Recent Comments

1. almost 10 years ago on Luann Bonus Material

   I imagine Luann getting a degree as a graphics artist, marrying Quill and moving to Australia where they bounce around the continent (and occasionally to New Zealand and back to the USA).

   Quill has a rather steady but not stellar acting career. He does bits in TV episodes, voice work, commercials, tertiary movie characters, movie stand-ins and rather frequently just misses out on getting “the” big break. He takes his mediocrity philosophically, living for the day, focusing on the people in his life. He has a few successful friends in the industry so he and Luann have an occasional glimpse into the reality behind the glitter. Tiffany ends up as a trophy wife of one of these contacts, so Luann has to continue to suffer her society. Gunther gets to work in the costume dept of a NZ movie workshop and through cultural research ends up meeting up with a more mature Rosa many years later.

   Luann’s job is the more dependable paycheck. She has a work-from-anywhere job with an entertaining and sometimes frustrating hodge podge of various clients’ demands. There is often a humorous irony in what work she has to do when and where, considering they tend to travel as a family to various places where Quill can find work. Of course, that means they’re usually living out of a suitcase in low-rent temporary housing situations. However, this helps her to be exposed to a variety of situations that infuse her work with perspective. Sometimes her work puts her back in touch with childhood friends for a touch of their professional and personal perspective.

   Luann is continually struck by how strange the Australians are, as well as the varied landscapes and animals they encounter as they be bop around. They have a nominal “home base” in Sydney, say, with a few indifferent relatives of Quill’s which Luann tries to get along with but never manages to ingratiate herself with.

   Their Aussie-American older daughter takes after her father with cool, willowy good looks and has OZ in her blood. Her troubled adolescence tends to selfies and narcissism and cliques about which Quill is tolerant and Luann is out of her comfort zone. Entering adult life she is intent on a movie career, as she’s had some small child roles, but has a crush on a young man training to become an orthodontist, so she’s also looking into dental hygiene classes.

   Their two younger sons have more of Luann’s ironic angst from a masculine point of view, though they differ in that one, the blond, is more dreamy/brainy/clumsy and the dark haired “baby” of the family is more revved up and spontaneous, acting out before he thinks. All three are challenged by USA strangeness when they go back to spend extended quality time with Grams and Gramps and Uncle Brad. “Aunt Bernice” offers a listening ear. Teenage girls stateside tend to have crushes on the two boys who encourage it by assuming Paul Hogan and Steve Irwin personas while Luann rolls her eyes. Luann goes through a bit of a middle aged crisis when people meeting Quill and their young adult daughter image the girl’s the actor’s arm candy while ignoring Luann, coming up behind with the luggage which is her carry-around work.

2. about 10 years ago on Arlo and Janis

   @Dani Rice

   No need to search backwards in the archives. You can tell at a glance that it was a rerun Sunday strip from December 2008.

   Every comic strip is dated for the date it’s run. There are two dates in the lower left corner panel of today’s strip. The earlier date then is the year it was originally run.

   It’s a Christmas gag, so best bet is that it was run in December. Finally, it’s a longer Sunday strip layout format, so it (very likely) originally ran on a Sunday in December 2008.

   I went to the archives to confirm, but there is no way to access Arlo & Janis Sunday comics from December 2008, so the 2008 copyright by NEA. Inc must not grant Go Comics permission to let us retrieve them from the archives.