I think she’s checking to make sure he’s asleep while she reads the steamy parts, which are much steamier than they used to be.
That said, there are a number of other possible interpretations. She could be checking Arlo out because she finds him more titillating than the book (which isn’t as good as romance novels used to be). She could be using Arlo’s face to double-check details from the book. Who really knows?
In today’s strip, does she begin laughing before or after he says he oils and waxes his chest? Logic says after, but the layout suggests before.
Would this be any funnier to her than any other romance novel trope?
Yeah, I think most strips with extensive dialogue hit that layout/ordering paradox now and then. Janis just happens to be on the left but that doesn’t mean her reaction is before the guy’s statement, despite the reading-order effect.
For the one posted here, I may be bucking the trend but I think she’s saying modern ones are tamer than they used to be. Or at least, their effect on her. In the old days, they would stir her her enough that she might disturb Arlo’s sleep.
Or, Mitch, the same material just doesn’t seem as provocative as it once did. In olden days, after all, a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking.
Look how her eyes bug in panel 2. Things are a lot more explicit than she was expecting. In panel 3, she’s making sure Arlo is asleep. Then she goes back to reading, wide eyed.
I read it as that Janis (when younger) used to sort of, at some level, “believe” in the fantasies of the romance novels, but after years of marriage to Arlo, she no longer can do so — she didn’t marry a hunky gorgeous soldier of fortune or billionaire or whatever, and the guy she *did* marry is sort of funny-looking and is sleeping, maybe snoring a little, right then while she’s reading about the tireless fantasy lovers — but basically Janis is just fine with her life. She’s happier with a real-life guy who’s reliable, loving, sweet, and sometimes silly. So she can no longer suspend her disbelief to immerse herself in the world view of the romance novel the way she once could.
Romance novels used to have more effect on Janis than they do now. The joke is that she is attributing this to a change in romance novels, but the reader is intended to attribute this to a change in Janis… she’s wiser now.
When they both were younger, she’d get excited by the reading material and was able to act on her urges with her wide awake, virile husband. Nowadays, Arlo is already turned off by the time she gets gets turned on.
I don’t know what meaning Johnson was going for. But, like much poetry, it seems compatible with many interpretations and thus illustrates what is in disparate minds.
I assumed she was reading about how the heroine’s secret lover had ways of being by said heroine’s side while his wife was unaware he was not by her side, so she is checking to make sure that Arlo is still there in the bed with her, not perhaps replaced by a bundle of blankets or something.
I imagine the “romance” in the book to be of such a “not what they used to be” status that her heart is pounding and she is breathing heavily. In the middle she just checks to see that her husband hasn’t been woken by all that noise.
Considering that earlier in the story arc, Janis was noting how e-book readers make it OK for her to read in bed as it doesn’t put out enough light to keep Arlo awake like the bedside lamp does. Now it backfires because she’s gotten worked up reading a steamy passage and he’s already asleep.
Comics I Don't Understand 
I think she’s checking to make sure he’s asleep while she reads the steamy parts, which are much steamier than they used to be.
That said, there are a number of other possible interpretations. She could be checking Arlo out because she finds him more titillating than the book (which isn’t as good as romance novels used to be). She could be using Arlo’s face to double-check details from the book. Who really knows?
In today’s strip, does she begin laughing before or after he says he oils and waxes his chest? Logic says after, but the layout suggests before.
Would this be any funnier to her than any other romance novel trope?
https://www.gocomics.com/arloandjanis/2019/06/27
Yeah, I think most strips with extensive dialogue hit that layout/ordering paradox now and then. Janis just happens to be on the left but that doesn’t mean her reaction is before the guy’s statement, despite the reading-order effect.
For the one posted here, I may be bucking the trend but I think she’s saying modern ones are tamer than they used to be. Or at least, their effect on her. In the old days, they would stir her her enough that she might disturb Arlo’s sleep.
Or, Mitch, the same material just doesn’t seem as provocative as it once did. In olden days, after all, a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking.
Look how her eyes bug in panel 2. Things are a lot more explicit than she was expecting. In panel 3, she’s making sure Arlo is asleep. Then she goes back to reading, wide eyed.
I read it as that Janis (when younger) used to sort of, at some level, “believe” in the fantasies of the romance novels, but after years of marriage to Arlo, she no longer can do so — she didn’t marry a hunky gorgeous soldier of fortune or billionaire or whatever, and the guy she *did* marry is sort of funny-looking and is sleeping, maybe snoring a little, right then while she’s reading about the tireless fantasy lovers — but basically Janis is just fine with her life. She’s happier with a real-life guy who’s reliable, loving, sweet, and sometimes silly. So she can no longer suspend her disbelief to immerse herself in the world view of the romance novel the way she once could.
Romance novels used to have more effect on Janis than they do now. The joke is that she is attributing this to a change in romance novels, but the reader is intended to attribute this to a change in Janis… she’s wiser now.
When they both were younger, she’d get excited by the reading material and was able to act on her urges with her wide awake, virile husband. Nowadays, Arlo is already turned off by the time she gets gets turned on.
I don’t know what meaning Johnson was going for. But, like much poetry, it seems compatible with many interpretations and thus illustrates what is in disparate minds.
I assumed she was reading about how the heroine’s secret lover had ways of being by said heroine’s side while his wife was unaware he was not by her side, so she is checking to make sure that Arlo is still there in the bed with her, not perhaps replaced by a bundle of blankets or something.
I imagine the “romance” in the book to be of such a “not what they used to be” status that her heart is pounding and she is breathing heavily. In the middle she just checks to see that her husband hasn’t been woken by all that noise.
Considering that earlier in the story arc, Janis was noting how e-book readers make it OK for her to read in bed as it doesn’t put out enough light to keep Arlo awake like the bedside lamp does. Now it backfires because she’s gotten worked up reading a steamy passage and he’s already asleep.