Lio by Mark Tatulli for April 28, 2024

Kinda reminds me of Doofenshmirtz’s story about his balloon, Balloony.

The kid who has rockets, jet packs, a lab (of sorts), etc etc etc cannot get a cylinder of helium to reinflate his buddy? Or more to his speed, a hydrogen generator?

Don’t balloons spend at least a day shrunken?

Buy mylar kid. Stretches it out at least a week.

Ow! My neck…

Lio gave that balloon the best one day of its life ever.

I bet Lio called him Liam and went around with the induction, “Me,Lio. He,Liam.”

I must be losing it. I actually went Awww at the last panel…

Le Ballon Bleu

As a kid I wondered why this happened to helium inflated balloons but much less so to air inflated balloons. It’s because the helium molecules are so much tinier that air molecules (i.e., the mixture of O2 and N2 — both elements are diatomic) that the helium molecules pass through the very tiny pores in the matrix of polymerized latex molecules, rather like water through a sieve or flour through a bolting cloth. Mylar is made from a polymerized polyester resin which is much less porous than latex.

Unlike in a King novel, that plastic balloon will stay in the grave a long time!

When I would have a helium balloon as a kid, and it reached the stage where it was losing its buoyancy, I would take it outside, let it go, and watch it drift off into the ether till it was no longer visible. Always wondered how far it would eventually go.

Dang iPad rotates the image when I try to view the comic!

Not bad for 25 cents.

eh my neck

Hey! Don’t use helium in toy balloons! The gas is needed for MRI magnets, manufacturing of fiber optics cables and semiconductors, airbags, welding, cryogenics, laser pointers, gas-leak detection, cooling of nuclear reactors, production of zirconium and titanium, etc., etc. And it’s getting scarcer, and more expensive, every year.

An existence well lived and well loved.

This one is sad for me for some reason

. . . and right after For Better or For Worse, too.

Our latex babies are with us for such a short time, it is heartbreaking. Fear not Lio you will be reunited with your rubber pal at the rainbow balloon arch someday.

He should have buried it in the proper graveyard, where there’s “99 Dead Balloons”

Awww, sad.

Tatulli – you do realize that 90% of your readers do so ON A FREAKING COMPUTER MONITOR. There’s no easy way to rotate it to see what’s going on.

It may have been a short life, but it was a full life……

I had one of those as a kid, name of Floaty. My older brother and his cohorts stole his life force to talk like munchkins. Then twisted his husk into small mini balloons and took turns guessing how many turns it’d take to achieve a shrill pop. Scoundrels!

I almost wrote a book, “Helium Balloons as Pets.” Well, I wrote it but didn’t try to get it published. I think I predicted those fish-shaped balloons with remote control motors.

A short but fulfilling life. He will be missed.

Aww … what an emotional journey for Lio. Hang in there, buddy.

love dosen’t die when they do.

This was sad