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[Blizzard]

Fuck yes cutter john!

Cutter John was one of my favorite features. White hair looks good on him.

 

[The Technomancer]

Not dead!! It just no longer belongs in the newspapers.

Exactly.

Eh. I have some strong feelings about this. Basically, the webcomic industry still hasn't entirely replaced the fact that, for almost a century, being a newspaper cartoonist was a career that you could raise a family on with even moderate success. The number of truly self sustaining webcomics is still low enough that I'm not entirely happy with the direction things have taken.

Also all of these are fucking great so far

 

[Goro Majima]

Oh man. Right in the childhood.

I loved this way more than Calvin and Hobbes and people thought I was crazy for it.

 

[afternoon delight]

Opus always worked best in Bloom County... So much love. The world is a better place with more.

And now for my favorite without a main character.

 

[Agent Unknown]

Breathed posted that this is the "Thankful" song Opus is supposed to be jamming to in that strip:

http://youtu.be/FsNNYuhfLK0

Eh. I have some strong feelings about this. Basically, the webcomic industry still hasn't entirely replaced the fact that, for almost a century, being a newspaper cartoonist was a career that you could raise a family on with even moderate success. The number of truly self sustaining webcomics is still low enough that I'm not entirely happy with the direction things have taken.

Was talking about internet in the sense of being a solid backup option for the art form itself when the papers aren't, not so much monetary wise.

 

[Noisy Ninj4]

Opus always worked best in Bloom County... So much love. The world is a better place with more.

And now for my favorite without a main character.

This one seems apt for the current Republican candidates.

 

[Agent Unknown]

Opus always worked best in Bloom County... So much love. The world is a better place with more.

And now for my favorite without a main character.

Ah yes, L.H. Putgrass, here is probably his most famous BC rant:

 

[Agent Unknown]

Some of the best early strips were when Milo would use his news job at the Bloom Beacon to troll Senator Bedfellow and other townsfolk:

 

[afternoon delight]

Love the earlier strips, thin nose and all! I feel like there was more Steve.

I think it's time we heard the truth.

 

[Agent Unknown]

Binkley's Closet of Anxiety is back:

 

[afternoon delight]

The Closet of Anxiety is %#€£in genius

 

[Goro Majima]

I think Steve Dallas was supposed to be Berkeley Breathed personified so that's probably why there was more of him early on.

 

[Agent Unknown]

The Closet of Anxiety is %#€£in genius

And there's a lot more scary stuff that can go in there these days. :/

I think Steve Dallas was supposed to be Berkeley Breathed personified so that's probably why there was more of him early on.

No, Breathed said he's based on an amalgamation of the general awful personalities of a lot of frat boys he observed back then. In one of the collections he says something like 'I knew a lot of guys in college who talked like Steve Dallas.'

Edit: Also, *supposedly* one of his college friends who was in law school at the time also helped inspire Steve.

 

[kess]

Eh. I have some strong feelings about this. Basically, the webcomic industry still hasn't entirely replaced the fact that, for almost a century, being a newspaper cartoonist was a career that you could raise a family on with even moderate success. The number of truly self sustaining webcomics is still low enough that I'm not entirely happy with the direction things have taken.

Also all of these are fucking great so far

And apparently, sustain newspaper cartoonists for years afterwards... if sales of Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes books were anything to go off of. The product (however, by and large, mediocre) doesn't seem to be the issue, but you can't exactly cover the internet with it every Sunday. But the nearly standardized three-box gag strip that currently inhabits most newspapers is a dead end. At its current size it can barely sustain a joke, let alone a continuing narrative, and popular webcomics don't even attempt to faithfully observe it.

Anybody notice that he's numbering these strips... and (gasp) signing his name right side up? I hope this run lasts for as long as he's feeling it, which he obviously is.

 

[IAmtheFMan]

Wow this was unexpected. So was Outland and Opus retconned out as a dream?

Whatever way, I'll take it.

 

[xbhaskarx]

Berkeley Breathed

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.

3,050 people like this.
1,001 shares
8 mins

 

[Agent Unknown]

Poor, deluded Golden Tinkles.

Wow this was unexpected. So was Outland and Opus retconned out as a dream?

Whatever way, I'll take it.

Agreed. Retconning isn't as bad in comic strips which are usually much more open ended plot wise and makes sense as it was the only straightforward way he could return to Bloom County proper and reboot without any baggage, especially since Opus had kind of a depressing, weird ending *spoiler alert* where Opus basically got "spirited away" to 'safely sleep eternally' inside the pages of the children's book Goodnight Moon. I'm glad Breathed changed his mind about Opus and BC never returning, he obviously missed the strip and the characters more than he was previously willing to let on and you can tell he's enjoying himself by the solid writing in these early strips.

Several years ago AICN did an interview with IDW editor Scott Dunbier about the painstaking process of restoring and tracking down all the strips (the Washington Post didn't keep a complete microfilm archive and some "lost" strips literally had to be donated from a fan collection in at least one case). He says they initially had to convince Breathed the new collections were worth doing because he was convinced nobody cared about BC anymore, saying "Look, the series has come and gone. Nobody cares any more. But here's my phone number." Again, really glad he changed his mind and now he can see on FB how fans DO still care. VERY interesting read if you want a history on the strip, various censorship bits it went through and all the work IDW put into the collections:

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/42931

 

[kess]

Some of the best early strips were when Milo would use his news job at the Bloom Beacon to troll Senator Bedfellow and other townsfolk:

He never really stopped trolling people either, as Opus later found out

 

[Beartruck]

Eh. I have some strong feelings about this. Basically, the webcomic industry still hasn't entirely replaced the fact that, for almost a century, being a newspaper cartoonist was a career that you could raise a family on with even moderate success. The number of truly self sustaining webcomics is still low enough that I'm not entirely happy with the direction things have taken.

Also all of these are fucking great so far

Honestly, if you went through the entire internet and found every creator making a living off his work, it'd probably be roughly equivalent to the amount of people in papers in the old days. I agree that the days of big money are long gone, but I'd probably blame that on the fracturing of the national attention span and the fact that cartoonists have to be their own businessmen now, which they suck at.

 

[way more]

I think Steve Dallas was supposed to be Berkeley Breathed personified so that's probably why there was more of him early on.

That's the most bizarre theory I've ever heard. I think Opus's nose represented how well his love life was going.

 

[Agent Unknown]

Second Sunday strip is up, Purple Snorklewacker is back:

 

[kess]

omg

twenty years of lame lockhorns technology jokes did not prepare me for this

 

[Log4Girlz]

Second Sunday strip is up, Purple Snorklewacker is back:

That monster is Australian

 

[Agent Unknown]

A few assorted recent strips, Breathed is posting almost every day now, if you haven't added these to your daily feed you're really missing out:

Today's Sunday:

 

[speculawyer]

Thanks, Donald.

 

[kess]

The strip hasn't fell off at all since the return -- this is the first time I've followed a "newspaper" strip this religiously, since, uh, Calvin and Hobbes.

Speaking of newspapers