ARLO AND JANIS @ 25

Arlo & Janis, the comic strip that began as the chronicle of a Baby Boomer couple and its young family, passed the quarter century mark on July 29. To commemorate the occasion, cartoonist Jimmy Johnson ran some vintage strips in print, and online, at his website, he supplied commentary. Said Johnson at his site on Monday July 26: “I really wanted to do a comic strip about a society of talking dogs, called ‘Baskerville,’ but talking-animal strips were out of favor with newspaper editors at the time, and young families were all the rage. “Most of the family-oriented strips targeted at the baby boomlet of the 80s are gone now, and most of the mega-strips launched since then have involved talking animals, but I’m not complaining. Incidentally, a lot of us are again talking of moving to the country and growing much of what we need.”

Arlo & Janis is perhaps the only comic strip that reminds us regularly that its title characters are sexual human beings who love each other, and Johnson always manages to perform this feat with great empathy as well as comedy. Here’s my all-time favorite.