The Neighborhood in Color

Wonderfully weird Sunday toons. One of my "must read" comics from the 1980's, along with Far Side, GuindonThe World According to Carp, Calvin & Hobbes, and Bloom County(before it became too penguin oriented.....have you noticed that Opus & Snoopy have a lot in common? Both could be either in the daily or the Sunday, since they're both black & white, and they were both overused enough to kill perfectly good comix. Oh, well, they sold a lot of lunch boxes. Unfortunately, my two personal favorites aren't in here, but you can't have everything. BTW, the 2 missing faves are: A Doberman has snatched a suction-cup Garfield through someone's car window Two dungeon workers are sitting down in a torture chamber, as one says "I'm tired, but it's a good tired." Take that Charles Schulz

You are under orders to get all of Jerry Van Amerongen's "The Neighborhood" and "Ballard Street" books! Here are some examples from this selection: (1) We see a fellow flying off his bicycle in the direction of a truck which has written on the side "Another shipment of Warrior Farms attack dogs" with numerous snouts sticking up the top of the truck with lots of teeth waiting to greet him. The caption is "The Saga of Harold (Hard Luck Hadley) continues. (2) A barn is full of people wearing goofy costumes, all of them holding candles along with signs with single letters of the alphabet written on them. The caption is "A secret society called 'The formation of the vowels'". (3) An annual stockholders' meeting of a corporation is being held, but instead of the executives sitting by the podium, there are dummies instead with the real people hiding behind them making faces in the direction of the audience and carousing in other ways. The caption is "Top Management acutally looks forward to the Annual Sharholders' Meeting". (4) We see a lounge with a lot of empty chairs and a single customer wearing a Texas-style 10-gallon hat. At the front is an iguana tied to a chair with a microphone in front of him. The caption is "Another low moment in lounge entertainment near Midland, Texas" (BTW-that is where President W Bush is from!) I am sure after reading these samples you are all rushing out to buy this book. One at a time, please!

You may know van Amerongen's current strip, "Ballard Street" from current funny papers. "The Neighborhood" is in exactly the same spirit... the art of understatement and sublimely funny drawings of hapless older folks desperate for a clue. My favorite FAVORITE strip has an older gentleman looking out his upstairs window, down onto the lawn, where the neighborhood dogs have amiably arranged themselves to spell out the word "Hi." The man is saying to his wife, "Helen, could you come here a minute?" OH MY GOD I can't even think about this strip without falling over. This book is fun for the guest room, or the coffee table, and is enjoyable over and over and over.

The Neighborhood in Color is another example of how talented Jerry Van Amerongen is, VERY. The comic panels are so very bizarre and the captions can be such an understatement that they can deliver most of the laughs.