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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."
This makes me very happy. Except what exactly does "'Opus' will run on Sundays only and will fill half a page in the comics section" mean?
A half a page? How likely will this be picked up by papers if it's half a freaking page? I'd love to see it, but that may be asking too much from papers.
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I remember the Breathed "retired" oh so many years ago, but I wonder if this comeback is like many 60's and 70's band "comeback tours"... that is to say he's found that he needs the money and there is still (somehow) enough interest out there to him to milk...?
We could really use some better comic strips (especially ones with penguins in them).
I really missed the days of the Far Side. Non-sequiter is pretty good. And I don't need to say anything about Dilbert. But the rest of the comics suck. Maybe I'm just getting old. But it seems like comics used to be much better. I hope this one helps with the comeback of good comics.
I've never seen this Opus before, but I think Tux could take him.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
Harry Knowles, editor in chief of the Web's Ain't It Cool News and an avid fan of newspaper comics. "I think there's been three great strips that have gone away over the last five, 10 years that I really miss: 'Bloom County,' 'Calvin and Hobbes' and 'The Far Side.' Those are the three strips that never should have ceased."
These strips ended when they should have... ie... when their authors no longer felt inspired to write them and were growing bored with their work.
Was Calvin and Hobbes one of the best comics ever? Yes. Was is miserably repetitive near the end and growing more and more unfunny? Sadly, yes. If it had continued on, it would have been nothing but a constant rehash of the same jokes and concepts with no new content... like Peanuts and Garfield both became.
Outland was pretty miserable compared to Bloom County. I have high hopes for 'Opus', but I'm also a realist. It may be just as poor as Outland was, IMHO.
Oh, Mr. Breathed. Two words, 'Web Comic'.
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There have usually been a handful of decent comics, with a load of "dogs" as filler. Consider:
Beetle Bailey...
Marmaduke...
Hi & Lois...
Mary Worth...
etc.
These sucked when I was 5 years old, they suck now, and they will still be sucking when I turn 80.
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Why, oh why, is Harry Knowles commenting on this? Are they just getting anybody who has a semi-popular POS website to comment in in the Washington Post now? Can I get in on the action too? I can create a fake news site, drum up some quotes and get quoted in the Post - woohoo.
May I recommend Frazz to all Calvin & Hobbes fans? In my opinion, it has similar humor, wisdom and cuteness. It's my current favorite.
Check out The Boondocks if your paper has it, or find it online.
It even had DMCA bashing in it at one point!
And it cunningly anticipated Berke Breathed's return.
Am I the only one who feels there's a little Bloom County inside of the Boondocks ? I think they both have the same political outlook, only instead of a penguin, the Boondocks has a militant black teenager.
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
It is about an inner city black family that moves to the suburbs. It is beautifully drawn and has a sharp, left leaning wit
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Bloom County turned out to be just a bunch of tossed-out references to '80's pop culture.
Hmm, let's see here
- A Republican in office: check
- Rampant corporate and investment corruption: check
- A proposed missile-defense system: check
- John Poindexter-concieved schemes being considered/implemented by the government: check
Sounds like 80's culture (and politics) is back "in" these days.-jdm
Breathed retired because he ran out of things to say and rather than let the strip turn into Garfield or the Peanuts, he did the right thing. Recently he said in a interview that he didn't think that the strips had lasting value because many of the things that they poked fun at are no longer relavant to todays readers. For the same reason I think the time is right for him to return, considering how much of has changed, I'm sure that he will have a lot of fun to poke at things like reality television and George the moron Bush.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
Don't forget Calvin & Hobbes. In the regular, reality-based strips, the artistic skill was subtle (but still very evident). However, in the ones where Calvin daydreams about dinosaurs, Spaceman Spiff, etc, it really shows. And then if you buy the books, and look at the watercolor illustrations he did (to add value to a book full of strips you'd already read in the paper), it's just stunning. Great stuff.
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And then to tie this all together and make it a bit more on topic, here's a quote from The Onion AV Club's interview with Berkeley (at http://www.theonionavclub.com/avclub3728/avfeatur
O: People frequently compare you to Bill Watterson, I think in part because both your strips centered on a sense of whimsy, but also because your work left them with few comparisons. Do you think there's a valid parallel?
BB: No. He was the real thing. I was just scampering nude through the aisles before anybody could kick me out. Garry Trudeau was our greatest satirist in the second half of the century. Crazy ol' Bill Watterson created the purest comic strip, after Peanuts, probably. Or before Peanuts became a shadow. Bless him for quitting at the top. It's not easy.
As I recall, Bloom County started off with a rich cast of characters all centered around the seemingly normal world of a Boarding House. With the cynical young reporter Milo in charge, along with his war-mongering grandfather, the intelligent and supportive Cutter John, Steve Dalls, each was caracature of someone you might know in real life... Just as Bloom County itself was a small town representation of America itself. Back when Opus was merely the pet of wimpy Binkley, who in wanting to impress his father, bought it thinking he was a German Shepherd. Back when Opus was silent, and even resembled a penguine at one point, only uttering the occasional phrase usually having to do with herrings or walruses. As the strip progressed and characters and situations became more and more wild, the original premise was still there. It was still about characters from a small town dealing with current events, politics, science, religion, and pop culture in America. But by the time Bloom County morphed into Outland, at least in my opinion, the environment became too abstract, and the realism of having characters from a small town being thrust into strange and humorous adventures was not there anymore. Outland was based in a universe I couldn't relate to, resembling the 3D land Homer Simpson found himself in while hiding from Patty and Selma one Halloween. I am hoping another rehash of Outland will not be the basis of the new strip. Breathed's comic timing borders on genius, and the new strip needs a deceptively normal setting which made Bloom County and American culture seem all the more strange and twisted and fun.
Berke Breathed is at best a competent artist, though I'll give him points for having his own style.
As for Doonesbury, Trudeau hasn't drawn the strip in years (probably more than a decade). He hires assistants to draw in his style, which is why the strip is so bland.
Artistically, neither of them are any great shakes. They get the job done, that's about it.
Now Bill Watterston, OTOH, can freaking DRAW. When he would cut loose and do a full-page Sunday spread, it was amazing. Frank Cho (Liberty Meadows) is another amazing artist who's still working, though his writing is kind of ordinary. To say nothing of the long-time greats, like Hal Foster (Prince Valiant) or Alex Toth (Flash Gordon).
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
From where I stand -- they just haven't held up. There are taped-up Far Side cartoons that I've passed in the hallway every day for years that I still laugh at. Far Side collections, Calvin & Hobbes, old Dilberts all still make me laugh. Bloom County turned out to be just a bunch of tossed-out references to '80's pop culture. 20 years later, it's as dated and forced as, say, brand new Doonesbury strips.
Well, sure, but that's hardly fair. Calvin Hobbes was supposed to be timeless-- it was about childhood. Far Side was supposed to be timeless-- it was so bizarre that no frame of reference was required.
But Bloom County's humour was tied into the world at the time-- not just current events, but the general North American attitude about the world. That's why it worked. That's what set it apart from comics like Family Circus or Marmaduke that can rerun strips from thirty years ago without anyone noticing.
Some of the jokes in Bloom County won't hold up well now, sure. But try watching the Simpsons in 20 years and see how much of the humor holds up.