Slashdot Mirror
Berke Breathed Interview in The Onion
Hobart writes "Berke Breathed, author of Bloom County has granted an interview to Tasha Robinson of the The Onion's AV Club. This is the second interview I've seen in six months (previous interview link) after the six years of silence since the end of Outland. He even calls for volunteers to help with his site! ;)"
However, YMMV
"It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom. Keep that in mind at all times." Bill Hicks
The boondocks by Aaron McGruder is some of the funniest stuff i've read in a long time.
http://www.boondocks.net/
Yep, there was. If I remember, Oliver created that thing to make the South African Ambassador black because of Apartheid. His dad wouldn't let him, so he tried getting Cutter John to fly up in his wheelchair with balloons to do it. It didn't work, and he crashed into the Atlantic. Opus was also dragged along for the ride, and it ended up having a long sequence with him having amnesia.
Los Angeles: 1,000 suburbs in search of a city.
What about Carol in Wildwood? (formerly Bobo's Progress)
Since Breathed admits he doesn't read the comics, how would he know what's out there? (or what's funny)
We tried to get Bill Watterson for The Onion too, but he's basically a hermit. As near as I could tell, he's granted a total of two interviews in his career. One of those was for an obscure magazine, and has been reprinted all over the Web. For the other, he wouldn't actually let the interviewer record anything he said or take notes, he just talked to him for an article. These days, his syndicate just auto-rejects any requests; they've been asked to not pass them on at all.
I'm still hoping to get to Gary Larson one of these days, though. We asked and he was friendly about it, but ultimately turned us down because he's working on something, and asked us to get back to him in about six months. That was about six months ago, so maybe someday soon.
Did you ever recover from the Oz-Wonderland war? :)
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
GW thinks he is Ronald Reagan.
Lasers Controlled Games!
The front section, or comedy section, of The Onion is all fiction. The back section, the A.V. Club, consists of serious reviews of movies, videos, music, and books, and real interviews. And a few cartoons, and in some editions, the Savage Love sex column. None of our interviews are fabricated.
It's safe to assume that those three comic strips had universal appeal across industries because they all relied on topics that were relevant and interesting to all people.
What I'm saying is that it isn't a geek-only cultural phenomenon.
Dancin Santa
I don't really understand how he thinks Bloom County is stale now. Reagan and Jean Kirkpatrick may be long gone, but I still find Bloom County strips hilarious. Maybe it's some false modesty on Breathed's part.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
"I made the Perfect Pencil. There was no reason to continue"
Honestly, the process is always better than the result. When are you happier, Having sex, or just having had sex? Plus, fire is way cool. Sailing's nice and all, thrilling and whatnot. But given a choice between torching a huge sailboat and using it, I'd take the Beavis Way.
Carl G. Jung
--
"With one breath, with one flow, You will know Synchronicity" -La Policia
I would go with Bloom County, Dilbert, and Fox Trot, in that order.
Even though he says he cringes at his old strips, I tend to re-read all my Bloom County collections every other year, and they still make me laugh just as hard as the first time.
I just hope he starts 'tooning again.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
BB: I entered as a joke and a bet with my brother-in-law that I could name a price that a dot-com would refuse to pay. The bastards paid.
It seems many /.ers have failed to remember that the Onion is a satirical newspaper. This is, like all their other interviews, probably made-up.
Seems they did a pretty good job.
I do rememer reading a funny short on how MSFT plans to patent 1's and 0's, which all mathematics derive from, hence patenting all physical laws like Gravity, etc. Imagine paying MSFT to stay on the earth (sounds a lot like consumer PCs to me).
Damn fine newspaper actually.
Also, as I have aged (but not by much ;)) it's been nice to notice how I can relate more and more to Calvin and Hobbes; it was funny when I was younger, and now it's funny on a whole new level. I tells ya, that boy's got it sussed.
(And kudos to Bill anyway, for never succumbing to the demands of the the syndicate to license C&H.)
Security through promiscuity is no better than security through obscurity.
> More important than your career or your pet
> peeve -- your family.
You may want to rethink that sentiment. No matter what your typical slashdot reader thinks, the word "family" doesn't include your computer.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
His comeback work better be much much better than the retread of ideas found in Doonsbury.
Can some of those Nixon era boomers please retire!
You know who you are.
better to go out in a flash
________________________________________________
I think of it this way: Zippy usually aims to be as humorous as possible without actually trying to be funny.
Zippy strips invite you to observe and think about things in a humorous and somewhat cynical frame of mind. While they are sometimes extremely funny, they more often avoid the kind of release of tension you would get with a laugh and prefer to leave things a bit off key - like a piano piece played expertly then deliberately ended on a wrong note. Zippy leads you away from, around, and finally obliquely back to the subject. When you arrive it has a quality something like being funny, but usually more muted and self-conscious. Or at least that's how I experience it -- maybe others find them routinely laugh out loud funny.
Just my $0.02.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Zippy is still around. Everyone at work thinks I am strange for laughing at it until I explain what is funny about it. (Then they still don't usally get it.)
So climate's changing. So what? It has always changed. The big news would be if it wasn't changing. - Dr. Philip Stone
Yea, well Thoreau eventually returned to his family business and worked there until he died. And suffered from the lung disease that affected most long-time workers in that industry suffered, some form of brown/black lung. Some people work the live, others live to work.
To hear the gods laugh tell them your plans.
Tux is definitely the winner in the sheer cuteness department, but I bet Opus could take him in a deathmatch! ;-)
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
being consistently modded down in the way you suggest is why i spend my energy elsewhere
You can find an interview from last February here.
Slappy Squirrel.
Their interviews are (almost) always insightful (mod +1) and intelligent, and their subjects ecclectic.
Hear hear. Check out the interview with Harlan Ellison if you haven't already... one of the best in the archives, in my humble opinion. Got me to drive across three states to hear him speak at a science fiction convention.
--saintWhile you're at it, Berke, how 'bout inventing a word for dyed-in-the-wool liberals who sound ready to join a holy crusade to convince people that they aren't so liberal after all, they're really just libertarians at heart. You know, like you and Bill Maher.
And just between the two of us, would you mind giving the Elvis references a hiatus until you figure out a way to remove from humanity's memory banks that completely unfunny and untouching dreck you called "The Outlands?" Thanks.
Sorry, not really. It's still the Warner Brothers who are the main characters. That cartoon would never have existed if not for them. They only threw Dot in there to add the female support role to the male leads. Sorry to burst your bubble, bud.
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
I have many, many of the bloom county collections (even the "Billy and the Boingers" official vinyl album.) I really enjoyed those books. However, the interview with Berke is nice...but I would really love to see some interviews of Bill Watterson....anyone know of any recent ones since his retirement?
The anti-salmon
I notice one peculiar thing that perhaps is a slip up on breathds part. He still refers to himself a couple of times in the article as a cartoonist. Or includes himself within the group or cartoonists. It is interesting to note that he is retired yet still includes himself as one of "them" :). I suppose once a cartoonist always a cartoonist.
He totally underrates himself, he got a pulitzer for his cartoon work, which as he pokes fun at was probably not an easy feat by any means.
Jeremy
More important than your career or your pet peeve -- your family.
All I have to say is "THPTF"
I'd be more inclined to agree with you if a single one of my non-hacker friends liked either Dilbert or Bloom County. Most of my non-work friends haven't even heard of Bloom County.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
When did I say that my friends were pre-pubescent when Bloom County was in production? Most of my friends are in their thirties and forties. They still weren't familiar with it until I mentioned it.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
I'll not deny that starting, oh, about the time Bloom County was just beginning it looked as if Schulz had settled down into a kind of routine cuteness that lacked much of his old originality. But by his last years, he was rockin' again. Old characters we hadn't seen in years reappeared and the humor really started to click again. As I was reading that last year's worth of strips I found myself laughing out loud more than once. Which is something I can't say about the strips Breathed produced his last year on the job.
It was also well-known that Schulz always insisted that the strip was written and drawn by no one but himself. Breathed, the man was your better. Have more respect.
------
And the brethren went away edified.
Seriously though, I still have my old BC books. Most are in rough shape due to many moves, but my Billy and the Boingers is still intact with the vinyl still attached and untouched.
My favorite stuff still comes from the really early strips. Who remembers Senator Befellow? Milo and the Bloom Picayune would call up his wife for comments. Those were great.
My favorite line ever though:
"McNope, but McMaybe McLater!"
"I can be self-referential if I want to," said Tom, swiftly.
Don't forget Far Side!
Ummm, hello moderator. You may be too crack-addled to click on the article, but then you shouldn't moderate. The post you marked as off-topic is *directly* ON-topic.
BB is very anti-Tom Cruise(missile). Why?
I was in UT Austin in the early 80s. You've heard of Berke (the magazine he talks about was called UTmost, get it?), and the two other things was this crazy kid making PCs in his dorm room named Dell, and Sam Hurt's Eyebeam. Actually I would say Eyebeam was more popular at UT then Berke- Hank the Hallucination won Student Body President. Check it out- http://www.samhurt.com/index.html
________________________________________ History Must Not Fall Into The Wrong Hands ___________________________________
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!
Opus was named after a Kansas song. If you're too young to know who Kansas was, to hell with you.
"Magnum Opus", live version on _Two For the Show_ amazes.
Anyone else ever have the hots for Quiche Lorraine?
If you were agoraphobic, you'd be home now
Yeah, yeah, you think Peanuts was funnier than Bloom County. No doubt you think Leave it to Beaver and Ozzie and Harriet were laugh riots too, and think Norman Rockwell was a great artist. I'll take biting sarcasm over stale 1950's nostalgia any day.
My fantasy is to have Dilbert, Calvin & Hobbes, & Bloom County all running at once.
InstaPundit! Ahead of the Curve Since 30 Minutes Ago
Talk about opening old wounds. I'd been able to forget the hole in my morning humor 'til this reminded me of all that great stuff that isn't there anymore.
Now I'm not going to get any sleep as I stay up all night reading the collection of strips.
Thanks, I think...
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2
.. and i thought only birds everted their cloacha.
ick.
-'fester
I don't recall the outcome. I'm pretty sure it can be found in Berke's first book though.
"I can be self-referential if I want to," said Tom, swiftly.
Bloom County Zone
----------
I am an expert in electricity. My father held the chair of applied electricity at the state prision.
Since then, Breathed, Watterson, and Larson have all retired and the newspaper comics aren't very enjoyable for me today. Occasionally Fox Trot will still be amusing, and of course Dilbert is very witty, but you never get a chance to see anything impressive visually. Maybe the internet will pick up the slack? Sluggy Freelance (to pick a random example) has had amazing storylines spanning months, and the artist is free to create whatever kind of strip he wants, without censorship, ridiculous format demands, or any other unnecessary crap. Now, if only being profitable was easier...
And thanks for the new sig, Berke.
And I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners.
Berke Breathed
K.
K
Berke's belief that he is less relevant today could possibly be justified, but I think that comes from his being so ahead of the times. Outland expressed the kind of self-referential humor that we take for granted after shows about nothing and the Simpsons. The denizens of Bloom County were far ahead of their time, and reading the strips today isn't the same as during the supply-side days of Regan. He helped create the ironic, self-immolating humor that we have today.
----------
I am an expert in electricity. My father held the chair of applied electricity at the state prision.
Zippy is a little too... whatever... for me. OTOH I used to recognize a lot of my friends in the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers.
To hear the gods laugh tell them your plans.
Breathed was/is a marginally-talented hack who only got a shot because Trudeau took a sabbatical and his syndicate was looking for a clone... It's also obvious you know nothing about Schulz, his history, or his talent... stick to Garfield!
And even if that were not so, artists rarely ink their own strips. To say some drawn lines were "made a little shaky by that hand tremor" is nonsense.
Thanks to him for that much.
Hopefully his future projects we'll find as enjoyable.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
that doesn't understand a simple thing called sarcasm
...dave
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...
-dB
"It if was easy to do, we'd find someone cheaper than you to do it."
I think you kind of read into that quote incorrectly ---- What Breathed meant was that many cartoonists, including Schulz, were exploited, and never even owned the rights to their own characters. He wasn't saying that Schulz' creativity would have been replaced by the students, but that the syndicates could have basically done whatever they wanted with the characters, including cutting Schulz out of the picture completely.
Terrific, except his e-mail CGI says "illegal domain" Doh.
What's the fascination with Zippy? Is unfunny humor somehow funny? Is it like whiskey and cigars which taste and smell terrible until you know what finer points you are supposed to be noticing?
Please elaborate because Zippy does not have the universal appear of Bloom County, Doonesbury, the Far Side, and especially Calvin & Hobbes.
I'm about halfway through it now. Only reason I'm posting now is because I have a problem resisting the temptation to post as fast as I can. :)
:)
:)
But I'm absolutely enthralled by reading this. I'm at work, I should be working, but...I can't. I'm glued to this. Breathed, whether he wants to be or not, is forever an icon of what the 80's were to me...or more appropriately, of what the 80's weren't. They weren't silly, they weren't fun, they weren't lying in the dandelion patch.
If this interview were a slashdot post, I'd post beneath it saying, "Mod this up! +1, Insightful" as some of us are wont to do.
It's great to hear from the guy. Now pardon me while I go back and read more...
I believe what he's sayin is that the syndicate which owned Peanuts had the right do do this...not that they could have done it and noone would have noticed, which seems to be how you're reading this. It seems from reading this that Berkely has a lot of respect for Mr. Schultz.
Yes, I wish I had a great story to submit to slashdot so that I could play around with hyperlinks to everything2 .
--
Violators will be prosecuted and prosecutors will be violated.
Why did you stop writing Calvin and Hobbes? That was my favorite cartoon.
He retired a few years back. He had to produce a new strip much too often for his comfort, he was running out of things to put in them and the company that owned Calvin and Hobbes' rights (yes, comic strip authors are screwed just as much as book authors are) wasn't giving him enough money from his effort to make it worth it to him.
You're helping to destroy Slashdot. Go read the Jargon File definition of "troll". Far too many comments are moderated down as trolling just because they express an unpopular opinion, or express an opinion in an unpopular manner. This results in posters being silenced - yes, here, a poster will be silenced if he's moderated down 5 times in 24 hours - when they don't deserve it.
Someone expressing an opinion they truly believe is not, by definition, trolling.
Anyway, meta-moderation will even the score if other don't agree with me.
I hope so, but haven't seen it happen yet. You can bet your sweet bippy that I'll metamoderate that as "unfair" if I get the chance.
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
MOD #138 UP
Bravo
Cray went on to form his own computer company, which basically had two classes of (non-educational) clients, American Intelligence Agencies and "Big Cycle Burners" (oil companies, chemcial companies, US Gov Other)
so, BFD, Seymour NEVER did make either the Perfect Sailboat OR the Perfect Supercomputer,
and though i will always have a spot in my heart for the XMP-1A (Big Word Mod, my fave) by today's standards it's still every bit are relevant as my very first "Personal" (to me) computer the the 360/Mod 18
...which is to say that about as relevant as my Z80 or TI/100 or CommodeDoor64
it CAN'T be the destination, because that's just wormfood (alt. incompletely combusted HC's)
it had damn well better be the process, or 99.9999_% of the world is screwed, blued and tattooed....
(which, here in LA, is pretty much literally true anyway)
Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...
From the interview:
Throughout cartoon history, there aren't any--repeat, ANY--primary animal cartoon characters that are females. If one was female, she was primarily a girlfriend to the main character. Minnie Mouse. Look at kids' TV. If there's a female character in a big furry suit on Barney or Sesame Street, she has long eyelashes and flits and flutters about like some nightmarish caricature from Jerry Falwell's wet dream.
Two words: Dot Warner.
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
At least it keeps George Lucas off the streets.
Hammer of Truth
It was a joy to read. It was even better realizing that yes, he still has 'it'. Whatever that is... I really enjoy reading his childrens books to my 2yr old. Fantastic artwork and at some basic level - funny for both of us. :)
*psst* wrong article, dude...
- If that's all Breathed was saying, he's simply wrong. Schulz was not above making the terms of his syndicate contract public, and said more than once in interviews that his contract forbade the syndicate from ever hiring anyone else to write or draw Peanuts. Period.
- Breathed said not only that they could do this, but that they may as well have. This was the insult. Anyone who paid the least bit of attention to the last couple years of Peanuts should have noticed that Schulz was back near the top of his game. Mind you, I don't blame anyone for not reading the strip at that point; Schulz had indeed had quite a few dry years there. But such a person should not speak as if he knew what he was talking about.
------And the brethren went away edified.
We are still, a year later, fixing bugs, finding lame bugs like so:
error_result = NO_ERROR;
foo = foo;
error_result = 10;
if foo != foo then
something that needs to be done but never is
end if;
report_error (error_result);
It really is hard to progress on other projects if every other week we have to drop everything and align his creativity with reality. So far we've been threatened with lawsuits and have lost sales because of this crap.
I'm sorry, but there is merit in trying to plan software projects. Focus creativity during design and specification, not during implementation. All you get from being creative in the implementation phase is a boat-load of code where 25% of it is orphaned by design changes.
... If nothing is serious anymore, then there's nothing to satirize." - Berke Breathed.
Well, Berke, I must say, I know of someone who still takes himself seriously. His name is Jack Valenti, and he says things like this:
"If we have to file a thousand lawsuits a day, we'll do it." -JV.
There you go, if you start cartooning again, you can pick on him. Personally, I need to go pick dinner out of my beard, and build me a wheelchair to go dandeylion stomping in. It's probably just like building a bicycle, you never forget. By the way, Opus is an idiot, right?
Good luck with everything.
Sincerely,
Sheldon.
"A coward is incapable of causing destruction; it is the prerogative of the brave" - Mahatma Ghandi
And don't mod me down as flamebait simply because I used the word 'fuck'. Where I come from, it is an accepted part of speech.
And why should we care where you come from? Where I come from, it's rude, and so is giving orders to people you don't know. I mean sheesh, at least say "please don't mod me down." Have some respect.
I don't think this is a troll. I think he presents a legitimate idea in a kind of funny way, rather than the usual shoot-my-mouth off slashdot kind of way. He posted that he felt both Bloom County and The Onion declined over time
Most pundits describe Bill Watterson as "reclusive" when they have occasion to mention him at all. What they really mean is that he values his privacy in much the same way as any other person in the world who just wants to do his job and go home to his quiet life at the end of the day. As a corollary, he has absolutely no use for the sort of pundit who would describe him as "reclusive".
He's still alive, still healthy, and looks a lot like Calvin's dad.
----
And the brethren went away edified.
and I quote: The justice system is a scandal. Mimes and murderers are coddled. Victims are abused. As a vigilante, I can make only one conclusion... ... All judges are mental perverts and communists. Thank you.
Uh, Doonesbury is still very much around. Mike and his wife (and daughter) have a business salvaging the assets of failing dotcoms. Our current president is portrayed as an empty hat.
I was deprived of Bloom County (most of the time) because it ran in the *other* paper, not the one I subscribed to, but I did enjoy Outland when it ran in the LA Times.
You fail to understand what Breathed was saying. I was born in 1970 and I had about every Peanuts book ever published when I was 10 years old. At 31, I cried for hours at the passing of Charles Schultz. Something, so dear and a part of me in my childhood was gone. I however agree with Berke. Schultz had lost his edge... he lost touch with whatever gave him his inspiration and I couldn't read it anymore. Does anyone else get chills when they watch the Peanuts Christmas special?
You're obviously too young to have appreciated Peanuts in its prime, and not quite smart enough to have appreciated it in its renaissance. It was never about "stale 1950's nostalgia". Perhaps the only nostalgic thing about it was the notion that kids still had the initiative to organize their own sports activities like they once did. Rent The Sandlot to get a clue as to how that worked and why it was such an ideal vehicle for humor centered on children.
But Peanuts really became iconic in the '60s and early '70s. That was the time when its message, such as it was, really jelled and began to resonate with a large public. Charlie Brown's alienation was something never before seen in a mainstream comic strip, and those times found in him a sympathetic character.
It's true that the '80s were the doldrums for Peanuts. It had become repetitious, dependent on a limited number of motifs and situations. The characters ossified and many of them dropped out of sight. I stopped reading it in those days and rarely gave it a glance until a couple of years ago. By then Schulz had got it back. Maybe that vacation he took in 1997 recharged his batteries, but the strip had recovered it's old energy. It became more daring, self-aware, surreal, and even a little biting.
Schulz was not above taking the occasional shot at other cartoonists either. Take this strip from September of 1999. Lucy and Linus's brother Rerun is sitting next to a nameless little girl in kindergarten. They're supposed to be drawing flowers.
Note: mere sarcasm isn't always funny. That was the problem with Outland IMO. When it wasn't simply infantile it was sarcastic without being witty. Then it died, and few mourned.------
And the brethren went away edified.
Especially enjoyed his nasty insult of Mr. Oliphant (whose work I'm not aware of) relating to penis size and sneezing. Anyways it's a great read for anyone who is curious.
sacrilege!!!
-
Is it just me, or does Breathed come off as a bit of a jerk in that interview?
He started drawing poorly after Penguin Dreams, but he hit bottom by the end. Go back and look at your Happy Trails collection. Remove the booger jokes and the Donald Trump jokes, and you're left with nuthin'.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
Did Tom Cruise run over his dog or something?
weird.
In alphabetical order:
Never play leapfrog with a unicorn. Or a juggernaut.
For a while back in the mid-90's I was at Amaze!nc, which produced the Bloom County screensaver. We would occasionally have Mr. Breathed come by the offices to work on the project. Not only were the screensavers hilarious (we even got sued for the one where Opus shoots down the flying toasters =), but Berke himself was a very nice guy, perfectly willing to take suggestions and laugh out loud with animation interns, just out of college with no corporate power of their own.
-Dug
I think I have a new .sig from this one: And I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging
professional whiners.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Flabdabb -> Follow the links to the "everything2" nodes in the story for definitions.
... )
(In short -- Berke Breathed is a cartoonist who did two comics strips, Bloom County and Outland, that ran from 1980-1995 in US newspapers. It was originally picked up as a replacement for Doonesbury when it was on hiatus. Extremely funny stuff, the origin of "Bill the Cat", "Opus the Penguin", etc
o/~ Join us now and share the software
Nothing beats The Onion when it comes to horoscopes, Heres Berkeley's:
:)
Virgo: (Aug. 23--Sept. 22)
It will occur to you that no one in the phone book has a realistic-sounding name. Change them all, if possible.
However mine is better
Aries: (March 21--April 19)
If you put too much gasoline on the bandanna over your face, you'll get sick. Not enough and you'll be able to smell the corpses. Strike a balance.
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
It's a comic strip. This article explains it's history and social context, as well making an (opinionated, imo) stab at it's place in cultural history.
Yeah, I guess that's what happens when you have artistic integrity these days.
fuckers.
I remember when Oliver Wendell Jones received a huge grant to develop a space based missile defense system.
His plan was brilliant. Cover the earth with a net made out of dollar bills.
Completely relevant for today. I can't believe Berke thinks his stuff has lost it's meaning.
I also can't believe the American public still puts up with all the money we're wasting on Star Wars.
No man is an island, but some men are peninsulas
This got me thinking about my other favorite reclusive former comic strip writer. I looked around and found an interview (allegedly the only one he ever gave); and a shorter, more recent article. The second one is kind of sad . . . it's too bad that the fame of the strip brought him so much unhappiness.
"fist in the air in the land of hypocrisy"
That's as maybe, but two years or so ago HP were using musical conventions for naming their workstations - Maestro, allegro, and so on. The Linux system was named Opus. It was inevitable, really.
Your argument is specious. Almost all posts on Slashdot are individual opinions, trolls included. Expressing an opinion does not make you (or it) valid.
I modded him down because the comment felt less like a genuine expression of opinion toward Mr. Breathed and his work and more like a smart ass pot-shot designed to get the author attention (and the comment about The Onion was merely off-topic). So while I wouldn't say formality is *required*, it certainly wouldn't have hurt in this situation. Sometimes it's formality that helps distinguish a genuine opinion contributed to a discussion or just shooting your mouth off.
Anyway, meta-moderation will even the score if other don't agree with me. No worries.
His illustrations are amazing, and from the archive of censored strips [and his earlier work during college, 'University **2' [that's 'squared' for you non-fortran programmers]], he does try to push the limit of what's allowed in comics. Mostly through his frat-boy like characters.
The main thing that stands out is his drawing, as it's simply breathtaking. I don't know how well it stands up to standard newsprint, but they also release a comic book sized issue every few weeks with about 6 weeks of collected work.
The story lines, although sometimes go off on a complete tangent [There's a definate influence of British Comedy in there...I think there may have even been a few direct references], but I've yet to see one that wasn't funny.
For samples, check out their web page:And don't forget to check out the Uncensored section.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
wasnt there one about a ray to turn white people black too?
Opus is a puffin.
We should have rallied around Opus. Marketing AND a penguin, rolled into one.
Hell, the strip even has a real hacker/scientist in it. Tell me that you haven't be thinking this.
Brethed says he avoids race but I remember 3 strips that dealt with it directly. One involving a flesh-coloured band-aid, one involving 'flesh' crayons, and a third where the young black kid buys a copy of 'ebony', and the little white kid tries to buy a copy of the ficticious 'ivory' to which the proprieter says something like 'shoo! i run a progressive newstand here!'. Maybe not dealing with it so serious, but to a 12-year-old it seemed like advanced socialogical debate ;)
O: You have a site under construction yourself. Any idea when that'll be up and running? Do you plan to feature old strips there, or just newer work?
BB: Under construction. Right. Like my novel is under construction. Anybody want to volunteer to do this for me? If you do, I'll agree to add a page detailing Opus' sexual adventures that were too hot for the comic page. This is, after all, what web entertainment does best.
I have a feeling Mr. Breathed is likely to get a crash course in this thing we call zee in-ter-net. G'wan, send him a few thousand offers, y'crazy java cats!
The one machine i wished someone would make...
Now see, my first thoughts were of Babs Bunny.
"Fritz the Cat" or Mr. Natural was not exactly everyone's cup of tea, for example. But Crumb has quite a cult following. Zippy is in the same general ballpark.
If you don't like it, don't feel bad. It's just not something you can explain, I guess.
cya
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
I dunno. I've been reading it in the paper every time I get the chance but it holds no fascination for me save the fact that those who love it are rabid about it.
You're not far off there. I read Zippy for quite some time, mainly because the artwork was so off the wall. I never found it funny, until one day, it just somehow clicked -- and from then on it was hilarious. Not unlike the way I watched "Wild at Heart" from David Lynch, didn't laugh at all through the whole movie, then as the credits rolled, suddenly "got it" and busted a lung laughing so hard. It's just quirky, edgy humor.
The humor isn't as accessible as Calvin & Hobbes or Peanuts, but then again it didn't try to be. Zippy grew out of a totally different background -- underground comics and so on -- and never really went mainstream, which is why I think I grew to like it.
Breathed was also basically Trudeau on speed -- same kind of humor, but even more on the edge, always dancing on the line of good taste, and even more cynical than Doonesbury. But he was still fundamentally mainstream in his style of humor, even if he offended the religious right a lot. Zippy, on the other hand, is more of a coffee-house artist kind of thing...
cya
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
Ack!
As if "new Onion Wednesday" doesn't DDoS theonion.com and theonionavclub.com enough, you had to announce the story today too. Thanks.
He even calls for volunteers to help with his site!
Too late, looks like someone already helped him. His site looks terrific IMO.
Hammer of Truth
you sure don't understand jokes.
fuck you and the patronizing horse you rode in on.
...dave
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...
What happened to giving Everything links like this [?]? E2's already slow as hell without being Slashdotted!
When a favorite author or artist decides they've had enough and the fan has to find something new to fill the gap. "That's life, deal", doesn't come close to getting a fan past that wall. Larson, DNA, Breathed, Watterson, and many others drop out when they have their fans peak interest and call it "leaving while it's still fresh" or some crap like that. As tough as these people have been on themselves, they are and have been their own worst critics. I don't think I've ever seen a Bloom County strip I didn't like. At least I have the books and can fish them out once every couple years, to read and reminice. It was a great time to be a kid.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Close, but not absolutely true:o micopia.htm
"Watterson has granted only two interviews - one to the Los Angeles Times in the early days of his fame (April 1987), and one to The Comics Journal (#127, March 1989). " -- from http://www.citeweb.net/calvinandhobbes/articles/c
I have the Comics Journal issue around here somewhere. It's a pretty extensive interview, and in it he talks about his strict no-licensing policy (particularly ironic given all the "pissing Calvin" stickers you'll see on the cars of people with no taste who don't know any better). He also seems to think there's no venue for solid comic strips with good art and room for storytelling. While this is true in the newspapers, he doesn't seem to realize that comic books are a viable alternative, as something like _Bone_ proves.
It's creators include a Pulitzer prize winner who was Watterson's classmate and friend. It's as zany as C&H, but without the contemplative side (which is impossible to reproduce now....:'(.)
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.