Jerry Van Amerongen
Jerry Van Amerongen is a cartoonist based in the
Biography
Van Amerongen was born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan. After seventeen years in corporate sales, marketing and product management, Van Amerongen switched to cartooning at the age of 40. Jerry Van Amerongen's single panel cartoon The Neighborhood ran in newspapers throughout the United States from 1980 to 1990. The comic was similar in format and content to Gary Larson's The Far Side, employing a single panel gag cartoon infused with surreal humor. Van Amerongen discontinued The Neighborhood and began Ballard Street in 1991. Ballard Street ran as a multi-panel strip until 1993, when Van Amerongen reverted to the single panel format employed by The Neighborhood.
Van Amerongen's cartoon ideas come from scribbles and drawings as often as they do from preconceived ideas. The drawings themselves rely on facial expressions and body postures to give readers additional information beyond the caption, providing the motivation behind the action. Boyhood memories shaped by the ethnic influences of his Dutch and Polish heritage, images of roly-poly women in print dresses and rotund men in baggy trousers, shape the look of his characters. “Regardless of our physical appearance, we see ourselves as having wrinkles and rumples on the inside. We all perceive ourselves as having big bottoms”.
In April 2004, Van Amerongen's
References
- ^ "Jerry Van Amerongen". Lambiek. Retrieved 21 June 2010.
External links
- Ballard Street on Creators.com- updated daily
- NCS Awards