Ballard Street by Jerry Van Amerongen for January 13, 2010

Quite the creation there, Sparky.

That’s what you get for letting him play Pick-Up-Sticks…

Fetch?

Was thinking the same thing, Doctor Toon What a hoot !

And trim his nails.

Dogs have a building code?

If the building inspector sees that, sparky will be in the dog house.

to see today’s Cleo and Company go here:

https://i.postimg.cc/y6TcMsVp/oiuja.jpg

I fail to see the rationale behind Desmond’s request of Marcia. Sparky appears to be a keen student of geometry and Jenga. Play on, Sparkplug!

How oddly specific the Clifford’s ouija board is. I might dare suggest that Claude check under the table for any, um, wayward magnets.

If Sparky can’t put his creative energy into construction, who knows where it will go?

Ever since Cleo got opposable thumbs, things have not been the same.

Nighthawks has probably been a bad influence. He is prejudiced. There are only two steaks that are identifiable in a comic, Porterhouse with its distinctive T-bone, or ham steak, with its familiar round bone. What if the Ouija had asked for a pork loin? A flank steak? How would a cartoonist draw that!

Maybe she should ask for a rib roast.

Hi Cleo pals….

And welcome to the Jan 13th  2020 “CLEO and COMPANY”…

in its hopefully quite temporary home on PostImage, instead of Sherpa.

Which remind me… P51Strega … see below or yesterday for my explanatory reply to your question about Sherpa

 

Yes, there does seem to be something fishy about this Ouija board….

Or perhaps I should say “meaty”?

 

And it doesn’t just say "Give Cleo a bone, " or some other acceptable doggie treat.

Oh, no…. our four-legged prima donna must have porterhouse….

If that works for her I think I have to figure out who I  know with a Ouija board and a gullible nature.

I haven’t had a porterhouse in years.

 

Dennis… T-bone is the name of a cut as well, and lamb or pork chops are pretty identifiable, if not distinguishable from each other.

But there was no steak drawing necessary for today’s strip…. so she could have asked for filet mignon….

but she knows a porterhouse tastes better.

Filet is more tender… but a dog’s teeth can rip apart pretty much any cut.

 

BTW… First time in ages I’ve been locked out of GoComics for hours… it usually lets me in after a few tries lately, if not at first, and then starts working normally.I thought that little episode was over… but no.

Nothing but timeouts and error messages since just after the turn… and had to sign in twice even though I keep it set to remember me.

 

Anyway… I’m here now… and the time-out gave me a chance to look up a couple of things.

When life hands you lemons… at least there’s Google.

I’m not the type of person who gets bored…. but even if I were….

How can anyone ever be bored with access to the internet … phone, computer, tablet…. whatever…. and a search engine?

@P51Strega… and any newcomers who may be confused about Sherpa/the main page (really the main site )/what’s happening to Cleo….

I’m reposting this here, so you don’t have to dig through replies from yesterday.

 

Sherpa is an alternative site to GoComics, but for amateur, ie, unpaid, comic strips… uploaded by their creators.

Some great, probably on their way to future syndication, and being on GoComics … some, maybe not so much.

It’s where Cleo has appeared since 2014….

Up until a week or so ago, you were looking at it via a link to Comics Sherpa.

 

It used to be considered part of GoComics….

A separate “page”, but you could add Sherpa comics to your lineup, and comment in their forums, right along with the syndicated strips.

Amateur cartoonists paid $100 a year for a space to publish a strip, with forums, feedback and the huge GoComics audience….

A good testing spot for those seeking syndication contracts.

 

3 years ago, in a site overhaul, Sherpa was separated from GoComics…

I can’t actually say I understand it… Both are, and were, AFAIK, owned and run by Andrews McMeel Universal…

But now Sherpa has no forums and you can’t subscribe to the strips… though they dropped the fee for cartoonists.

 

Luckily, we heard in time that it was coming, and set up this forum on Ballard St.

GoComics has been saying for 3 years that Sherpa will be redesigned and will rejoin the main site, but it hasn’t happened.

 

About a week ago, Cleo’s page on Sherpa started returning an error message…. we don’t know why.

Nighthawks has been posting the strip on an image hosting site, while we wait for a fix or an answer.

This is about all that fits in a comment!

The second message on the board says that if Cleo doesn’t get a steak, a dozen cats will leave a message on Claude’s face tonight. The third message says that 2 million cats will leave messages on the faces of the owners of Gocomics. That will happen every night until Sherpa is fixed. Of course, it means that the messages will cover their gravestones.

As for Sparky…. indeed, I think his talents should be encouraged… even trained and utilised.

Imagine the help he could be… no need to pay a handyman to fix the porch stairs….

or even if all you need is a helper for a DIY cabinet remodel….

though he is pretty short for some cabinet work….

and perhaps will never understand fine wood finishes.

 

He reminds me of a video I saw recently….

The thing is, it may have been here on Cleo.

If one of you already posted the link to this, I apologise… I can’t remember where I clicked on it.

And I don’t know why else I didn’t post it here.

But it’s a MUST SEE for dog admirers….

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PrnVkKN0HE&te=1&nl=cooking&emc=edit_ck_20200108%3Fcampaign_id%3D58&instance_id=15019&segment_id=20144&user_id=89b3a4391f8dce25afd8aa9ea22c90c0&regi_id=89293927_ck_20200108

Note… this is an awfully long URL, but it works.

 

The dog’ name is Secret… she’s an Australian shepherd or possibly an Aussie/border collie cross…. depending on where you look.

I can’t seem to find a YouTube account for her owner, cos I think she just uploads them to Instagram

 

I did find more videos the other day, of Secret doing all sorts of things, including yoga, hanging shirts in the closet, and helping decorate the Christmas tree.

If I find that link again, I’ll post it.

 

Wanders aimlessly into comments section … reads a few comments … stops dead in tracks … avoids eye contact, hunches shoulders, & tiptoes backwards … carefully shuts door ,,, runs like hell.

Rib eye tastes better, but dogs only have about 1700 taste buds vs our 7000, so it doesn’t really matter as long as it’s big.

Claude is thinking:

I dare! I dare!

And that is all it is going to say, Claude, until Cleo gets that porterhouse!

OK, APPARENTLY NOW WE ARE UN-BANNED.

SHERPA HAS RESTORED CLEO AND COMPANY TO IT’S FORMER PLACE IN THE LINEUP.

FOR THE DAILY CLEO AND COMPANY , GO HERE:

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

[and, btw, according to our contacts, we were never “banned”. It turned out to be a technical glitch, just as I thought all along, Nighthawks! ]

Yayyyyyyyyyyy!!!

HOORAY!

WOOHOO!

WAY TO GO!

Still off.

http://www.comicssherpa.com/site/feature?uc_comic=cscwy&uc_full_date=20200108

http://images.ucomics.com/comics/cscwy/2020/cscwy200108.jpg

hm….I used that top link and got the last comic that I posted before we were shut down, which was Jan 4

tomorrow, if you use that link it will get you Stel’s Tuesday poster

Tigressy’s first link is the regular link to Sherpa, for January 8th….

It works fine for me.

No more recent date can be reached because it was impossible for Nighthawks or Stel to upload a new strip for those days.

 

For some reason, only 4 of the first 8 days in January show up….

The calendar has no links for the 2nd, 5th, 6th, or 7th of January…. and those days are skipped when paging back.

December, November, October, and a few random months I checked look complete.

 

Tigressy’s second link goes directly to the image file stored on the Universal comics server…. it bypasses the Sherpa page.

None of the already uploaded images were missing from there during this whole non-event, which is why I didn’t think Cleo had been permanently removed….

I haven’t yet checked those four unlinked strips from the first week of this month…. they may be gone from the server, too, for no apparent reason.

But it’s not because of animations… the two animated strips of 2020 work fine, as do past ones.