Bloom County C/D?

RUSSELL: Could "Bloom County" even exist in syndication today?
BREATHED: "No" is the short answer. Papers would be flummoxed by "Bloom County" now. It was meant for youthful eyeballs -- and there be none of those ogling newspaper comic pages now. Old-timers chuckling over "Doonesbury" and "Beetle Bailey" are pretty much all that's left. They clip out their favorites, stick 'em on the fridge, and put the rest under their parakeets to shit on. The good ol' days.

RUSSELL: Steve Dallas' arias of foul behavior were always my favorite part of "Bloom County." I believe you've said he was based somewhat on a real person. Did that person ever catch on?
BREATHED: No, no. Steve Dallas was a synthesis of all the frat boys I went to school with. There was a suicidal kid at U of Texas that came to believe that he was Steve Dallas and I was listening through his walls. I'd wake each morning to find him sleeping on my front porch. 'Twas my first hint as to the can of worms that I'd opened with cartooning. And their weird power. Then.

Etc. etc., read the whole thing...

Sullivan posted that excerpt. It's true though: how many yutes still read the funnies? To be fair, no one read them in high school or college either.

Ha. Just remembered the sequence where Steve decides to quit smoking.

WHERE'D YA HIDE'EM????

The image of him stuffed with Ding-Dongs (as it were) = genius.

That suicidal kid waking up outside his door: what a story!

Mr. Breathed on the 'Mars Needs Moms' movie.

I saw this thread pop up and now my brain is going, "In a Bloom County/dreams stay with you . . ."

i know someone who worked on this film (the last film the effects house made before they closed up). he said it bears little to no resemblance to the book, unfortunately.

I know more about the 80s from Bloom County than from anything else. (I was only alive for 11 months of the 80s.)

silby otm

I learned more about eighties politics during the eighties from Bloom County than from anything else.

^ this. And I try to work in "I bet it's blow through others' toes, like those of...Caspar Weinberger" at every conversational opportunity.

young me learned about Watergate from Doonesbury

I was probably the only jr. high school student in the 80s asking their parents who Chuck Colson was

I was thinking about Deathtongue's Dr. Scholl's Odor Eaters-sponsored tour the other day.

My choice of halloween costume in 1983 was largely due to Bloom County. I went as James Watt. I was eleven.

Watt with the KISS makeu?

p?

That is awesome. xxp

OPUS: PICKED TOO FAT

HE GOT RICKETS FROM CATS

xp Nope, just Watt, no Kiss makeup. I wore glasses anyway, so I dressed in a suit and put on a bald wig. To make sure people got that I was Watt, I wore a button that said, "Watt, me worry?"

Did anyone get the costume, or did people ask you who you were all evening?

Parents in my neighborhood got it, and thought it was funny. There was a lot of, "Bob, get out here! Check it out, there's a kid dressed like James Watt!" None of my classmates knew who Watt was, though.

"The Peterson's kid is dressed like an iguana!"

I wonder how much the completed reprinted hardcover series is going to be.

They are all out I think; $30/vol on Amazon, five volumes http://www.amazon.com/Bloom-County-Complete-Collection-1980-1982/dp/1600105319

Do they have the Billy & the Boingers flexidisc y/n

'the truth, steve, is that 'knight rider' is actually a children's program.'
'CAN'T BE! can't *@#!* BE!'

"the truth, Binkley, is that you look like a carrot."

I busted out "gonna be a raucous caucus" a few weeks back on FB for obvious reason - and was shocked by the number of people who got the reference

I liked it when Breathed would pull out the physical violence, which was almost inevitably someone getting hit on the head with a stick or paddled.

Basselope gap, for example.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b203/maarts/rosebud4.gif

The toon that made me love the strip, back in 3rd/4th Grade:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/46/156980933_1ea5a376db.jpg

Got the Complete Library Vol 1 from the local library(which has copies of all of them, Hooray!), and it's interesting to see BB try to get his footing in the early years. There are a _LOT_ of early strips that were never reprinted before, probably with good reason. Plenty of Pogo in here, too.

Example: Limekiller & Bobbi Harlow were far more prominent early on, before Steve Dallas showed up. Opus only appears briefly as Binkley's new pet penguin, then doesn't pop up again for another 6 months, and even then it's a while until they name him.

Far more Reagan and GOP jokes than you remember, too.

Also: Binkley's mom is shown.

I reread Tales Too Ticklish to Tell last week; I still get off on the penguin lust episode.

First even printed Academia Waltz strip. Somebody grew up reading a lot of Trudeau and Fieffer:

http://www.geektress.com/images/bloomcoearly.jpg

http://www.geektress.com/images/bloomcoheader.jpg

the first sunday color logo

There's an entire run from 1982 of Milo getting in trouble for a class presentation on "Penguin evolution", which has him going on trial for not including the competing idea of "scientific penguinism".

Sometimes I get the idea that even if we waited for all the Reagan-era assholes to finally die off, stupidity is so hardwired into the human brain that this kinda shit will never leave us.

http://www.invisiblelizard.com/2006/03/penguin-lust.html

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_mPljjiQDXjU/SXChp5x2E2I/AAAAAAAAAlg/gsAkttMxGpg/s1600/Penguin+Lust.jpg

One of BB's standard tropes I always enjoy was characters resting objects on their heads, which then could be ejected for heightened comic effect.

Disappointing Google search results:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Penguin-Lust/126374367398021?sk=info

Penguin Lust is the supple interaction that occurs in a penguin's heart when it sees an object of desire. This physiological phenomonon has brought about much controversy over the last several years but we believe it is a beautiful thing that should not be discouraged. Penguin Lust is primed for the upswing. Are you ready to LUST LIKE A PENGUIN?

I loved how Portnoy, Hodge Podge, Mr. Binkley, and the rest all got Brylchreemed pompadours when born again

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_c9lOTZ1T8XQ/SwtAXEkdKCI/AAAAAAAAADw/FIfooHpid3w/s1600/Tales+Too+Ticklish+to+Tell+01.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_c9lOTZ1T8XQ/SwxvRrDC-oI/AAAAAAAAAD4/_iMntGO33Us/s1600/Tales+Too+Ticklish+to+Tell+02.jpg

http://www.animenation.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/wholegang.gif

wow, whaddayaknow, the Falklands really _are_ covered with penguins:

http://www.seabirds.org/penguins.htm

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/3/1/1267440566186/Steve-Bells-If...-01.03.2-001.jpg

One of BB's standard tropes I always enjoy was characters resting objects on their heads, which then could be ejected for heightened comic effect.

This was one of the things I loved about Bloom County. Breathed had a sense of timing and pace that I hadn't seen in any other comics other than Krazy Kat, Calvin & Hobbes, and Peanuts. There was a frenetic energy to Bloom County that no other newspaper comic had at the time.

http://www.johnsjottings.com/images/opus_big.jpg

Alfred, I won't be mad if you post those every day.

What I always loved about that one is how in the final panel you can just see Opus facing them, pants about his ankles, and can just sense a 'oh of COURSE' look on his face even though there's no way to actually see it.

I wonder what Breathed thinks of what Trump eventually went on to become