pear pimples for hairy fishnuts
July 12, 2015 9:53 PM   Subscribe

Twenty-five years after the strip was purchased by Donald Trump and the staff fired, Bloom County will return.

Interview with Breathed previously on Metafilter. Also previously: Banana Jr. 9000.
posted by Countess Elena (202 comments total) 63 users marked this as a favorite
 
Don't blame me, I voted for Bill and Opus.
posted by Jernau at 9:56 PM on July 12, 2015 [10 favorites]


Ack pthbt
posted by echocollate at 10:07 PM on July 12, 2015 [12 favorites]


Ack-thpppt
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:08 PM on July 12, 2015 [5 favorites]


Crapola
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:08 PM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


"I see the moon all white and pretty / just like the hind o Conway Twitty"
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:09 PM on July 12, 2015 [16 favorites]


I am unbelievably happy about the possibility of more Bloom County. It and C&H were crazy formative for me. Of course, there is a risk Watterson was prescient.
posted by humans are superior! at 10:13 PM on July 12, 2015 [9 favorites]


Twenty-five years after the strip was purchased by Donald Trump and the staff fired, Bloom County will return.

Oh yeah? But Trump kept their deposit.
posted by Drinky Die at 10:19 PM on July 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


Gorbachev sings tractors: Turnip! Buttocks!
posted by Chrysostom at 10:22 PM on July 12, 2015 [21 favorites]






Happiness.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:39 PM on July 12, 2015


Oliver Wendell Jones with a Banana Watch or suitable analogue, please.
posted by girlhacker at 10:40 PM on July 12, 2015 [10 favorites]


MIDDLE OF THE ROAD
MAN IT STANKS
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:45 PM on July 12, 2015 [4 favorites]


America's All Agog Over Eggnog!
posted by gompa at 11:00 PM on July 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


brennen@exuberance 0:06:39 /home/brennen ★ ack --thpppt
_   /|
\'o.O'
=(___)=
   U    ack --thpppt!
posted by brennen at 11:07 PM on July 12, 2015 [24 favorites]


So ok. I don't even know if I want to talk seriously about whether this is going to be any good, because I'm so happy at the prospect of more Bloom County. I am pretty certain that, of strips written since its run, only maybe Achewood has contained anything near as much good material.

I know memory is a little selective here. There were mediocre strips in there, and cheap topical gags about shit that no one has by now given a serious thought in 30 years. But taken as a whole it's a goddamned masterpiece.

Also, ok, he's bringing it back because Donald Trump is running for president. Maybe Berkeley Breathed just knows his country needs him.
posted by brennen at 11:16 PM on July 12, 2015 [18 favorites]


How I live to watch the morn,
with golden sun that shines,
up above to nicely warm these frosty toes of mine.
The wind doth taste of bittersweet,
like jasper wine and sugar,
I bet it's blown through others' feet, like those of …
Caspar Weinberger.

Start over!

My level of child-like, joyous, absolute glee about this cannot be overstated. Bloom County was hugely formative for me, and many of it's gags and punch lines have stuck in my head over the years. I will welcome it back with open arms!
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 11:17 PM on July 12, 2015 [20 favorites]


okay so i'm wary, because the later stuff was pretty weak

but on the other hand, i've experienced a weird kind of distress that milo bloom has been missing from the world, and i'm overjoyed that he'll be back, no matter what else comes with it
posted by neuromodulator at 11:23 PM on July 12, 2015 [5 favorites]


Billy and the Boingers - U Stink But I ❤ U

Guys I'm so happy right now
posted by ZaphodB at 11:31 PM on July 12, 2015 [11 favorites]


Still awaiting confirmation on my next opportunity for a one-on-one interview with Opus. It went so well the first time, except Mr. Breathed had some issues. Maybe I need to inform them of my Semi-Professional Name Change - everyone there should understand; Opus has worked under enough different names himself.

Bloom County is among the "great comics in reruns" that I intentionally follow at gocomics.com, and currently they are at almost the very end of its original run, where "Ronald Ann" is showing Opus the door into "Outland", the location of Breathed's attempt at a weekly, Opus-less follow-up spin-off (which ultimately had to include Opus and Bill before running out of whatever energy it tried to run on). So, coincidence? I have NO idea.
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:41 PM on July 12, 2015 [6 favorites]


Moral turpitude!
posted by elr at 11:41 PM on July 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


"Dallas, you've outdone yourself."
posted by neuromodulator at 11:42 PM on July 12, 2015 [4 favorites]


One of the most fact-based things in my 2003 Opus interview was where I quoted Berkeley Breathed saying “It was painful to sit through the [Iraq] war without a public voice.” Just IMAGINE how much built-up topicality he has NOW, above and beyond Trump's wackiness.
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:48 PM on July 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


Yeah, I'll go down for "cautiously optimistic" on this one. I have incredible fondness for Bloom County, but Outland and especially Opus were fairly week, and Breathed has a bad case of "everyone is too easily offended" bordering on "offend everyone equally!" which I can give him a pass on in stuff from the 80s but I have more difficultly with in modern work.

That said, I think the big strength of Bloom County was always in the dailies, and the picture looks like it could be a daily strip. Part of the weakness of Outland and Opus was that they just didn't have the space to get a little loopy in the daily strips.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 11:56 PM on July 12, 2015 [8 favorites]


I used to live kitty-corner from the house that served as the template for the boarding house when I went to college in Iowa City. I'd walk out of my door and think of a stealth basselope or the Banana Jr or the time cat sweat was an ingredient in a hair replacement formula. Though my favorite strip may be Breathed's farewell strip to the city, where he talked about missing "water that tastes like 'Spic and Span."* It has always been the best descriptor of that particular bouquet...

* - It also mentions a long-gone store with the most glorious name ever: "Things Things Things."
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 12:10 AM on July 13, 2015 [8 favorites]


Holy hell this is the best news.
posted by Palindromedary at 12:11 AM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


guys if we overuse the word "snugglebunnies" the mods can't stop us all

SNUGGLE BUNNIES SNUGGLEBUNNIES SNUGGL[USER WAS ARRESTED FOR THIS POST]
posted by DoctorFedora at 12:15 AM on July 13, 2015 [20 favorites]


Mng li ah floza.

But I think they may be getting better now.
posted by labberdasher at 12:21 AM on July 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


"Sen. Bedfellow Denies That Pond is Where He Sunk Hoffa."

I think we might make it through this election cycle after all. I think it might be okay.
posted by logicpunk at 12:57 AM on July 13, 2015 [7 favorites]


"Well maybe not that bad, but Lord, it wasn't good."

(oops, that comment was supposed to be for the Superman v. Batman post)
posted by straight at 1:17 AM on July 13, 2015 [12 favorites]


The Truth, South Carolina, is that Lindsey Graham looks like Howdy Doody.
posted by straight at 1:26 AM on July 13, 2015 [3 favorites]


MetaFilter: Burdened with the knowledge that while he has made the world a smidgen smarter, he has by no means made it happier.
posted by straight at 1:32 AM on July 13, 2015 [3 favorites]


To get a taste of what he can do with politics, check out what Breathed produced for the '88 Dukakis vs. Bush election .
posted by SteveInMaine at 2:59 AM on July 13, 2015 [4 favorites]


I loved Bloom County but I'm not sure how I feel about how the "both sides do it" political stance that it typically took will work now.
posted by octothorpe at 3:21 AM on July 13, 2015


Ahem.

PENGUIN LUST!
posted by Old'n'Busted at 4:02 AM on July 13, 2015 [3 favorites]


Who the dickens is Dan Fogerburp?
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 4:12 AM on July 13, 2015 [5 favorites]


Indeed.
posted by Splunge at 4:17 AM on July 13, 2015


Donald Trump's presidential bid got Letterman out of retirement for a top ten list. Breathed credits Donald Trump for bringing back Bloom County. Best candidacy ever.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 4:17 AM on July 13, 2015 [6 favorites]


neuromodulator: "okay so i'm wary, because the later stuff was pretty weak

but on the other hand, i've experienced a weird kind of distress that milo bloom has been missing from the world, and i'm overjoyed that he'll be back, no matter what else comes with it
"

I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt. 25 years is time enough to save up some good stuff.
posted by Splunge at 4:33 AM on July 13, 2015


oo baby baby / you tear me to pieces / would you love me even more / if my tush was like ed meese's?
posted by scruss at 4:46 AM on July 13, 2015 [3 favorites]


MORE SKIN ON HBO! L.H. PUTTGRASS SIGNING OFF AND HEADING FOR THE TUB!
posted by delfin at 4:47 AM on July 13, 2015 [15 favorites]


Enter: Dan Rather is a turnip.
Approved.
posted by skycrashesdown at 5:03 AM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


All they need to do is get Bill Watterson and Gary Larson out of retirement, and we'd have the Cartooning Triumvirate back in power again!
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 5:05 AM on July 13, 2015 [3 favorites]


Huh. First sighting of a LOLcat in the wild?
posted by galadriel at 5:13 AM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]




And based on that first 4-panel strip alone, it appears to have reconned everything since 1990 as "didn't happen, all a penguin dream". Yeah, THAT'S not gonna be controversial.
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:25 AM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


My next door neighbor had a Bloom County club with me which mostly consisted of meticulously clipping and filing them into folders, with periodic joint re-reads, giggling, and a stuffed Opus doll (mine). He grew up to work at American Greetings; I write and publish books. Coincidence? I think not. Ack thwwwpt!
posted by bitter-girl.com at 5:25 AM on July 13, 2015 [8 favorites]


It's really uncanny and uncomfortable just how much of Bloom County is relevant again. Between Donald Trump and Star Wars we're picking up right from where the strip ended.
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:31 AM on July 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


Billy and the Boingers - U Stink But I ❤ U

It is fucking crazy that I still have brain cells that can recognize that song.
posted by fungible at 5:33 AM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


I was born in 1982 and grew up reading Bloom County and Doonesbury, both in the papers and in compilations, which my parents would buy whenever they'd come out. For years, these two strips were my sole frame of reference for a great many events of the 70s and 80s, and I had a lot of weird pop culture references in my head that no one else I knew did. Donald Trump always has been and always will be "A Rump Named Trump Buys A Lotta Junk."
posted by skycrashesdown at 5:35 AM on July 13, 2015 [6 favorites]


A fond welcome back to my favorite cartoonist stripper.
posted by Strange Interlude at 5:51 AM on July 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


He looks guilty. He smells guilty. He IS guilty! And we recommend that he be fed to giant Iranian goat-eating cockroaches!
posted by Chrysostom at 5:53 AM on July 13, 2015


And the B side, I'm A Boinger
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 5:57 AM on July 13, 2015


I feel like everything I am has been modeled directly from Milo's cautious optimism, resigned cynicism, and gleeful needling of obvious evil. "Leaving a trail of slime wherever he goes..."
posted by ersatzkat at 6:08 AM on July 13, 2015 [7 favorites]


Between Donald Trump and Star Wars we're picking up right from where the strip ended.

For the love of Jeezus can someone now restart Spy Magazine?
posted by JoeZydeco at 6:09 AM on July 13, 2015 [13 favorites]


Donald Trump always has been and always will be "A Rump Named Trump Buys A Lotta Junk."

For a few years now we've been referring to Trump's hairpiece as the "The Trump Frump".
posted by barchan at 6:19 AM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


Yeah, THAT'S not gonna be controversial.

Yes, I'm sure the literally dozens of Outland and Opus fans will be up in arms.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 6:33 AM on July 13, 2015 [6 favorites]


I still have the Billy and the Boingers flexi. And I COULD NOT BE MORE HAPPY ABOUT THIS. Thank you, Trump, for being a weasel.
posted by bibliogrrl at 6:40 AM on July 13, 2015 [6 favorites]


So first to establish my bona-fides: I still have my books and my Opus doll, though I have sadly lost my tear-out Billy and the Boingers 45. I read and re-read those books constantly in the 80s and 90s. So I should be excited at this news!

But.

The bar for "enlightened" was set pretty low at that time, such that any gestures towards tolerance or sweetness counted for a lot. There was no internet, and very few women or folks of color or non-straight folks had much of a voice. So it was ok that Breathed wasn't always really great on women and equality, or gay people, and so on. Because he did make gestures in those directions. I think he did try especially hard on race, but...he's a white guy. Nowadays, I'd much rather hear what Keith Knight thinks about race, because I know he's going to see things a white guy wouldn't.

The world of comics and that of US politics has changed, a lot, in the last few decades. Has Breathed kept up, or is he going to doing a retread of his old stuff? Hell, journalism has become nearly unrecognizable since; all those Milo jokes barely make sense. Do politicians really fear the press anymore? Who reads the paper anyway?

I don't find Trump, for example, very entertaining; he's interesting in a historical-moment sense right now because he's embarrassing the Republicans and illuminating the growing voice of Hispanics in this country with the whole Univision thing. In himself, he is a profoundly boring human being.
posted by emjaybee at 6:43 AM on July 13, 2015 [6 favorites]


The thing about Bloom County for me in it's original run is that, even if I didn't understand all the references or jokes, it just felt like something cool; I'm not sure if I felt this way because I was responding to it or because it was a thing that people older than me who I thought were cool seemed to like it. I remember so vividly the strips hanging on the bulletin board of the high school computer room where my dad would take me after hours to put the programs in my Micro Adventure books to use. It's like a goddamn 1980s madeleine for me.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 6:43 AM on July 13, 2015 [4 favorites]


"Let's face it Mom - I'm going to Hell."
"Well, say hello to your father when you get there."
posted by Billiken at 6:45 AM on July 13, 2015 [4 favorites]


it's strange how everyone is acting like Berke Breathed hasn't "come out of retirement" like three times in the last 20 years already, only to get bored and/or bogged down by editorial roadblocks after a very short time.

"After eight years away from newspapers, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Berkeley Breathed is creating a new comic strip called Opus, starring his beloved penguin of the same name." (2003)

The final Opus comic strip appeared online a couple hours ago (2008)
posted by riruro at 6:47 AM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


It's on, it's up, it's real (facebook direct link from Berke Breathed profile). I'm giddy as my 16-y.o. self.

http://tinyurl.com/p6mf7xm

"Other side." Heh. Classic.
posted by _dario at 6:51 AM on July 13, 2015 [3 favorites]


I was a dedicated Bloom County reader from the start to the end, it was a huge part of my high school years. I still have my stuffed Opus and my "Gene Simmon's mom" clipping up on my cube wall.

However I never kept up with Outland or Opus, I just didn't have the time when it was running. But a few months ago there was a Humble Bundle with the entire works. I still haven't started going through them. And now he's going to start new strips, I'll never catch up.

Not that it's a bad thing.
posted by beowulf573 at 6:54 AM on July 13, 2015


!
posted by Sophie1 at 6:59 AM on July 13, 2015


I'm gonna go with cautiously optimistic here. I think Bloom County really *needs* to be a daily, not a Sunday strip, so we'll see how it goes. Maybe this iteration will go better.

And yeah, most of what I know about the politics of the '80s I learned from reading the Bloom County anthologies tucked into the bookshelves of my dad's academic office. I still have my mom's Opus doll that I commandeered during high school. The hard drive of the computer from which I type this is 'opus-the-penguin', and my hard drive at home is 'milquetoast'. The hard drive on my previous computer was 'dandelion-patch'. So, Bloom County - very formative. But that also means the bar is set pretty high, because like MCMikeNamara, part of the appeal to me as a teen was that it represented a door to a grownup world - things that were funny and also slightly over my head.

I do still think of malted battery acid every time I drink a Coke.
posted by telepanda at 7:35 AM on July 13, 2015 [5 favorites]


I knew he'd charge in to save us in our time of need:

A fan asked in the comments on the picture if this was in response to Donald Trump's return to the political spectrum, and Mr. Breathed responded to the comment that "This creator can't precisely deny that the chap you mention had nothing to do with it."[1]
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:39 AM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


Donald Trump's presidential bid got Letterman out of retirement for a top ten list. Breathed credits Donald Trump for bringing back Bloom County. Best candidacy ever.

So Trump is a job creator!
posted by nubs at 7:53 AM on July 13, 2015 [4 favorites]


Bartender! I'll have a cup of coffee! Straight up! Coffee lets you calm yourself down while it picks you up! And I'm one of the new coffee generation! … One of today's movers and shakers! Yessir … I've joined THE COFFEE ACHIEVERS!!
posted by Herodios at 7:59 AM on July 13, 2015 [4 favorites]


 










Or is it all just a bunch of hooey?
posted by Herodios at 8:00 AM on July 13, 2015 [4 favorites]


Devil Bunnies! I snort the nose, Lucifer! Banana! Banana!
posted by Cookiebastard at 8:04 AM on July 13, 2015 [12 favorites]


This is the best news. Our old anthologies are incredibly dog-eared. Like, can't donate them they're so worn dog-eared.
posted by Kreiger at 8:36 AM on July 13, 2015


I still have the Billy and the Boingers flexi.
posted by bibliogrrl at 9:40 AM on July 13


Me, too!!!

Put me down as cautiously optimistic based on Outland and Opus. But for the love of '80s nostalgia, I will give this re-boot a shot.
posted by magstheaxe at 8:56 AM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


Legs shaved?
Halfway.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 8:58 AM on July 13, 2015 [9 favorites]


Hell, journalism has become nearly unrecognizable since; all those Milo jokes barely make sense. Do politicians really fear the press anymore? Who reads the paper anyway?

They all make perfect sense if Milo has a twitter though.
posted by poffin boffin at 8:58 AM on July 13, 2015 [5 favorites]


not_on_display: "GENE SIMMONS NEVER HAD A PERSONAL COMPUTER WHEN HE WAS A KID."

My mom recently moved from the house where I lived during high school in the '80s, and I had a few odds and ends to retrieve. I found a box filled with a bunch of old comic strips cut from the daily newspaper that used to be stapled to my wall. It's really yellow now, but somehow that strip with Gene Simmons and the Banana Junior 6000 survived. I religiously followed Bloom County back then and was extra proud that Breathed made my hometown of Albuquerque his home for a while during the height of his popularity, which is also where he broke his back hang gliding, causing a temporary hiatus for Opus and the gang. Waiting for his back to heal so Bloom County could return to the paper with new strips seemed to take forever. After he finally retired the daily strip, I read interviews saying he ran out of steam and didn't want to burn out, which is better than running it into the ground.

I'm excited for Berke Breathed's return, although I'm admittedly a little concerned when a brilliant comic strip artist retires and decades later makes a comeback ("Outland" was great in its own way, but it was never the same as a weekly strip, which was also the case with "Opus"). Maybe second guessing that kind of instinct to put it away is a bad idea. Of course, I hope it's going to be great, but it's a different world for comic artists compared to the '80s, and there's no shortage of political satire these days.

skycrashesdown: "I was born in 1982 and grew up reading Bloom County and Doonesbury, both in the papers and in compilations"

Me too, but I was born in 1970...

...

I think I need to sit in the dandelion patch for a while...
posted by krinklyfig at 9:09 AM on July 13, 2015 [5 favorites]


I saw the first new comic this morning on my FB feed (I "liked" Breathed some time ago). Milo's back, which gives me hope that we might be on to a decent third wind here.
posted by droplet at 9:13 AM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


Ack!
posted by ColdChef at 9:22 AM on July 13, 2015


I was the patrol leader of the Bill the Cat Patrol when I was in Scouts. I took a job at UT so I could work for the Daily Texan where Breathed got his start. I am a fan.

(Also: my son is named after Milo.)
posted by ColdChef at 9:24 AM on July 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


XQUZYPHYR: "I mean this is awesome and all but I guess I'm going to be the cornflakes-urinator here: it's strange how everyone is acting like Berke Breathed hasn't "come out of retirement" like three times in the last 20 years already, only to get bored and/or bogged down by editorial roadblocks after a very short time."

Churning out a regular comic strip that's consistently funny and not hacky and repetetive is challenging, even if it's not daily, and I'm not at all surprised that the best of them tend to call it quits before it becomes like all the other syndicated strips (which is not really viable anymore anyway). But I don't hold it against him for giving it a shot again. It's ok with me if he has to try over and over and never reaches the same level. The problem with success as a creative person with an audience is you can't escape the expectations of your fans, but they do support your ability to make a living. I'd prefer that he's happy creating the strip again, and I'm OK if it's not a big hit or doesn't quite scratch the itch for everyone as long as that's true. I like the first strip, so far so good. It will take some momentum to really get it going.

(please be good)
posted by krinklyfig at 9:51 AM on July 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


Various personal reactions:
- Well, what little I've seen of the more recent revivals (especially Opus) I've actually not disliked, although it's difficult to compete with the brilliance of classic Bloom County.
- Bloom County was such a creature of is age though, I'm not sure any current-day revival could hope to measure up to the original's greatness and ingenuity. It could take crazy ideas completely out of left field (like a voting machine rigged to splat voters in the face with a plate of goo*) and make them work. It's interesting, though, that Milo Bloom has never returned to my knowledge (except as a cameo in the last Outland).
- Opus ended in such a nice place. I wonder if Breathed (is it pronounced "Breath-ed?") will return to him? I think it'd be nice to give Opus himself a rest for a while. Opus got all the focus recently, but really Bloom County was an ensemble strip.
- Steve Dallas, however, will have to come back, but how? Didn't Opus have him outgrowing his old playboy womanizing image? I find it difficult to see how classic Dallas could work as a character now.

* Although, about that strip, it seems very odd now that Opus wants to write in "Margret Thatcher." The zeitgeist was more conservative back then.
posted by JHarris at 9:53 AM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


Classic Steve Dallas in the current day would be a gamergate enthusiast and redditor.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:55 AM on July 13, 2015 [9 favorites]


he would have plaid briefs that say MENINIST on the butt
posted by poffin boffin at 9:55 AM on July 13, 2015 [8 favorites]


By the way:
Churning out a regular comic strip that's consistently funny and not hacky and repetetive is challenging, even if it's not daily, and I'm not at all surprised that the best of them tend to call it quits before it becomes like all the other syndicated strips (which is not really viable anymore anyway).

THIS. Imagine someone told you you had to be consistently witty and ingenious, on the average, once a day FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. And also, you had to make a visually interesting series of drawings about how funny you are, at the same schedule. For all od Garfield's faults and how little Jim Davis has to do with it these days, I can't begrudge him his army of assistants too much, because you either hire help or your whole life comes to be about your funny series of newspaper drawings.
posted by JHarris at 9:58 AM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


judge wapner would be replaced by judge judy in opus' daytime tv schedule, and he would be horrified on a daily basis by the stuff dr oz is telling him. oliver wendell would be the real force behind wikileaks. bill the cat would definitely run for president again, maybe as donald trump's toupee. nothing about hodgepodge and portnoy have to change in any way.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:58 AM on July 13, 2015 [6 favorites]


Classic Steve Dallas in the current day would be a gamergate enthusiast and redditor.

Exactly. He was a cad in the day but still vaguely likeable somehow, because it was the 80s. Now, that kind of person would be rightly seen as one of the sources of evil in the world.

Huh. I think quite a good story could be worked out of current-day Dallas coming to terms with classic Dallas. Maybe returning to some of those crazy Bloom County stories and thinking about them a bit. Like that time when Dallas got transformed for a while into a liberal stereotype, and Breathed mined it for jokes for a while, but over time just kind of became a normal person... until a bad relationship turned him back evil.

Huh. I wonder if he'll allow the young Bloom County characters to grow up? It might be interesting to see an adult Binkley, Milo, Ronald-Ann and Oliver. I don't think they did that in Opus, did they? Didn't Dallas himself have a kid?
posted by JHarris at 10:04 AM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


The first strip is already published. Milo is back, nobody is older, it's going to be awesome.
posted by hippybear at 10:06 AM on July 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


Ooh, is there a link?
posted by JHarris at 10:08 AM on July 13, 2015


(I think Opus was ultimately shot in the foot by the decision not to publish it on the web. Didn't they decide that about Opus? I don't remember, but I seem to remember there was some reason I never ended up seeing much of it.)
posted by JHarris at 10:09 AM on July 13, 2015


I'm just slightly young for Bloom County to have been formative for most of my peers, but we had the collections when I was growing up. So for me, Bloom County is part of the holy triumvirate which also includes Calvin and Hobbes and The Far Side, but almost everyone I know has never even heard of it (despite loving the other two).

A lot of my knowledge of 80s politics is straight from Bloom County.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:09 AM on July 13, 2015 [5 favorites]


Link was linked here.
posted by hippybear at 10:10 AM on July 13, 2015


I hope this turns out great, just like I hope that the new Muppet sitcom on ABC this fall turns out to be great.

But I also know that you can never go home again, no matter how much you want to.

Let's meet back up in a year and see how both of them worked out.
posted by briank at 10:15 AM on July 13, 2015 [5 favorites]


JHarris: "Although, about that strip, it seems very odd now that Opus wants to write in "Margret Thatcher." The zeitgeist was more conservative back then."

Opus is good-hearted, but he's gullible.
posted by krinklyfig at 10:26 AM on July 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


I wonder if it would be Nader or Ron Paul in a current strip.
posted by poffin boffin at 10:28 AM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


Ah! I somehow missed foop's comment about the return. At the moment, at least, it looks true to form.

And based on that first 4-panel strip alone, it appears to have reconned everything since 1990 as "didn't happen, all a penguin dream".

Eh, it's Bloom County. Things like that happen there.
posted by JHarris at 10:59 AM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


(I mean seriously, they once replaced Bill the Cat's brain with Bill Gates', and made Bill the Gates. It's Bloom County, Jake.)
posted by JHarris at 11:00 AM on July 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


I know a guy went to school with Brethed. The wikipedia entry for the Steve Dallas character jives with what my source told me. The origin of the strip was at UT in Austin campus newspaper and the original main character was Dallas. The popularity of the strip was centered around the student body's hatred for the fraternity brothers who was represented by the Dallas character.

Alas this would have been a little after Jeb Bush's time at UT.
posted by bukvich at 11:29 AM on July 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


Steve Dallas will have to switch the smokes for vapes, but a nihilistic bottom-feeding lawyer will do just fine in our time.

It's amazing that Breathed was able to sell storylines about apartheid and animal cruelty in a time where some papers banned the strip for saying "Reagan sucks" (ironically from a scab character). Shows the power of a syndicate, and will be interesting how he tones it up or down now that his audience is all opt-in.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:48 AM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


From a slightly earlier facebook post: the PC humor police now rampant across the web

Looks like there's been little-to-no growth here in the last few decades. Oh boy.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 1:15 PM on July 13, 2015


the literally dozens of Outland and Opus fans will be up in arms.
Even "Outland" had its moments (preserved on GoComics), although mostly after BB yielded to pressure and brought back Opus & Bill to join Ronald Ann & Mortimer Mouse.
The Return of Bill leading to a riff on 1990 Disney
"silliness on the comics page!"
TV dramas 'based on a true story'
when the previously mentioned Mr. Trump was 'between wives'
"Earthbound Birds Anonymous"
apologizing to the Earth
"Good Morning, Moon"
...I could go on (and probably will as I 'archive dive' the gocomics mine), but I was really was kinda disappointed that none of the new characters in "Outland" crossed over into "Opus".

This retcon (who does he think he is, Marvel? Hey, that's a start point for him to have another go at Disney) may lose some of the 'franchise dilution' of recent years, but also the potential for callbacks to some genuinely good stuff. "Opus" ended with the beloved penguin retiring into the pages of "Goodnight Moon" - he could've been awakened from that after just a 7 year nap.

But the potential BEST THING about "Bloom County 2015" is going back to the four-well-defined-panels of the daily strips. Most of the best daily comics of the last half-century showed how to use the restrictive daily format to build on a topic or story arc while delivering a daily punchline, and "Bloom County" was one of them. "Peanuts" was really the pioneer in that and "Doonesbury" pushed it further (some say too far, but its current 'only Sunday' version really is a shadow of its former self). As much as Watterson wanted to play with the big blank canvas on Sundays, "Calvin & Hobbes" was masterful in the daily format. "Foxtrot" (also currently diminished as 'only Sunday') and the too-short-lived "Cul De Sac" excelled at the 'daily grind'. And the best webcomics, IMO, do it too (also making a reliable update schedule more important); reading the reruns of early "Girls With Slingshots" reinforces that for me.

So I am hopeful that "Bloom County 2015" will give us some of that; the first strip is so TOTALLY a set-up for a 'getting up to date' arc that anything less would be a greater disaster than the "Mars Needs Moms" movie. Don't let us down, Berk (it was my editors in 2003 that called you that, NOT ME, Berkeley, sir).
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:22 PM on July 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


the PC humor police now rampant across the web
...which makes me wonder why he's putting the new comics up on Facebook, the subset of the internet where you're most likely to get stuff pulled. Can't he get his own SubReddit? Well, at least he's a little more 'in touch' than he was in 2003 when he insisted in NO internet presence for "Opus". Just not THAT much.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:28 PM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


Complaining about "PC humour police" suggests to me that he's going to be playing the "tell it like it is snarky old white guy" angle a little more than the "clever vaguely leftist political satirist" angle.
posted by ead at 1:48 PM on July 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


I hope it works out and doesn't become that, ead. The world is a different place than it was in the 80s. It was much easier to think "maybe I could vote Republican this time" when original Bush was running than in this age of apocalyptic money clowns.
posted by JHarris at 2:08 PM on July 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


the first strip is so TOTALLY a set-up for a 'getting up to date' arc

I am totally down for Rip Van Opus finding out about...um...I started to make a list and it didn't seem funny anymore...

I guess I'm fine with Binkley waking up his dad with his latest imagined gossip about Shia LaBeouf and the Kardashians, though.
posted by straight at 2:09 PM on July 13, 2015 [4 favorites]


O no, what if he makes jokes about the progressive consensus!? :O
posted by batfish at 3:57 PM on July 13, 2015


Opus all refusing to believe that he was asleep for 25 years based on Donald Trump still being a Thing
posted by DoctorFedora at 4:08 PM on July 13, 2015 [3 favorites]


I know a guy went to school with Brethed. The wikipedia entry for the Steve Dallas character jives with what my source told me. The origin of the strip was at UT in Austin campus newspaper and the original main character was Dallas. The popularity of the strip was centered around the student body's hatred for the fraternity brothers who was represented by the Dallas character.

One of the Bloom County anthologies talks about this and includes a bunch of those strips. Can't remember which one, unfortunately!
posted by showbiz_liz at 4:12 PM on July 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


That's in the IDW Bloom County Complete Collection Vol. 1.
posted by Wolfdog at 4:25 PM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


And someone chimes in with just the collection containing them. There are so many awesome comic nerds on MeFi.
posted by JHarris at 4:31 PM on July 13, 2015


That's actually not one of the ones my parents had, so those strips must be in at least two different anthologies.
posted by showbiz_liz at 4:33 PM on July 13, 2015


Aha! A few Academia Waltz comics were also reprinted in the Bloom County collection Classics of Western Literature (1990), as well as in Bloom County: The Complete Library: Volume One: 1980–1982 (2009). We had the first one.
posted by showbiz_liz at 4:34 PM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


Academia Waltz on GoComics (I find myself linking to that site so often, they should be paying me, dangit)
His very first 'offensive' gag, from 1978
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:46 PM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]




Breathed had to respond to a Reverend from
Tupelo, Mississippi who led a crusade against the strip due to a character with the last name "Dreck" which he claimed was Yiddish for "excrement". In my book, he's allowed to be grumpy about the internet.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:53 PM on July 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


I could easily run out of items to favorite in this thread.

Count among the mefite horde who know exactly where their copies of all the anthologies are (both the recent IDW anthologies and the earlier published collections), who have copies of the Boinger's floppy 45, and who sadly never had an Opus plushie, but just *might* be able to lay hands on his old Opus telephone.
posted by namewithoutwords at 7:24 PM on July 13, 2015 [5 favorites]


I miss those original strips more than I had realized, and with some I can remember where I was when I first saw them.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:31 PM on July 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


How's the quality of the IDW collections? I had held off on buying them when I saw some grousing online about the print quality / legibility.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:42 PM on July 13, 2015


poffin boffin: "I wonder if it would be Nader or Ron Paul in a current strip."

Shouldn't that be written in as, 'Google Ron Paul'? There's kind of a long list now, depending on where you draw the line: Herman Cain, Sarah Palin, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Joe the Plumber, Michele Bachmann, Thaddeus McCotter, Allen West, Paul LePage, Cliven Bundy, Arianna Huffington, Joseph Ratzinger, Henry Heimlich (Google Henry Heimlich)...
posted by krinklyfig at 7:55 PM on July 13, 2015


poffin boffin: "Classic Steve Dallas in the current day would be a gamergate enthusiast and redditor."

... and brogrammer.

Or a shaved bald vulture venture capitalist / Ayn Rand evangelist whose resume was rejected by Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers before the crash of 2008. He now seeks to profit from creative destruction by restructuring failed food carts.
posted by krinklyfig at 8:12 PM on July 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


Opus discovering Tumblr and getting sucked into fandom wars. SuperWhoLock, Hannibal, Teen Wolf or parodies thereof: right up his alley.

Milo using Twitter hashtags to harass or take down a wide variety of people (poffin boffin has that one nailed). Also embarrassing Instagrams and Vines of various public figures.

Oliver Wendell Jones, master of the Dark Internet.
posted by emjaybee at 8:13 PM on July 13, 2015 [5 favorites]


a few more select "Outlands"(I could see a gradual decline as it dragged in more Bloom County characters and did more multi-Sunday arcs):
kind of changing the subject
smoking and other unhealthiness
another 'MEN' comic
Mortality
The "To Kill a Mockingbird" sequel... 20 years ago, Part 2, Part 3
"which of us has come further?" (as of 1995)
BUY NOW!
Oliver goes cyber
and the end of "Outland": Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Epilogue.

For the record, GoComics' current run of "Bloom County" reruns began here. Here's the first appearance of Opus (his first speaking appearance, kinda). Opus was NOT the first talking animal in the strip, that honor belonged to this chicken. And the first appearance by Steve Dallas was as a bad date for schoolteacher character Bobbi Harlow here, which was odd, since the "Academia Waltz" comic ended with Steve getting married. Yes, I have gone too deep into the archives and I NEVER want to come back out.
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:10 PM on July 13, 2015 [3 favorites]


I loved Bloom County. I got married in the early 80s, and Opus was a major component of our early marriage. But unlike Calvin & Hobbes and Doonesbury, I haven't been able to enjoy old Bloom County. I don't know why -- it's as topical as Doonesbury has ever been, as twisted as Calvin. I love the characters still, but I haven't been able to reconnect to it.

That being said, I am very excited to see new work from Berkeley. It can only be great.
posted by lhauser at 9:45 PM on July 13, 2015


When I was at Rice University in the early 80s, the campus weekly newspaper came out Fridays at noon-ish. The Thresher carried both Bloom County and Doonesbury, both of which (IIRC) it had exclusive rights to in Houston due to the earlier stodginess of the 2 city dailies. All six daily strips of each comic's week appeared on a single page. So when the bundles of newspapers landed in the college commons bins during lunch, there was a piranha-esque feeding frenzy as we all rushed to grab a copy and gulp down a fresh week's worth of the best comics going. It was sort of like Netflix binge-watching, occurring every week and done in parallel with dozens of other people reading around you in a newsprint-scented dandelion patch.

As Breathed says in his Volume 1 intro, "Young America still read newspapers and didn't feel ridiculous doing so". We were glad to have Doonesbury, but in those Uncle-Duke-heavy years, it often felt like the comics equivalent of eating your vegetables. Tasty, well-seasoned vegetables, yes, but not things you'd want seconds of. Bloom County, though, was like an ice cream sundae bar for your brain where the eccentric proprietor concocted treats that you hadn't imagined before and you couldn't get enough of.
posted by NumberSix at 10:28 PM on July 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


When I was at Rice University in the early 80s...

Small world. I went there in the late '60s-early '70s and the Thresher was where I was introduced to Doonesbury. I was originally in Lovett College the year it opened ('68), but transferred to Sid Richardson when it was built ('70). Never graduated from there, sadly.
posted by Mental Wimp at 11:33 PM on July 13, 2015


I'd like to just take a small moment to mention that, at the age of 47, the animated holiday special A Wish For Wings That Work is the only animated holiday special that reduces me to weeping. Like every time I see it.
posted by hippybear at 12:21 AM on July 14, 2015 [6 favorites]


Fantastic! My Bill the Cat polo shirt will make sense to another generation. Everyone else had penguins or foxes, but I had Bill the Cat. Ack.
posted by Xoc at 4:46 AM on July 14, 2015 [2 favorites]


And so, until next week, oop ack.
posted by MsMolly at 12:13 PM on July 14, 2015


I thought this Opus cartoon for Memorial Day was pretty damn great.
posted by straight at 1:55 PM on July 14, 2015


Maybe this is NYC-centric but I can only picture Modern Steve Dallas as a finance bro. Lives in a $3000/month apartment but sleeps on Target sheets, can be seen roaming the East Village with a crowd of identical dudes with short haircuts and pale blue button-downs...
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:58 PM on July 14, 2015 [5 favorites]


Much as I love old Bloom County, and a perusal of my comment history here will reveal that an appreciable fraction of it is just old Bloom County punchlines, my money is on this will be terrible and will disappear quietly after a relatively short time. I hope you optimistic people are right though.
posted by Wolfdog at 3:44 PM on July 14, 2015


THE SECOND COMIC
this would be such a cool place to allow images, especially if it means avoiding Facebook, IMUnpopularO
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:29 AM on July 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


Steve Dallas would be running for President on the Republican ticket, but purely as a ploy to make money. He'd be throwing bombs a la The Donald, trying to look smart a la The Hair, and playing the SuperPAC game like Colbert, but pretty ineptly, since he'd be drunk and high all the time (like all the real candidates).
posted by Mental Wimp at 11:25 AM on July 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


I like the second comic more than the first, but they've both got that Bloom County rhythm to them. I'm waiting for Portnoy and Hodgepodge to show back up.
posted by JHarris at 3:18 PM on July 15, 2015


It's not bad straight, but man, if your mouse cursor is over the image on that link and a big COPYNO.COM graphic covers it up. What a horrible website.
posted by JHarris at 3:28 PM on July 15, 2015


This evening The Spouse had dinner with his younger brothers.

Tonight he turned to me with a pained face, and said, "I'm old!"

Says they were talking about Calvin and Hobbes. He said, "Oh, in other comics news, Bloom County is back."

They did not know Bloom County.

Unsure if we're old, or they are Philistines.
posted by galadriel at 11:15 PM on July 15, 2015


Berkeley Breathed speaks: Here is why ‘Bloom County’ is really returning
But what if the deadlines are removed, and you don’t worry about sustaining a massive audience, and you can pick and choose your spots to create when the spirit and digital brush are willing?

“The option of self-publishing allows for the freedom that will keep it fun, which it can’t stray from — or forget it,” Breathed tells me of posting “Bloom County” where and when he desires.

“Dead-tree media requires constancy and deadlines and guarantees,” Breathed continues. “This flattens the joy. It also presents a huge income. It’s an interesting trade-off, isn’t it?”
posted by oakroom at 6:06 AM on July 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


There's now a third, with the return of Oliver Wendell Jones! Who introduces our intrepid penguin surrogate to the Internet....
posted by JHarris at 8:37 AM on July 16, 2015


I am scared to try to replicate that Google search.
posted by nubs at 8:54 AM on July 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


Dude needs to get his own site. If Facebook is not paying him REAL DOLLARS for this, he's getting screwed.
posted by rifflesby at 11:53 AM on July 16, 2015 [2 favorites]


It's not bad straight, but man, if your mouse cursor is over the image on that link and a big COPYNO.COM graphic covers it up. What a horrible website.

Here, just out of spite, I'll put a direct link to the comic image.
posted by straight at 2:47 PM on July 16, 2015 [1 favorite]




The Bug Martini homage. Two of my favorite things!
posted by Beti at 12:15 AM on July 17, 2015 [2 favorites]


Today's strip is my favorite so far. Poor Opus. Also, that Bloom County cadence is in full force.
posted by ZaphodB at 9:00 AM on July 17, 2015 [3 favorites]


I think that everything hit its stride with strip #4. It's exactly the tone and humor that I remember, and I got goosebumps reading it.
posted by hippybear at 10:05 AM on July 17, 2015 [2 favorites]


It appears that opus has a twitter account.. https://twitter.com/frombloomcounty
posted by HuronBob at 5:54 AM on July 18, 2015 [2 favorites]


Number 3 ("suds nuns" is the new "pear pimples for hairy fishnuts") and Number 4 (how times have ... changed?)

Honestly, I was expecting something more like:
Opus: So Ronald Reagan and Michael Jackson are dead, Bill Gates and Oprah have retired, and I assume you never hear from Donald Trump anymore...
Everyone: Don't tell him.
But the Atticus Finch angle is better (that's why I am not trying to write anything in Opus' voice anymore)
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:18 PM on July 18, 2015 [1 favorite]




BILL THE CAT! CUTTER JOHN!
posted by JHarris at 9:36 AM on July 21, 2015


cutter john the (wheeled) silver fox
posted by poffin boffin at 9:37 AM on July 21, 2015 [2 favorites]


From the comments:

Scott Launer: Cutter John goes gray but the kids don't age? I love comics.

Berkeley Breathed: Cutter is the same age. He went grey after his Bush War experience.
posted by JHarris at 9:38 AM on July 21, 2015 [5 favorites]


And.... the anxiety closet has returned. (It's as if it never left in the first place.)
posted by hippybear at 8:50 AM on July 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


Hmmm, it's been a little too shouty so far. Fewer exclamation points, please.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:35 AM on July 22, 2015


SOME THINGS DEMAND SHOUTING, THINGS LIKE SHAVED DOG PLEADING FOR HELP
posted by JHarris at 9:40 AM on July 22, 2015 [1 favorite]




OPEN LETTER TO FUTURE PRESIDENT TRUMP: We and America call upon you to produce lab evidence proving NO shared DNA between your head fur and your family Lhasa Apso, Goldy Tinkles. If such documentation is thus provided, the Really Loaded Friends of Bloom County will deliver a check for $2 million dollars to your known favorite charity. We wouldn't joke about this.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:27 AM on July 23, 2015 [1 favorite]


Berke is taking this new Bloom County thing to a whole new level in the internet age. Linking what song Opus is dancing to? Taking things to the next level with that open letter?

I'm starting to think this new Boom County experience is going to be multi-layered in ways that I really really like.
posted by hippybear at 10:53 AM on July 23, 2015 [2 favorites]


Cutter ... went grey after his Bush War experience.

As opposed to Steve Dallas' Bush War, which was a depilation commotion.
posted by Grangousier at 11:13 AM on July 23, 2015 [2 favorites]


"...looked...fluffier..."
posted by Chrysostom at 11:41 AM on July 23, 2015


Is it bad of me that I wish someone would have a short but serious talk with him about Owning Your Own Content and Syndicate To Facebook, Don't Publish On It just so I can have the new Bloom Counties in my RSS feed rather than having to root around the frankly unreliable Facebook timeline?
posted by Grangousier at 3:54 AM on July 24, 2015 [8 favorites]


But also oddly appealing! (a new Sunday comic)
posted by hippybear at 6:29 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Link broke, try this one.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 11:40 AM on July 26, 2015


While the update schedule seems more sporadic than a daily newspaper strip, I like that Breathed is free to do them more at his own pace, and thus maybe won't get burnt out so quickly.
posted by JHarris at 12:16 PM on July 26, 2015


I read something by Breathed about his bringing BC back and one of the major things was he could publish based on his own interests and not on a schedule.

I'm loving it so far. I'm not even a FB member, but I have his page open and refresh it every day hoping for new magic. I have not been disappointed by anything he's posted.
posted by hippybear at 1:00 PM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


I must object to Bloom County being abbreviated "BC" just because of that other still-running strip with that name... hey, wait a minute... it looks like the grandkids of the creator made a relatively Liberal comment today!!! (I still check in regularly to see how cringeworthy it is, and it has had some almost funny moments lately)

Anyway, in the future, please abbreviate Bloom County as "BloCo"... or something.
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:12 PM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


That other comic is named B.C.
posted by hippybear at 12:49 AM on July 28, 2015


Check your inbox again.
posted by hippybear at 9:30 AM on July 28, 2015 [2 favorites]


HE'S BACK!!!

He's bad.
posted by JHarris at 10:02 AM on July 28, 2015


A trivia-filled listicle about Bloom County includes something I didn't know... a connection between Berkeley Breathed and "To Kill a Mockingbird" author Harper Lee, as well as a connection between Opus and Scout. So it is a kind of relief that "Bloom County 2015" is far less disturbing/disappointing than "Go Tell a Watchman".
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:22 AM on July 29, 2015




More unrealistic than the anxiety closet, the fact that Steve Dallas found somewhere you can still smoke in a restaurant.
posted by MsMolly at 11:09 AM on July 29, 2015 [1 favorite]




That's our Milo!
posted by JHarris at 12:20 PM on July 30, 2015


No thanks! He's good!
posted by hippybear at 10:41 AM on July 31, 2015 [2 favorites]


(I swear, hitting refresh on that tab in my browser has become my favorite thing to do every day.)
posted by hippybear at 10:42 AM on July 31, 2015 [1 favorite]


Now we know WHY Berkeley Breathed has resumed Bloom County-ing... he wants to sell new shirts.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:14 PM on August 1, 2015


Whoa! (a new Sunday comic)
posted by hippybear at 6:49 AM on August 2, 2015 [1 favorite]


It was an innocent mistake!!
posted by hippybear at 5:39 AM on August 3, 2015 [1 favorite]


"I thought it was a dying woodpecker" doesn't make it any better.
In contrast, Over the Hedge today got into killing mockingbirds. (and yesterday, 'Fishy Burps' and a Game of Thrones reference from a character you'd least expect... yeah, it's one of the very few surviving dead-tree comics I still enjoy at least a couple times a week)
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:37 PM on August 3, 2015


I'll be honest... the whole situation with Steve was funnier when it was Steve who fucked up and not Opus. The idea that Steve posted it to twitter instead of email seemed pretty perfect. The idea that Opus somehow intercepted the video, or... what? And posted it to the wrong place? That makes less sense all around.

And also, was there this much physical violence in the old strips? Because I don't remember there being that much literal punching and strangling before.
posted by hippybear at 1:38 AM on August 4, 2015


Violence - sometimes? I think our sample size is too small so far.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:40 AM on August 4, 2015 [1 favorite]




Violence? The gocomics reruns of Bloom County is currently into some of the post-Bloom 1990 "Oultand" Sunday strips, and in recent days we've had Bill the Cat and his chainsaw (I can't count the times Opus' nose has been cut off) and a giant snake eating an obnoxious nun.
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:01 PM on August 4, 2015 [2 favorites]




I've been pleased with the Bloom County revival so far (as my obsessive favoriting of hippybear's comments should indicate). The tone is so close to classic Bloom so far one could imagine the strip really had continued for 25 years, unpublished, in the meantime.
posted by JHarris at 9:44 AM on August 5, 2015 [4 favorites]


I think the violence was pretty much always there. Remember all those early strips where they're hunting commies, or whatever?
posted by brennen at 10:05 AM on August 5, 2015


Well, I've only got another week to post new strips to this thread, but I'll keep doing it until it closes.
posted by hippybear at 10:35 AM on August 5, 2015


Speaking of Opus getting his nose cut off, this is one of the few strips that I still remember (and chortle over) from the original run
posted by moonmilk at 5:41 PM on August 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


Character Wigs!!
posted by hippybear at 8:12 AM on August 6, 2015 [1 favorite]


Bill the Cat: Jedi Stormtrumper
posted by straight at 8:30 AM on August 6, 2015 [4 favorites]




If he is, can I tell him that banana daiquiris don't typically come in martini glasses?
posted by MsMolly at 10:49 AM on August 7, 2015


Oh I love that Character Wigs strip. Bloom Country really is back, isn't it? And just in time, what with Jon Stewart retiring.
posted by JHarris at 11:54 AM on August 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


Wild badgers rip off your shirt?
posted by hippybear at 7:58 AM on August 9, 2015


I prefer the last bit of text: "New ironic gay icon?!"
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:19 PM on August 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Who knew Steve was built like a member of One Direction?
posted by hippybear at 5:53 PM on August 9, 2015


Well, I recall some Bloom County v1.0 strips showing a not-yet-30 Steve developing a kind of a "dad bod", but considering the entire history of the Opusverse, including the 5-year revival in the '00s, you have to assume that NOTHING is canon. I'm just glad I'm not trying to maintain a Bloom County Wiki.
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:45 PM on August 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


Got me a one pack
posted by hippybear at 8:47 AM on August 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


Prediction: the next comic will reference SuperPACs.
(Of course, I've been wrong before... my semi-factual article about Opus' previous return in 2003 included some conjecture about what Opus did during the hiatus, which was debunked in the first 3 days of the new comic)
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:33 PM on August 10, 2015


DAD!!
posted by hippybear at 8:52 AM on August 11, 2015


I'm not gonna spoil it, but the third frame of that DAD!! cartoon made me laugh as hard as Bloom Country ever has. Tears in my eyes.
posted by straight at 10:39 AM on August 11, 2015


So, the setting is exactly the same was it was previously? Milo, Binkley and his dad, Opus and Steve Dallas are living in a boarding house? Does Oliver and his parents live there too?

I never quite got down all the details of Bloom County's setting, but in the early days of the strip there were other people staying there too, who just went away after a while.

Back to Oliver's dad... didn't he claim once that the first black president would be a Republican?
posted by JHarris at 11:27 AM on August 11, 2015


I don't think any of those characters except Milo (whose family owned/ran the boarding house) and sometimes Opus were boarders. It seemed pretty clear to me that Binkley and Steve and Oliver had their own places.
posted by Wolfdog at 1:02 PM on August 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


« Older hello.arnoldc   |   "The entire town is a brothel, and its support... Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments