the East’s laugh? We never get to hear her laugh, since she’s dead when we first encounter her because Dorothy’s windblown house had landed on her. [One thing that the ding-dong movie got right in the story.] As a 10 year old or so, I was disappointed at the liberties taken by the creators of the movie [as I was decades later at the Broadway version of G&S’s The Pirates of Penzance].

  12. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    Well, Lilly, you could always have an umbilicoplasty. Or get a piercing with some big, ridiculous jewelry. 🙂

  13. Charlotte in NH Avatar
    Charlotte in NH

    Debbe, That is a great funny story about the three amigos and the earthworms! One of my daughters has four hens, who lay lovely eggs (she gives me some too) and she gives the hens worms … they love them. In the winter she has actually bought freeze-dried worms for her hens, and apparently they do go for them!

    e m b, I don’t remember if I was bothered by the changes in the Oz story; I never saw the movie until I was grown up. But I have really hated what Hollywood and TV have done to some of my favorite books! And I remember seeing a TV production of The Gondoliers (a favorite of mine) that was just awful.

    I noticed that you recently said you had been compared to Eeyore in the Pooh books; that had been in my mind too! Eeyore is a lovable character in spite of his grumpiness.

  14. Lilyblack Avatar

    Ghost: No way: My daddy spent a ton of $$$ to get my abdominal scar and belly button to just like it is today, and I am *never* getting anything pierced besides my two ears that have been pierced since I was 14!

  15. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    Good girl, Lily. I don’t care for piercings. Except for ears.

  16. TruckerRon Avatar

    I’m of the “Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate” generation. That was printed on machine-readable cards issued by schools, businesses, and government agencies which we were required to fill out by filling in spots with a #2 pencil.

  17. Debbe Avatar
    Debbe

    Good morning Villagers…

    RE: today’s strip…and the suspense keeps building, and you, GR 😉 telling him to hold out for a bottle of Petite Sirah. 🙂

    Ya’ll have a blessed day….

    It’s PAYDAY!!!!

  18. Debbe Avatar
    Debbe

    Emb…I don’t recall her (Wicked Witch of the East) laughing, but I do recall her cackling or something to that effect (I’ll get you my pretty and your dog too)….and Eeyore is my favorite out of the Pooh stories 🙂

  19. Galliglo from Ohio Avatar
    Galliglo from Ohio

    Ghost: I’m surprised you didn’t go back further and note this classic!

    http://www.gocomics.com/arloandjanis/2005/05/19#.U5rGWWdOVjo

  20. Bill in Paducah Avatar
    Bill in Paducah

    Woof! Friday the 13th come on a Friday this month!!

    http://www.batesline.com/archives/2012/01/churchy-lafemmes-friday-the-13th.html

  21. David in Austin Avatar
    David in Austin

    Don’t do it Arlo!

  22. sandcastler™ Avatar
    sandcastler™

    Danger Arlo! Danger Arlo, it’s Friday the thirteenth!

  23. Llee Avatar

    arlo!!!!! quick Janis SAVE him!!! 🙂

  24. emeritus minnesota biologist Avatar
    emeritus minnesota biologist

    Today’s TIP BlogSpot is a repeat [Hal Holbrook as James Bond]. However, the gocomics version is new, at least to me, and not bad. I’ve not tried to track down its original. Peace, emb

    http://www.gocomics.com/that-is-priceless/#.U5r9hmdOVy0