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Berkeley Breathed Back in the Funnies
tetrad writes "Berkeley Breathed is creating a new Sunday comic strip, according to the Washington Post. The half-page comic strip will feature Opus the penguin from Breathed's Bloom County and Outland series, and will begin Nov. 23."
He's actually a fairly successful children's book writer, a fact mentioned in the Ask /. that was done close to a year ago, IIRC.
No flame intended, but it wasn't about Opus at all in the beginning. He showed up as a running gag and managed to steal the show... *shrug* More power to 'im.
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
Calvin returned in a film just a couple of years ago...
And even if my local rag doesn't pick it up, I will be happy as long as they continue to run Get Fuzzy, which features a combative cat and a dumb-as-a-rock pooch.
Try This Modern World. The archive links are on the left.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
The diversity of characters in the strip was also unprecendented, from African-Americans (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Rosalinda) who, unlike black characters in other strips, namely Peanuts, were actually of their own ethnicity, to the wheelchair-bound 'Nam vet Cutter John.
JONES... Oliver Wendell JONES...
Oliver Wendell Holmes was a famous poet.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. was a famous lawyer.
Oliver Wendell Jones was a famous young hacker with a Banana Jr. computer.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
I'll chime in with a few of my own:
The Phantom
Nancy
The sad thing is that if you can find books of those two from during their heyday, they were damn good comic strips. With every single comic that has been listed so far, the strip long outlasted the life of their creators, and new artists have come along to prop up their strips' corpses like some sick publishing equivalent of "Weekend at Bernie's." I'm worried that one day someone will try to pick up Peanuts (even though the strip was never as good during its last two decades as it was in the old 60's collections that I have). It's sad enough to see the old strips still being rerun in my local papers rather than let some newcomer take a stab at success.
I'm just glad that Pogo was allowed to retire gracefully and that Bill Watterson will never let Calvin and Hobbes be turned into the sort of undead shadow of itself that all the strips we've listed here have become.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Of course, DFC is some of the funniest black humor I've seen, nonetheless. Lucky for me I have some hardcopies and an old T-=shirt.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
I'm guessing you're not aware that the Onion is a real, serious publication, and only the first several pages are humor news. After you get past the first three pages or so, it's all real news (plus some good comics). Their interviews are among the best I've ever read, and their reviews of music are usually better than the typical "it's good, kinda like so-and-so". It's well worth the subscription price - I used to keep it on the back of the toilet, a mark of high regard for a newspaper indeed.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Not quite---the original poster's list includes Beetle Bailey. Mort Walker, who draws Beetle Bailey, is still alive and well.
Not that I'm claiming that Beetle Bailey is funny... Just that you don't have to die for your comic strip to become moribund.
Ahh... I found a better archive.
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
Opus and Bill were a line of plush animals and greeting cards far before Outland came out. In fact, I'd say that the whole Bloom County merchandizing was on the way down by the time Outland hit the papers.
But I am disappointed as well that he's coming at it again with Bill and Opus. Rehashes are never quite the same...although the political climate is similar to the early to mid 80s and we do need more political satire at the national level nowadays.
It is sad that we're having to look forward to a comic strip to provide this sort of thought at the national level rather than an actual political party with a platform and leaders.