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Berkely Breathed Interview
TrentC writes "Ever wonder what happened to Berke Breathed of Bloom County fame? Well, so did Scott Kurtz (creator of PvP) and Chris Jackson (creator of In2It). Kurtz put out a call for information as part of his 30th birthday wish list and managed to acquire a means of contacting Breathed. Breathed wasn't necessarily happy about being tracked down, but agreed to do the interview anyways.
The first part of the interview is currently running on the front page of the PvP site, and the second half of the interview is currently running on the front page of the In2It site." Not to sound like the Bloom County fanboy that I really am but Breathed is, IMHO, an amazing artist.
You hit the nail on the head.. I always noticed this about his cartoons.. showing one frame of the "aftermath" of the subject or gag.. a glimpse of what happened immediately after most strips would have ended. Now of course, you're right.. it's everywhere.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
I too was amazed that Mr. Breathed consented to the interview. Just goes to show what an amazingly froody guy he is. (Zero points for catching the reference.)
And the first half of the interview was well presented...
And then we're taken to the second website, which is so loaded with graphics and tables that after three minutes I'm slapping the Esc key begging it to stop loading so I can get the hell out. Eventually it rendered something, with the text of the interview in a two-inch column running down the side of the browser window. Plus a retelling of the same "how we cold-called Breathed and lived to tell about it" that we got in the first half, with the addition of crappy style.
Ah well. Just had to rant. I can't stand online magazines.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
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$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Check out Rudy Park, it's gotta be *the* most breathed-inspired strip I've yet seen, art-wise.
I thought the same thing about User Friendly as well, and Iliad has heard it about a bazillion times by now.
Breathed was just about the only thing keeping me going through the 80s....
It was that 1/2 hour animated Bloom County show that aired on TV a loooong time ago.
It wasn't very good, and I love BC
Any idea where I can find a copy?
If you ever read his strips as many times as I have, you will have noticed that his strips actually reflected his own life. He made several cracks about the size of strips shrinking. and the series where Opus becomes a "stripper", he has many problems with deadlines. It is actually funny how much of his own life he throws into the strip. Also, he describes Steve Dallas as his alter-ego in his last collection. I am not sure, but i think i own every single bloom county/outland collection there is.
Funny thing, just this weekend I was thinking about Eyebeam. That strip was still running in the Daily Texan when I transferred to UT in '84. I remember the uproar about Hank the H winning the election, too. (Just some context for those not familiar with UT at that time: Hank was nominated and won mainly because of how disconnected students had become from student government. That's hardly a surprise at a school the size of UT, where IIRC one dorm, Jester Center, had its own ZIP code and comprised two voting precincts in Travis County.) Spring semester of '85, there was a minor uproar that the DT's editorial staff wanted to move Doonesbury from the funnies to the op/ed page, which in retrospect makes perfect sense. I can't remember whether they even did it, but we actually had big arguments at Simkins dormitory about where the strip belonged. Amazing how important stuff like that seems when you're in school.
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
Is this merely an expression of Slashdot's bizarre Penguin fetish? :)
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
By far the best comic quote ever uttered, especially out of the mouth of a penguin.
Ed
It's a shame that Breathed never grasped just how damn good he really was. I was entertained, and reassured, and inspired by Bloom County while I was growing up. So were my friends. So were countless others. It was a very positive thing. But I don't think he ever really believed that.
Children's books? With a few notable exceptions, I've found most of them forgettable. But I'll never forget Bloom County.
I don't know that I agree with the authors' tactic of agreeing not to disclose his private contact information in exchange for an interview. It strikes me slightly as blackmail, and I hope it was just an unfortunate choice of wording to describe an innocent agreement, but...
I think the interview revealed some fascinating hints about the creative processes of one of the great humorists of our time, and I think that in itself is of immense historical value. Frankly, it blew me away to hear that he found his humor hard to come by, his deadlines painful, and that he can't be happy about the quality of his previous work.
It gives me some measure of assurance that I shouldn't feel so bad about my own work process, when I have to agonize over a bit of art when others' work seems so effortless.
Except Trudeau still has a problem with Breathed -- see the last answer at the bottom of this Doonesbury/Trudeau FAQ page...
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
is to track down Bill Watterson and get him to talk about his post-Calvin and Hobbes life.
And why is it that comics like Bloom County and Calvin and Hobbes have such short lives while crapola like Beetle Bailey, Blondie, and Family Circus lives forever?
You know, I just can't agree with this. Art is art - whether it's Shakespeare or a comic strip, and I hardly think Watterson is a fanatic because he wants to maintain the integrity of his message (even if that is 'don't you hate it when you boogers freeze?').
On second thought,I guess if you don't want to exploit your work for all possible $$$, you *are* a radical.
"what do you *mean*, 'out of print' you sniveling twinkee-eating cockroach?", i queried the weird-harold lookalike.
i thought i was going to be sick. not for my lack of reading material but for some of the finest toon material ever to grace pulp, for a lost generation thinking that calvin had no peer. around the corner to the used bookstore. SEVEN OF NINE tomes for the obscenely low price of $35. i'm not sure what the cashier made of my wide-eyed dollar-waiving self.
this has brought me to one, inescapable conclusion. we must find berke, strap him to a suitable table and make him bring back the crew.
look, i'm completely cool with civility, but there comes a time when asking nice just isn't going to cut it. it's also clear that mr. breathed isn't exactly beyond using this tactic himself (see "toons for our times", pg. 59). no, i'm serious. i'm starting a website and an email campaign to petition the man to return to his sanity. he can ignore us at his own peril.
that having been said, some of his original strips are for sale - he has apparently given two years worth of strips to his stepmom and his full blessing to sell them. they can be found at:
http://www.neosoft.com/~bloom/avail1.htm
you need to have the original books to determine which are which, but ...who is going to buy one of these who doesn't have the books?! it isn't very clear, but the cheapo ones are $250 (they're in red), the regular ones are $400 and the color sunday strips are $900. the page also isn't clear on who you need to contact - carolynbreathed@hotmail.com. she seems like a very nice woman, but she does reply in ALL CAPS. be nice to her.
if any of you came through halfway and don't really know the whole gang, an exhaustive rundown can be found at http://www.droops.cybermail.net/bchistory/bchist19 81.html, covering the first appearance of limekiller to the ultimate, last toon.
finally, for anyone who doubts that illiad (respects || rips off) bloom county, please see this userfriendly.org toon..
not for my sake, but please mod the everyloving hell out of this post. i'd really like to see some of his toons get into the hands of fans.
My .02,
My .02,
zencode
iactivist.org/jason
Random Musings at Rum Smuggler
You have got to be fucking kidding me. Artistic styles match? Excuse me, but call me when Illiad learns how to draw his characters in anything but 90-degree profile. And when he learns how to draw backgrounds to perspective. And when he learns how to shade. And don't forget...when he learns how to actually tell a joke.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
If you're going to list great cartoon artists, please don't forget Walt Kellly and his hilarious Pogo strips. If you're not used to '40's humour, it would be an acquired taste, albiet a well-acquired taste.
/. :(
Sorry, no links to give you - a google search turned up all kinds of stuff, but nothing good enough for
see ya
Here's the "Outland/Bloom Country" inspired UF.org's. how to pronounce httpd and of course, Crap, got to go, Boss is turning out the lights just becuse of the Blackouts, and we're in Minnesota.
Alas, poor clippy, I loath him so.
I check the comic strips in the paper now and then and am APPALLED at how miserable they are. Poorly drawn and poorly written with no sense of timing or subtlety whatsoever. 'ZIGGY' looks like Citizen Kane next to the stuff you see in the papers nowadays.
And why the 'classics' are still trotted about like giant stuffed corpse-puppets in the hands of uninspired artists and writers is beyond me. Then again, the new stuff they're trying to replace it with is, truly, that bad.
Hopefull some of the good stuff on the Web will start edging it's way into print.
**>>BELCH
Al Capp had the cloud thing before Schultz. And Romeo and Juliet were taken from an Italian novel. Big deal.
One of the tricks is to *not* be personally insulted just because the other guy is a jerk, a cheat, or a fraud, etc. You put a red tag on his ear labelling him dangerous, radioactive, or whatever; and take appropriate action to cover yourself. But after that it is just a waste of good emotion.
an example of this is when you have given your two week notice at a place that sucks. Suddenly alot of BS does not matter anymore, and you have a bit more freedom, etc.
You generally do not get cynical about potholes, etc. - So for me, being cynical has an edge of paranoia in that it is easy to view everyone with suspicion, when you merely need to label them appropriately and not get hung up on it or freak on it.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
One was for "The best library in the known universe - with the worst water" and the other was for the prairie lights bookstore.
Come by and see them sometime. Like all true comic art, they are still funny.
I thought- geez, I hope I have alot of chest hair and appeal to ladies!
That was right before puberty... now I have so much chest hair my wife hates it!!
Shaving is not an option!
"You may all go to hell and I will go to Texas"
Sen. Davy Crocket to US Congress, Nov. 1, 1835
they have come up with a list of reasons why they won't bother, but the truth is, with very little effort they could easily mirror these sites, sure some exceptions, but overall, if they wanted to fix this problem, they could.... it's just a matter of working instead of listing excuses.
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oh my GOD I love pokey. whenever i'm sitting at my desk, totally mired in logical crap, pokey can YANK me out of the box in a matter of minutes.
I am thumbing through my copy of Academia Waltz now and noticing how tied it was to the University of Texas in the late 70s. Lots of timely comments about football, Vietnam Vets, Nuclear power, Frats & Sororities, sex, football (this is texas of course), and making fun of aggies (those folks from Texas A&M).
Brings back good memories.
UT also was the beginning another amazing comic strip called Eyebeam by Sam Hurt. http://www.samhurt.com I think that eyebeam is a cross between Bloom County and Gary Larson's the Far Side. Eyebeam was amazingly popular at UT. Eyebeam has time machines, robots, and Hank the Hullicination (who *actually* won the election for UT class president). Comment from the back of the Eyebeam book "Virtuosic....The best college generated comic strip since Doonesbury or Bloom County."
Mark
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"You owe me a case of beer. Sucka'."
Both the article and this discussion are full of hero-worship for this guy. I don't get it. I think he is utterly talentless and unfunny. I remember seeing 'Bloom County' in the college newspaper, and thinking 'why the hell do they publish this?' Of course this will get modded down for swimming against the current - such are the workings of fanboy-ism.
I notice that elsewhere in this discussion someone voiced similar dislike of Bloom Country and was told, 'fine - go back to your crappy Garfield' or words to that effect. So just for the record, all 'newspaper comics' are amazingly stupid, unfunny, and untalented. Dilbert is the only exception. But Bloom County is actually worse than the others.
In the interview, Breathed talks about how he was influenced by Trudeau. It's funny, I never fully realized that they are two different people until I read that interview - I'd always assumed one was a pseudonym for the other.
So maybe my impression was formed during the 'bad period near the end' that all the Bloomatics are referring to. Maybe I was just turned off by the clumsy political satire. Political satire takes great acuity and subtlety - Breathed did not have these gifts.
To me, the current-day Berk Breathed is Tom Tomorrow, whose strip appears in 'alternative' newspapers. Tomorrow seems to use clip art as a framework for political mini-rants and sarcasm. If he posted his ideas in an open forum like usenet, they'd be torn to shreds because they are full of factual and logical errors. But from his privileged position as 'artist' he can write without fear of rebuttal.
...if people repeatedly got my name wrong. It's Berkley Breathed, isn't it?
is what I was about to post. But it appears that in fact it was the UK editions of the books that had his name wrong? Strange.
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
For the longest time I was sure that illiad was Berke Breathed. The artistic styles often matched far too well, the style of the humor and stories so close.
Then I noticed the same thing with some other web comics. After a while I started picking up the same (Albeit same in a Calvin-knock-off-way) vibe from all the Bill Watterson-esque webcomics out there.
So I went back, reread my Bloom Country/Outland collected editons, and realized something.
Berke Breathed is one of the greatest daily comic creators ever. Far beyond of the tepid humor of Peanuts, flying up there in the glorious airspace shared by Gary Treadau, Billl Watterson, and Gary Larson. His work influenced comic creators in the best ways possible, and now he is honored with imitation.
Where is it written that political satire has to be subtle? I remember when they ran one series that was against the drug war (which was a pretty unpopular stance at the time) that was great. It told the tale of creating a successful hair tonic out of Bill the Cat's sweat which had unfortunate side-effects *ACK!*. Because of this it was outlawed, the prices went sky-high on the black market, and it began to be controlled by gangs. Subtle? No. Funny? Hell yeah. And the criticisms it represented are becoming more and more popular every day as people are considering what a waste the Drug War actually has become.
When I started getting interested in the comic as a youngster, I knew very little about the political satire it talked about. But I still loved it because it made me laugh (sometimes uncontrollably) anyways. That's the difference between Breathed and Trudeau. Doonesbury is repetitious and boring. Never laughed at it when I was young and I don't laugh at it now.
You mentioned Dilbert, which is good, but it's missing something important. It's missing the childlike, brilliant imagination of Bloom County. Binkley's anxiety closet is a good example of it. If all of today's comics were dry comedies about work place drudgery then I think I'd have to kill myself.
I'm sorry but if you don't think Bloom County was funny then there's only two explanations for it. 1) You and your fellow Young Republicans didn't appreciate the political humor (hey at least I can appreciate Ben Stein without getting in a huff) or 2) you have no imagination and possibly no pulse.
-Tyler
Happy people make bad consumers.
- "Classics of Western Literature"
I have a stack of 'em on my bookcase. About 6 months ago, I went into a Borders' bookstore and asked them if there existed any volumes I didn't have. Their response: "Bloom what? Who's Berke Breathed?"Damn. Kids these days.
I was watching Scott Kurtz's birthday wishlist, just waiting for this one item to happen. He has quite a few really cool ideas on that list -- I hope someone that knows George Lucas can come through for him.
As for me, I take comfort in my laserdisc copy of A Wish for Wings that Work, and (of course) a working laserdisc player.
All hail Bill! (Ack! Thppt!)
"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
It had all these great programs like OPUS and BINKLEYterm
Before TUX, there was OPUS!
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"A WISH FOR WINGS THAT WORK" ---
My all-time favorite Christmas show [which isn't played anymore], and not because I was a die-hard Opus/BC fan.
BC was LIKE Saturday Night Live for me, in that it provided me some great catch phrases ["PWWWTTT", "Closet of Anxieties", "Dandelions in October", et. al) ...
Now, for me, the REVOLUTION introduced by BC was what I now call the "comical one-two strip punch" -- in other words, a punchline at a frame in the middle of the "story", followed immediately by a SECOND punchline/retort in the last frame .... two dry moments for the price of one ....
At the time [for the first few times we all read it], we didn't really know what to think, except to acknowledge that we've never seen someone do that before. But Calvin and Hobbes basically mastered this technique, and now virtually every hot comic being published plays on some variation of this now-called "rule" ....
"He who questions training trains himself at asking questions." - The Sphinx, Mystery Men (1999)
There are some great cartoonists publishing primarily or exclusively for the Web. (Aside from User Friendly, I'm a big fan of Kevin and Kell and a lot of the Keenspot comics.)
Could we please have some Slashdot interviews with some of the folks behind these comics?
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
"Chris: Do you have any regrets about not drawing Bloom County any more? Do you miss it?
Breathed: If the world still read the comic page... and if they weren't the size of 2 stamps... I would still do it. But their days as a topic of national conversation are over I fear. There are a great many more distractions of a more visceral nature to compete with. Too small, too quiet."
This comment brought tears to my eyes. Berke used to make cracks about comics as a dying phenomenon in his strips. I remember a "Star Trek" parody involving the endlessy shrinking size of comics in particular. Another distinct memory is of the time Opus spent working as a cartoonist, calling himself a "stripper," and being treated as a wage slave to editors demanding gag-a-day humor slapped together in time for a deadline.
He is so right that people no longer read and discuss comics. I remember discussing Bloom County and Doonesbury as a child with friends and family, now the only way it comes up is when a buddy and I discuss a webcomic, or I have to explain all the perverse/obscense/obscure webcomics I stick up at work. I truly miss having conversations about politcal candidates who wear "Frederick's of Holywood peek-a-boo panties" (From Breathed's 1988 election coverage) or little Ronald-ann sticking it to Rotney Washington the crack dealer.
Now I bask in the glory of webcomics, creations of the purist love. Bound only by themselves, webcomics fill a void created by the American newspaper editors' misunderstanding of what may be the most important art form since mankind learned to write.
Hopefully Berke will see this, and maybe get stimulated to do work online.
The interviewers were pretty damn lucky that Berke Breathed is apparently such a nice guy. Despite Mr. Breathed's influence on modern comices, the tone of the interview and the fact that he was upset that they got his phone number more or less points to the fact that Breathed is not interested in drawing comic strips anymore and shouldn't be bothered about his old work, which he is clearly uncomfortable discussing.
Now, all that aside, it was neat to hear from him again.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
The quotes show his witty humour at work - pretty useful if you want to see what he is like when he is being light hearted, unlike in the serious interview.
I only wish I was the sort of geek who could draw well.
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Clarity does not require the absence of impurities,
/* And you'll never guess what the dog had */
/* in its mouth... */
--Larry Wall in stab.c from perl
You can tell Illiad is a fan. There have been several homages to Berke in the past. It's always nice to see someone you admire and who's work you enjoy tip their hat to someone that they admire.
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
I own all the Bloom County books. Coincidentally, so does my wife (acquired before we met). So we have some extras. Oddly, I never read BC in the papers, just in the books. I picked up an Outland book once but it was like one of those lame sitcom spinoffs. I think the problem was in trying to hang too much of the comic on Opus's shoulders.
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Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
Depends on how cynical you are.
I can see two people who are good friends actually sharing something that is a golden nugget in their lives.
But you'd have to have a really good friend.
I think this interview actually qualifies as a golden nugget.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
If anyone can galvanize the left, it's these 2... Personally, I've had enough of Gore/Clinton/etc, and think it's their time. :]