I’m not familiar with the pronunciation for types of flowers so I thought maybe he was trying to make some type of wordplay of ‘narcissus’ for ‘narcissist’ but it still doesn’t make much sense.
A narcissist is someone fixated on themselves. The flowers may be simiarly labeled as narcissist but they are not, and neither is Janis. Its not a joke comic this time, its a philosophy statement.
Unless the joke is on narcissist themselves, missing out on the beauty around them that has nothing to do with them.
This is my take as well. I get what the strip is saying, but it would have been clearer and far more effective if the artist had drawn an elaborate, colorful “spring is busting out all over” scene in the last panel.
(Yes, I am aware that the song from Carousel uses the word “June,” not “spring.”)
Feels a bit like a “Mark Trail” pastiche.
I’m seeing a copyright date of 2017. Does that mean the strip is a rerun? And would that mean it has already been discussed four years ago?
Huh. I thought Joplin and Guthrie and figured I was missing something.
Been drinkin’.
It showed up on my GoComics feed today, so it must be a rerun. CIDU does them also.
Here is the entire strip: “It’s a waste of time to be overly pedantic about the specific type of flower. What matters is that standing quietly in a field of them is a good experience.” Everything else is a distracting incidental.
That’s it, that’s all, full stop, do not pass go, do not collect 200 lupins.
I quibble the strip’s conclusion. I for one would like to warned if I were about to lie down in a patch of oleander.
I asked my wife, Pepper Mill, what she thought, and her response was similar to many in this thread, that you should not worry about the details and appreciate the flowers.
i can’t buy that at all. The strip certainly doesn’t set you up for that interpretation. And that side-eyed look combined with her crooked smirking smile suggests some sort of innuendo to me.
The Arlo and Janis strip pretty frequently uses innuendo, trying to be obscure enough about it that they can run in a Sunday Family Newspaper, but undeniably having a hidden sexual meaning
Me too.
Sometimes a buttercup is just a buttercup.
Same here when I first saw it. I wasn’t drunk, I was just drinkin.
I think maybe it’s a convoluted riff on " a [flower] by any other name would smell as sweet".
Hmm, interesting…
A bit too subtle for Janis, I think. The strip the day before the one in question had Arlo delivering a glass of wine to Janis who is in the bath. He frequently visits her when bathing.
We’ve seen Janis’ sex smile plenty. That ain’t it.
I get that the “punchline” was “Enjoy the flowers” but I reject it. It’s a stupid strawman since no one actually gets that worried about narcissus vs jonquil vs daffodil vs buttercups. The writer impressed the differences upon us and then acted like we need to be told to ignore them. We were already ignoring them and the only one who gave a shit was the writer. It’s a non-joke and a waste of time.
Corky, is that you?
But you’re so high
There we go.
+1
I would have got the allusion if the lead up was about roses (ala Romeo and Juliet). But not daffodils and buttercups.
I always see oleander as more of a shrub (or bush) than as ground cover. That is, the notion of a “patch of oleander” is foreign to me.