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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."
Remember, this is a man whose abrupt departure in '87 gave heart attacks to the comic page editors (if such things exist) of 1,300 papers... and a man who could command a Sunday-only strip several years ago that, IIRC, took up about 1/3 of a page.
Considering the dismal state of printed-page comics today, I'm not surprised that many would leap at the chance to put a Sure Thing back in, even at that space-cost. Breathed's bargaining from strength and he knows it.
AHHHHHHH! I'm burning with goodness again!
- Reakk, Sluggy Freelance
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.
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
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.
Keep in mind-
1) Bloom County was WILDLY popular, and I'm sure that a lot of people will pick it up again, unthinking
2) Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes) pulled it off quite well, and he didn't loose too many papers when he went to half-page
3) Brethead says in the article that he missed having a public voice. He's not a quiet kind of guy, and I'm sure that he will get himself in a winder distribution than just a few papers
4) He's got a Bloom County website, and since he IS trying to reach a larger audience, I'll bet the strip will be online as well. I don't think he's doing this for money. He MUST have cleaned up in the eighties.
SHOOT THE #$^#@ LAWYERS! MORE SKIN ON HBO! L.H. PUTGRASS SIGNING OFF AND HEADING FOR THE TUB!
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