New Comic in Mind . . . So There Goes ‘The Neighborhood’

Cartoonist Jerry Van Amerongen is shutting down “The Neighborhood,” the single-panel comic that runs in the Los Angeles Times and 124 other newspapers across the country, on July 28 but he has a new strip in mind.

Van Amerongen, 49, is developing a strip called “Ballard Street” after the Grand Rapids, Mich., street where he lived as a boy in the 1950s.

“I needed the name of the street because I really wanted to create a true neighborhood,” he said. “The Neighborhood” featured frumpy characters in bizarre situations, and he hopes that the new strip will give him more creative room.

“I was feeling a certain amount of restrictions with the panel after this many years,” he said. “I thought I could add more depth and maybe more texture to what I was doing by creating recurring characters that have personalities.” He also wants greater control of licensing.