Ballard Street by Jerry Van Amerongen for February 16, 2025

I have a few questions for long-time Ballard Street commenters. For many years I’ve read this feature and noted that the humans (and the dogs) usually strongly resembled characters seen in previous cartoons, but they often had different names. My assumption was that this was like a repertory company. Stock characters played whatever part was needed for the daily joke. But now that I have been reading the comments for a while, I’ve noticed that people here seem to know the names of the people and dogs even when they are not divulged in the caption. So here are my questions: Is there an interconnected “Ballard Street universe” with recurring characters who always have the same personalities, spouses, pets, neighbors, hobbies, etc.? Have today’s couple always been Dottie and Fritz, as oldpine52 called them above? Or perhaps the truth is somewhere in between with characters sometimes recurring and sometimes not.