Jacket
Cidu Bill on Mar 12th 2010
Laurie B. Wylie: Yeah, I get that Arlo’s slogging along in the first frame then is passed by the running girl in the second frame. I get that the last frame is supposedly irony (or something similar) as the girl’s somehow fallen behind him and passes Arlo’s family SUV in her sports car (maybe she didn’t park in the same lot, or maybe she nearly lapped him after the second frame, but whatever). But I don’t get the third frame – what the deal is with the jacket – since neither one of them appears to be wearing it in the final frame. Maybe it’s just to indicate that he’s finished his jog and is returning to the jacket he left on a bench, but who leaves their coat laying around in a public park?
Filed in Arlo and Janis, Bill Bickel, Jimmy Johnson, comic strips, comics, humor | 14 responses so far
Pirk Mar 12th 2010 at 03:10 pm 1
I’m amazed by how this comic is both consistently funny and consistently a cidu
Cidu Bill Mar 12th 2010 at 03:14 pm 2
I’m most amazed by Argyle Sweater, whose appearances here are almost exactly divided between the CIDU, lol and Ewww categories.
Pirk Mar 12th 2010 at 03:51 pm 3
I think he’s at a track rather than the park. In my experience it’s common for people to leave jackets, keys, shirts, etc. on benches or hurdles at a track.
It may not be his jacket, instead just serving to make it clear that he’s passing the entry/exit point and therefore leaving the track.
. . . Though he does seem to be looking at it. And with a weird expression on his face. And it looks like he is walking past and has turned his head to look at it.
I think all that might be just a quirk of poor draftmanship though, like a few weeks ago when he had really short legs and looked like a peanuts character.
schleifnet Mar 12th 2010 at 03:59 pm 4
also, its illegal to listen to headphones while driving like the girl appears to be doing
paperboy Mar 12th 2010 at 04:32 pm 5
“Old Friends/ sat on their park bench like book-ends/ lost in their over-coats…” A ’60s song from Simon&Garfunkel. It’s not technically an over-coat, but that’s all I got: Arlo is remembering those lines he heard when he was young, and now he realizes he’s nearly ready to be one of those old folks Simon wrote of.
buzz Mar 12th 2010 at 05:00 pm 6
(1) Arlo is jogging; the continuity this week has been on how out of shape he is for this activity and how he has made some minor progress
(2) He is passed by a younger person, making him feel like his effort is futile
(3) He leaves the park tired, wondering if it’s worth the effort
(4) Even tho he left first, the younger runner finishes her run, gets in her car, and still zooms past him
The punchline is the irony that no matter what he does, Arlo is still being overtaken by a younger runner.
Rich Mar 12th 2010 at 07:29 pm 7
Maybe it’s a mistake on the part of the color artist - using the red in the last panel instead of the gray of the jacket.
FeelinOld Mar 12th 2010 at 08:35 pm 8
I’d agree with Pirk, at the track, the runners in the background (presumably one of them is the girl) is what made me think that, so she’s still running then he gets passed by her again on the way home?
schleifnet: Not in all jurisdictions, and to me it’s always seemed a dumb thing to target, how about those fools that have their stereos so loud that your car bounces when they pass by c couple of lanes over, I guarantee that I’d have a better chance of hearing an emergency vehicle with the level I play my mp3 player at with headphones than they would without.
DemetriosX Mar 13th 2010 at 05:18 am 9
There’s no reason that can’t be Arlo’s jacket. After his exercise, he might be too warm to want to put his jacket back on, so he just picked it up and tossed it onto the passenger seat or in the back.
Father Bruno Di Frocco Mar 13th 2010 at 08:11 am 10
I could buy that for the jacket, DemetriosX, but what about that grey scarf (or towel) draped next to it?
Bob in Nashville Mar 13th 2010 at 08:31 am 11
The jacket looks like one Janis recently bought Arlo, but that doesn’t mean he had to put it back on.
The look on his face was the realization that he’s getting old and the cute young girl made him look bad by comparison (of fitness and athletic performance).
He was calling it quits while she was still running around, and she then blew his doors of in her little convertible.
Driving with earbuds in may be a no-no, but so is talking on a cell phone while driving, and too many people do that as well.
And there is no grey scarf there. That’s the concrete leg of the bench.
Another Bill Mar 13th 2010 at 09:05 am 12
Paperboy: Wow. That was a great connection–wish I would have come up with it. Makes perfect sense to me. Arlo is certainly lost in his thoughts while looking at his coat. That really completes the theme and enhances the continuity of the week’s A & J story. It makes the final panel that much more jolting.
padraig Mar 13th 2010 at 09:56 am 13
Dangit paperboy, that is NOT the explanation I wanted to hear while I’m sitting in front of the computer waiting to buy Simon & Garfunkel tickets on line.
Well, at least I’m still younger than Paul & Art.
Morris Keesan Mar 13th 2010 at 04:21 pm 14
“How terribly strange to be 70.”
(Paul will be 70 in October of next year, and Art will be 70 a few weeks later, in November. For me, this feels even stranger than Paul McCartney turning 64