With the best cartoons, you really don't know where things are going. Arlo & Janis is often a reflection on mortality, but the current arc appears to be heading into a harsher place than even Jimmy Johnson generally ventures.
Arlo is painting the garage, and, Monday, Janis was on the phone with their son, Gene, and cheerfully reported that he said it was okay with him if they took down the old hoop.
I guess that doesn't sound like much, without a little context.
Well, this comic strip is loaded with context. At this time, I would like to enter into evidence the strip of December 5, 1999:
What Gene doesn't get is that it didn't hurt when he went up over his father for that dunk. There might have been a bruise, but it was more than overcome by fatherly pride.
Monday, though, that really hurt.
However, one of the other aspects of having a sense of context is that, over time, you learn to trust certain artists not to screw it up. Jimmy Johnson is one of those certain artists. We shall see where he's going this time.
And, to leave the day on a decidedly positive note, Jimmy is reportedly working on an Arlo & Janis collection. There hasn't been a book out since 1989, and that out-of-print one is priced high where you can find it at all.
One of my great book-collecting finds was a copy of that A&J collection at half the cover price--somewhere around $3-4. It almost made up for the copy of Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book that I passed up around 1980 because I didn't have the $2 the book dealer was asking for. (Thirty years later I found another copy, in very fine condition, for which I paid $50. As I handed over the money, I could see Abbie laughing his [buttocks] off.)
Posted by: f | 02/03/2011 at 09:13 AM
I thought Janis giving the thumbs down meant that Gene had NOT approved the backboard coming down. But in light of today's strip, your interpretation makes more sense.
Posted by: Mary in Ohio | 02/03/2011 at 04:24 PM