Kick Butt and Other Advice on Aging

Kick Butt is a special collection of aging cartoons from the Ballard Street cartoon panel. The droopy people of Ballard Street have an unmistakable, if not energetic, approach to aging that's sure to elicit a chuckle from even the moodiest of birthday honorees. Van Amerongen sees "each cartoon panel as a little movie scene, and we're looking at a single frame from a small piece of film—something happened prior to our peek, and something's going to happen afterward." "Most cartoonists ignore the graphic possibilities of the comic strip, but Jerry Van Amerongen understands that a picture can be the funniest part of the story. On a comics page crammed with crudely drawn characters who never move, it's a pleasure to see Jerry's seriously disturbed middle-aged suburbanites. Each panel is deftly composed to let the reader piece together the story behind the caption. Here at last is a strip that's fun to look at."        —Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes