Ballard Street by Jerry Van Amerongen for October 18, 2009

What is?

It certainly is…

I’ll say…….what ?

The two signs you’re getting older:

You start forgetting stuff.

I can’t remember what the other thing was.

What are we talking about?

I have adult onset ADD and CRS. I can never tell whether I wasn’t paying attention to something or forgot it. It drives my ladyfriend nuts heh heh.

Dots and checks, and a pipe to boot. Can’t remember anything while staring at their wardrobe,

Almost forgot to post the link to Cleo and Company:

http://www.comicssherpa.com/site/feature?uc_comic=cscwy

Cleo with the wise eyes…. At least the consequences were not so bad this time.

“You mean it isn’t?” (a tricky business)

Over at C and C, I have to say I love the sign. I can just hear the jingle ♪ Let’s all go to the lobby. ♫ Let’s all go to the lobby. ♪ Let’s all go to the lobby .. and get ourselves a snack/drink. ♫

Are you sure I said that?

Ever noticed there are always consequences?

Yup, folks… a new animation (!!) in the October 19th  2019 “CLEO and COMPANY”

over on Sherpa, where Dennis is sending you… in case you wondered whether you needed to catch that bus.

New, yet very very familiar, isn’t it….

a never-ending story.

“Claude is tempted to push the button….”

It might as well say “Claude pushes the button,” right?

Cos I’ve never seen him resist the temptation yet.

It has a rather retro look to it, as well….

Cleo looks more like her earlier, mute and horizontal versions than she has for a while… though she does speak.

And we haven’t seen an intermission like that in a long time.

Of course, Cleo’s care and sympathy remain the same.

That will never change.

Her beloved master lies injured and groaning on the other side of that fence…

is she looking frantically for a gap, so she can race through it, and straight to his side, to lick his wounds and howl for help?

Or is she running for human assistance, ready to pantomime the scenario, like Lassie…

“What is it, girl? Claude pushed the ¿@#$! button again? You’re kidding, right?”

Nah…. she’ll stick to her customary mockery and derision.

Now I know who put the button in all those places. It was Cleo. She knows where to stand so that nothing will happen to her. She didn’t get thrown over the fence or have anything fall on her or drop into the sidewalk. I hope Claude doesn’t read this.

As for Agnes and Lester, above….

At first I thought she was quizzing him, in the manner of a schoolmistress.

“Now, to prove you were paying attention, repeat back my instructions.”

But no, she is merely wandering in her own fog…. having lost her place in the conversation.

It looks familiar…. now why do I remember something like that….

Oh yeah. Cos it happens to me. Like… every day.

Yes, Dennis and Liverlips… dots and checks… and rather lurid.

But except for the colors, standard Ballard Street accoutrements.

Which make me think it’s the colors that make the difference…

which leads to another thought.

Maybe I should slow down…. so many thoughts in a row….

but no, I’ll brave a possible brain explosion and forge ahead.

The thing is, Jerry Van A colored his own Sundays back here in 2009, while the dailies were still black and white.

A year or two later, I think, he stopped providing Sundays at all….

and a while after that, Universal (now Andrews McMeel) started hiring colorists for daily strips

It was the Ballard Street colorist, therefore, who gave us the blues, the purples, and all the colors we associate with the very attractive fabrics and clothing styles in the neighborhood…

especially the beautiful doughnut and reinforcement-ring polka dots.

But TODAY, perhaps, in a Van Amerongen original color strip, we see them the way their creator intended.

Touch? TOUCH?!

That button is just a tad touchy.

There’s a sucker born every minute! And this one’s name is Claude. I love the drive in snack bar. Today’s whole comic made me smile. ❤️

Made me laugh out loud. I almost was thinking he would get away with it this time.

Lester’s right leg looks quite thin. I hope he is not sick.

… and you said it yesterday, as well.