Arlo and Janis is an American gag-a-day comic strip written and drawn by Jimmy Johnson.

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.

"[1] Johnson, surveying his core cast, compared Gene, Janis and Arlo to Larry, Moe and Curly, respectively, with the family cat, Ludwig, corresponding to Shemp.

"[17] "Sometimes when I get on a roll with an extended conversation within a sequence of strips", Johnson observed, "the whole can be viewed like a short comic book.

"[18] Expressing a preference for timely, topical humor when available, Johnson wrote, "Given the choice (if they are the only two) between drawing a pedestrian comic related to some current event, thereby given it a shiny new sheen... or doing another Arlo-isn’t-listening-to-Janis gag even if it might be funnier, I’ll choose the former."

[19] 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."

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.

"[citation needed] Johnson also wrote, "I'd be willing to bet you five dollars I was the first cartoonist to depict a couple exchanging sexual fantasies in bed.

"[21] On the "Comics I Don't Understand" website, "The Arlo Award" is given to a cartoonist who slips something past the syndicate censors.

Johnson claims he was "doing office humor when Scott Adams worked for the phone company," but he used the theme less frequently over time.

Second, he feels that with the concept of traditional "careers" falling by the wayside, his middle-aged title characters would tend to center their lives around relationships and home.

Seldom were jobs even mentioned as time passed, and by 2017, Johnson felt he needed to address the suspicion of readers that Arlo and Janis were retired.

While proclaiming they retained their usual undefined jobs, Johnson allowed that Arlo and Janis were in "that winding-down phase of employment.

Arlo feels trapped on a "treadmill" and has questioned the wisdom of the entire disposable consumer economy on multiple occasions.

For example, the miniaturization of data storage devices is both trumpeted and lampooned in the November 3, 2007, daily, with Janis unable to find the tiny disk that conveniently holds all her photographs.

The loss of privacy that has come with the internet is also mourned: "I still think it's creepy to go to a book or music web site and have it make suggestions of 'other titles you might enjoy,'" admits Johnson.

In one case, Arlo "called in sick" to the strip and was replaced by a large, realistically drawn alligator for a week.

Janis imagined a large dust-bunny named Harvey in another sequence, representing her feelings of house-keeping inadequacy.

Janis has shared her fantasy of being a torch singer and Arlo has periodically "sailed away" from his mundane existence in extended daydreams.

[33] Johnson wrote in his blog on January 2, 2014, "I remember not long after I started drawing Arlo & Janis , I made a reference to eating peas on New Year's Day, and my editor in New York City expressed concern that might be a 'southern' tradition, and we didn't want to give newspaper editors the idea A&J was a 'southern' strip.

[34] Jimmy Johnson has said that Arlo was inspired by a friend with curly hair who resembles Guthrie, and the name Janis was "a marketing device used to attract the baby boom generation."

[34] Johnson expanded on and clarified the origins story in a 2020 blog entry: "When I was in college, I did a comic strip for the weekly student newspaper.

[37] Finally in November 2011, Johnson self-published Beaucoup Arlo & Janis, a 256-page, hard-bound collection of over 900 carefully selected A&J comic strips with several introductory essays by the creator.