Arlo and Janis
| Arlo and Janis | |
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Arlo and Janis
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| Author(s) | Jimmy Johnson |
| Current status / schedule | Running |
| Launch date | July 29, 1985 |
| Syndicate(s) | NEA |
| Genre(s) | Humor, Gag-a-day |
Arlo and Janis is an American gag-a-day comic strip written and drawn by Jimmy Johnson. It is a leisurely paced domestic situation comedy. It was first published in newspapers on July 29, 1985.
The focus of the strip is tightly on its two title characters, a middle-aged, middle-class baby boomer couple with an easygoing approach to life. The family surname is Day, but it's only rarely used in the strip. Johnson confessed, "When I first sold the strip, the family had no name. The strip itself had no name! Preparing to launch, the syndicate brain trust decided, 'Let's make their name Day and call the strip Day by Day. ' However, it turned out there was an old, semi-defunct newspaper column called Day by Day, and legally timid heads prevailed. The strip was named Arlo and Janis. I subsequently kept the name ‘Day.’ Why not?"
Arlo and Janis strips are most often gag-a-day strips based on recurring themes, with only rarely any advancement of continuity. Readers may see themselves in Johnson's observations, and have written to his blog jokingly accusing Johnson of looking in their windows.
Sometimes, Johnson strings together a few daily gags that, taken together, amount to an exploration of a topic. Only rarely does he create arcs of daily strips that together take on all the traditional elements of a story.
Johnson wrote, "I’ve always enjoyed serial strips, but they change the nature of the product. Ultimately, I think I prefer the gag-a-day format, done well. The 'done well' part is crucial. Of course, they can’t be hilarious every day."
Johnson wrote that early on he experimented with short poems "when I wanted to do something a bit different or when I was stuck for a better idea." In time it occurred to him that the limerick format was inherently comical and "fit the four-panel format" of the comic strip. Since the time of that realization, the limerick has been an occasionally recurring structure in the daily strip.
Some of his recurring themes for jokes and storylines are touched on below:
Many of the most notable jokes are based on sexual attraction, especially Arlo's desire for Janis. Despite having been a couple since meeting in college in 1973 (a backstory revealed in a series of strips that also functioned as a parody of the book and film Gone with the Wind), Arlo and Janis are still besotted with each other. The libidinous content of the strip can be surprisingly overt to readers accustomed to more sanitized newspaper comics. And in a medium where long marriages are often presented as either sexless or antagonistic (The Lockhorns, Andy Capp, etc.), these strips that show the couple's love and ongoing attraction to each other offer an alternative.
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