Yes, the Arlo Award is still an ongoing operation! (The sequestered Arlo Page site is another matter.) The Award is for a somewhat racy or suggestive comic that by virtue of double entendre or sheer bluff can get past newspaper-oriented standards-and-practices.
This LuAnn Sunday strip was sent in by some CIDU stalwarts, most asking about the Arlo Award category, but one also counting it as a CIDU since the “spicy” reading is not unambiguous. And some have taken it to the GoComics comments thread, for that matter. Thanks to Bob Ball, Findus, Unca $crooge, and Karl.
(By the way, their names are Frank and Nancy.)
Comics I Don't Understand 
For anyone who sees this as a CIDU, I don’t think he’s contemplating using it on his face.
My first reaction was the “ewwww…” variety, but it could be the more innocent “man is tempted to try woman stuff” that’s been around since women started buying hair stuff and leaving it laying around.
Yeah, no.
Despite that idea trending hard among the GoComics commenter, I don’t see him contemplating using the lotion on himself at all, despite the temptations of illogic.
I interpret his demeanour as just puzzlement / disappointment. His wife was using this new special beautifying lotion. Beautifying for what, for whom? Well, for him, and he was ready to interpret that as the beginnings of an invitation. But he sees from the way she has gotten into bed that her intention is just on sleep. And he’s a bit nonplussed over that.
*commenterS
The illogic would be in supposing him so dim as to imagine a facial skin firming lotion would produce firming in entirely different senses (such as an erection). He has not been shown as that dumb.
I would think Luann would be a frequent candidate for Arlo Awards. Sometimes it seems like you can hear Greg Evans giggling about what he was able to printed in the paper.
Billy the S, the bts story seems to be that his daughter , Karen Evans, who is now co-writing with Greg, has been steering them into more modern plot lines and treatments.
Another nice thing about Reader Mode is that it makes suggestions. So working off this one, it took me to a previous Arlo Award CIDU posting, https://godaddyandthesquirrelmustbothdie.wordpress.com/2020/06/08/what-the-fork/ , which was fun to read in this context.
The innuendo was present before the younger Evans began co-writing the strip (2012-13ish, I think), but it does seem to have ramped up a bit since then. I actually like Luann overall and find it to be generally well written but frankly, I find the strip’s relatively frequent forays into innuendo to be childish and quite often off-putting, certainly compared to how entertaining and endearing it usually is in the Arlo award’s namesake strip.
Did that approximately coincide with when LuAnn and her age-cohort went to college? It seemed to me to mature in storyline and attitudes along with the characters.
Arlo Guthrie has a comic strip?
Dana K – “ The illogic would be in supposing him so dim as to imagine a facial skin firming lotion would produce firming in entirely different senses (such as an erection). He has not been shown as that dumb.”
You’re right that he’s not that dumb, but he might be that desperate as to try anything. OR maybe the thought of it just went through his head and gave him a chuckle. Either way, I see it as an Arlington award winner, if we’re taking votes.
Curse that auto correct. Arlo award, not Arlington!
@ deity
The strip moved Luann and her friends out of high school in mid-2014, which was not too long after Evans’ daughter began co-writing. Personally, I don’t find the strip to any more (or less, to be fair) mature now than it was in the mid-2000s. During the 5-6 years prior to that, though, the strip did aggressively move into more mature subjects, though its forays into innuendo have pretty much always come across as childish to me.
Another nice thing about Reader Mode is that it makes suggestions.
Reader View from Firefox for Windows doesn’t work well with CIDU. I get just the posting and none of the comments. I haven’t tried it on the iPad.
Hi, Brian, I wasn’t referring to a reader view or mode of Firefox or any other browser, but of WordPress.com. Or may be available when viewing any WordPress.com-based site, such as this one. You may have to be logged in as a WP user, but do not need to be a paying customer.
It’s a button within a black bar, underneath the browser’s address bar and top material, and above all of the site’s own content.
Maybe you can also just go to https://wordpress.com/read and pickup from there with sites or “conversations” (threads) you are following.
I got you.
So why does the title say “Arlo day at the DeGroots’ ” when it pretty clearly is a night scene?
So the joke is basically that old chestnut: “Hey coach, this liniment makes my leg smart. What should I do?” “Put it on your head.”
Wow, that was 6-plus years ago? Tempus does fugit, doesn’t it?
What’s Frank drinking in Panel 1? Is he drinking ink straight from a pen?
If that’s the case, who knows what he’s thinking in Panel 2?
Frank is brushing his teeth.
And yes, he’s thinking about what else it might lift and firm.
I would hate to see what he would do if he found a container of epoxy resin that said “Hardens in five minutes.”