Return Of Bloom County. Sorta

Slartibartfast writes "According to mycomicspage.com, the entirety of Bloom County will be re-published on their site, starting St. Paddy's day, and at a "highly accelerated" rate of one week every two days, until the entire strip is up. In addition -- an extra-special bonus for us Berke Breathed fans -- his college predecessor, Academic Waltz, will also be run. One caveat: it's subscription-based. However, for $10, I'd call it a huge bargain. I'm signing up."

Comments

Taco's scheme to get more subscriptions

[DeadSea]

"If we get users comfortable with shelling out cash for web content, maybe more of them will buy slashdot subscriptions. Let's run some articles about compelling web content for sale. After people are used to buying the good stuff, maybe they'll subscribe to /."

</conspiracy>

Hmmm, don't think so....

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see here, all re-runs, and the book collections have been out for how long? And this is any different from the books, how? Can I take the web pages with me while I eat pancakes, and casually leaf through them at my own rate?
Thank you, no. This seriously is just another money grab. If he wants my buckages, Berkly will have to start drawing new Bloom Country strips with all the old characters. We all know Tux is influanced by Opus.
Long live Penguin Lust!

Re:How is this a bargain?

[fmaxwell]

You sound like an idiot who can't read what I wrote.

What sound like a self-impressed, myopic jerk who cannot understand that others might not want to read Bloom County the same way that you do. But since you brought it up, my reading comprehension is fine and I am probably your intellectual superior.

Unless this company stays in business forever (fat freaking chance), I pay my subscription and oops, they go out of business and I lose access to everything.

Ever heard of the save option in your browser? Ever seen a web crawler? You subscribe when they have $10 worth of Bloom County (whatever that is to you) and then save it to your hard drive. Then, every so often, go back and get more -- all of which is just gravy since you already got your $10 worth the first time.

Unless I have a laptop and wifi, I can't read bloom county on the pot or in the kitchen, for example, unless I print it out.

Maybe you like to carry stacks of books between where you gorge yourself and where you excrete the results, but many others do not. Suppose you are at a friend's house and want to show him a Bloom County? Are you going to drive home, dig our the books from under your stack of toilet paper rolls in the bathroom, and then return to his house?

I fail to see how I need to read bloom county at work

So you need to read it in the kitchen or while on the toilet, but can't possibly see a time when you would want to read it at work, say at lunch, when taking a break, etc.? You are as shortsighted as you are rude.

it seems unlikely that much of it is going to be so wonderfully relevant that I suddenly feel a need to email that one strip to my friends.

If it's not funny enough to share with friends, then why do you want to read it at all? Bloom County was not a collection of cartoons from the editorial pages. It had everything from parodies of creationists to Mick Jagger being interviewed by a "Farm Report" TV show. How is any of that less relevent today than it was at the time?

And if for some reason I do, I don't have to rip pages out of my book to scan it.

Right. You can just mash the spine of a 20 year old paperback book down flat on your scanner. Those books will hold up just great that way.

Next time, don't assume that you have the only "proper" way to do something and that everyone should share your values. If someone has limited shelf space, the books are not as good an option. If someone wants to share Bloom County with physically distant friends and family, the books are useless. If a person wants a copy that will never deteriorate, never become damaged by water, and is in chronological order, there are no books that will work.

Re:How is this a bargain?

[elmegil]

Ever heard of the save option in your browser?

Ever heard of a licensing agreement?

I am probably your intellectual superior.

Ah, right. Look in the mirror, monkey, that ain't no philosopher there.

Suppose you are at a friend's house and want to show him a Bloom County?

Ah yes, this happens to me all the time. Suddenly the Bloom County Spirit takes me over, and I must show my friend that strip right now. Lucky for me, this supernatural event also enables me to redraw the strip perfectly from memory.

If it's not funny enough to share with friends, then why do you want to read it at all?

I shared it with my friends at the time, thanks. I can loan a book to a friend too, instead of asking them to pay $10 themselves or violate the likely license agreement. If you've read anything Breathed has said about the topic, and have any respect for him and his opinion, you know it's not going to be as free as you claim to share strips.

As for kitchen/restroom reading....it's a damn shame someone so intellectually superior can't understand the idea of an "example" wherein you list one or two items that fit a general class (in this case, the class of all places that aren't in front of a CRT tube; I spose you probably don't spend enough time elsewhere to really understand that idea though).

Next time don't assume that because I point out that there are lots of places I would want access to this that aren't in front of a tube, and therefore I don't consider the idea to be a bargain, that I'm claiming that everyone who does want it on their tube is an idiot--I meant just you were being an idiot, because you talk as if by stating one thing I'm denying all other things.