From 2004, here’s one for the Cat People. Well, the first 24 hours of The Arlo & Janis Summer Art Show and Sale was a big success. Thank you! About half of the cartoons have been sold already. Among the remaining offerings are some of my favorites. No, I’m not going to tell you which ones, but I am not surprised. For the 34 years I’ve been drawing Arlo & Janis (come July 29), I have often been flummoxed by the taste of my readers. Strips I think are terrible will be well received, and the ones I believe are touched by genius might very well be met with a shrug. But I don’t care! Your opinion is as good as mine. If you haven’t been to the art show and sale already, please come visit. All the artwork still is visible, including the ones that have been sold. It doesn’t cost anything to look!
48 responses to ““What part of meow don’t you understand!?””
emb: Perhaps you could explain the bit about the “E Flat Alto Horn” mentioned in the Chickweed strip? I’ve seen the instrument, but as a woodwind player I’m unfamiliar with the joke.
Trucker, Beats me. Sorry.
Spaces below were all blank, even though I filled them in again this morning. Gremlins?
Peace,
emb
Seen from above, the kid [I think] settling in for the night. Eyes sometimes covered by nictitating membrane.
https://explore.org/livecams/birds/falcon-nest-cam
[Same fill in the blanks again problem. JJ?]. Peace,
JJ: Sorry; I’d not noticed & not checked the Save box.
TR and emb: I checked the 9CL cartoons regarding the question about the “E-Flat Alto Horn”. Perhaps the joke is that she obtained proficiency on the horn due to being (although unknowingly) “horny”. At least, that seems like the type of “joke” McElDowney would be likely to pull.
EMB, semi serious question… notice a bright male Western Bluebird this morning singing it’s pitiful little song. Then heard the mockingbird breaking loose on the rooftop. Caused me to wonder if there is a correlation between lack of color and complexity of birdsong?
Re the 7-22-19 real-time cartoon: Yes, falls can be funny or not funny, as the case may be. (As Amy once said on The Big Bang Theory when reporting the death of one of her lab monkeys, “He slipped on a banana peel, fell, and broke his neck. It was both tragic and hilarious.”) But when we reach a certain age, falls usually fall (no pun intended) into the “not funny” category.
A couple of weeks ago, I stepped outside to check the water level in the Jackie Canal following one of our recent downpours. Unthinkingly, I walked across the very end of a wooden ramp leading to a wooden walkway. Due to moisture from the rain and, I suppose, some accumulated organic material, the incline was as slick as glass. As soon as I placed my left foot on it, the foot flew out from under me, and I fell sideways onto the ramp on my left side. Fortunately, I have not forgotten how to take a fall, and my head only glanced off the wooden handrail, so I shook it off and walked away from it. But the incident could have easily resulted in a broken hip or broken ribs, or a head injury, or all three.
That said, Arlo’s mishap was a “cartoon fall”* involving a cartoon character (as well as being about the failure of modern technology), so I saw the humor in it. But in the immortal words of Sgt. Phil Esterhaus “Let’s be careful out there.”
*Otherwise, the first time the Road Runner made Wile E. Coyote fall off a 500-foot cliff would have been the last time, and the end of the cartoon series, wouldn’t it?
Sympathies to all having had serious falls.
I’d like to know when Arlo had a fall, as mentioned by Ghost, above.
You’re right about the unfunny falls, Ghost. At 6 foot 5 and well over 250 pounds I can tell you that the saying “the bigger the harder they fall” is all too true. That’s how I managed to get a Colles’ fracture a few years ago when I not only fell, but managed to land with my hip bone across the left wrist. Not an experience I care to repeat, ever.
that should have read the bigger they are, the harder they fall. I backed up to correct a spelling error and left out part of my thought. Oh, the old gray matter ain’t what she used to be, many long years ago.
My worst fall so far came in February last year when a friend whom I hadn’t seen in many months shouted my name from across a parking lot as I came down some outdoor stairs. I quickly learned that taking my attention off the stairs was a very foolish thing to do. In the future I’ll stop and then look about while clinging to the handrail.
🙁
Thought for the day / Anu Garg’s A.W.A.D. ” Chandler, Raymond Thornton, writer. (23 Jul 1888-1959). Television’s perfect. You turn a few knobs, a few of those mechanical adjustments at which the higher apes are so proficient, and lean back and drain your mind of all thought. And there you are watching the bubbles in the primeval ooze. You don’t have to concentrate. You don’t have to react. You don’t have to remember. You don’t miss your brain because you don’t need it. Your heart and liver and lungs continue to function normally. Apart from that, all is peace and quiet. You are in the man’s nirvana. And if some poor nasty minded person comes along and says you look like a fly on a can of garbage, pay him no mind. He probably hasn’t got the price of a television set. 190723
Peace,
David: Re bird song, that sort of thing often runs [but not always]. Mockingbirds are members of the New World family Mimidae. Eastern USA’s related Brown Thrasher has similar, if more limited, skills. Color? Mockingbirds are pretty, and Brown Thrashers a rich chestnut, about like a Chipping Sparrow’s cap.
Peace,
Just Sunday night, my daughter in law missed the last step going into the basement and fell. Fortunately it was the last step but she she let out a piercing scream. My Grandson was very upset about this, as you can imagine. They took her to urgent care and the doctor said that it was a fracture. When she called in yesterday, the radiologist said that it was not broken. So she got another opinion and this doctor said that he could see why the Doctor might have said it was a fracture, but it was not.
Not knowing this, I asked if I could make them dinner. Of course they said no at first, but since my son had to pick up our Grandson at daycare and her from work, it was a good thing that we did. When I drove up I saw my son showing my Grandson the engine to his F-150 (my grandson is truck obsessed) and then I saw my DIL emerge from the house limping, but with no cast. She then explained her diagnosis, Since we plan to go the lake up North in a few weeks, we were relieved to see that she is getting around.