Ballard Street by Jerry Van Amerongen for September 29, 2010

Yep, gotta keep in practice, Maybelle….

She hates surprises.

Steve, try a bucket of water over the door.

He’s gonna get that sucka yet!

Steve is an aficionado of western art.

StelBel has brought us a poster that reminds us of the days when the Cathedral of Notre Dame was still standing in all its glory.

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

Not sure what the current location of the Hunchbasset is, poor guy. Hope he is safe.

Don’t spur him on.

A wonderful classic film!

Welcome, everybody!

Time to post our comments on another beautiful poster by StelBel….

in the *September 29th 2020 “CLEO and COMPANY”*

 on Sherpa….

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

  

“The Hunchbasset of Notre Dame” …

What a stirring tail!

All the passion and glory, excitement and pathos, you expect from a novel by Victor Hound….

brought to life by some of the premier basset talent of its day.

Charles L’arfton, at the height of his powers…. portraying obsession and woe like no other.

Maureen O’Bark…. enchanting as ever, and able to stir the hearts of the most jaded.

  

And rising above it all, more imposing than mere scenery…

the beautiful cathedral itself…. an enduring monument to artistic and spiritual vision….

which we see here in its glory days…

and are reminded of all the energy and effort going into its recovery nowadays….

And that horrible fire, a few short years ago, which by sheer luck didn’t completely destroy it.

  

The humans (of course) tried in several different ways to copy Stel’s poster….

this one is as close as I could find to hers, but falls short.

They saw the pink colorization of the cathedral, so they colored theirs red…

They didn’t have Maureen O’Bark, so they spoiled it by plastering some human woman all over it, hoping to make her seem as captivating.

 

And what the heck is that half human creature?

Were they trying to make up for not having an actual basset hound?

It’s a Victor Hound novel, not a horror flick!

 http://images4.static-bluray.com/products/20/20374_2_large.jpg

  

 

Steve has to keep setting ambushes for the bad guy because he (the bad guy) keeps coming back. No matter how many times he’s bushwhacked, he always seems to turn up again the next day. Like a bad penny, Steve just can’t get rid of him.

http://www.comicssherpa.com/site/feature?uc_comic=cscwy&uc_full_date=20200929

I would have picked the same poster as Susan; it’s the closest to StelBel’s version.

I mentioned, above, that I’ve been distracted tonight…

 

It’s due to a large wildfire burning just beyond one of the oldest, most settled parts of the city.

Last night it raged through an upscale senior housing development a couple of miles east.

Firefighters battled all night, saving as many houses as they could, but some were lost.

 

It’s a scenario that seems impossible…

everything just outside the eastern city limit has been evacuated, including a big state park, and two large city parks…

If it creeps any closer, it’ll burn areas that haven’t seen fire in the nearly 200 year existence of Santa Rosa.

A lot of them, marked into numbered sections on a map, are under what they call “evacuation warning” …

“You don’t have to leave yet, but be prepared in case we tell your section to go.”

 

That includes neighborhoods established in the 19th century, plus our earliest suburban type development… WWII era… and the oldest shopping center in Santa Rosa.

By European or Asian standards those are still in infancy… but in California, they set the tone of a city.

 

Now, don’t get worried about my personal safety…

as I’ve said before, I don’t live in one of the more heavily treed parts of town that fires are looking to gobble up,

or up in the windy hills they like to run through.

 

But when I smelled heavy smoke… I should say heavier smoke, about 6 pm, and went outside…

(yes, the opposite of what you’re supposed to do, I know… )

the sky was yellow, and everything was sprinkled with ash…

it had dusted my car’s windshield, and settled on the wiper blades like a light snowfall.

 

Smoke from other directions has been in the air for days,

and though we’re in the middle of a predicted heatwave…. 101° Sunday… the ash layer has kept it 10° cooler.

Till about midnight I was getting text alerts and updates.

It’s all a bit spooky.

Good morning, Ballardeers and Ms Susan! Q Date 200.98344.63 is hazy and in the 40s F.

Another Stel-lar movie poster and although it’s 4 years old it seems to be a portent of the April fire last year. There’s several images when doing a Google search and a few look eerily like the poster.

Sending good thoughts your way, Susan. I’m kinda tapped on Karma, but I’ll send out what I can. Be safe, my friend. (((((HUGS)))))

Good morning Balladeers, (((((Plods))))) and Miss Susan.

I haven’t seen the HunchBasset of Notre Dame in years and years. I guess we should all meet at the Basset Plex for a matinee. (this might be just the diversion Susan needs) I’ll bring some Kibble Pizza and if we all sit in the back row, the theater supplies soft drinks. See you at 3:00.

Nobody likes a bushwhacker!

I got a hutch there.