Bill the Cat. Opus. Milo. Steve Dallas. Oliver Wendell Jones (and his dad). Portnoy. Cutter John. And hopefully Lola Granola too.
Burt Likko is the pseudonym of an attorney in Southern California and the managing editor of Ordinary Times. His interests include Constitutional law with a special interest in law relating to the concept of separation of church and state, cooking, good wine, and bad science fiction movies. Follow his sporadic Tweets at @burtlikko, and his Flipboard at Burt Likko.
Excellent. I look forward to more online..hopefully.Report
I think in 2015 we need the Meadowcrat Party more than ever.
L.H. PUTTGRASS SIGNING OFF AND HEADING FOR THE TUB!Report
I am so happy!!Report
My prediction – meh. I loved Bloom County but it was a product of its times: a boomer writing for poltically aware xers during the Reagan Era when newspaper comics were king but Peanuts was no longer existential.
I hope I am proved wrong.Report
I have the same fear.Report
In the “strong evidence that there’s no going back” category: Outland/Opus.
In the “should we dare hope, ’80s edition” category: Mad Max: Fury Road.
Chances are, you’re right. But still…Report
Also, Bloom County is remembered in rosy nostalgia. It was very up-and-down,well below the quality of the real gems of that era Doonesbury, Calvin and Hobbes, and The Far Side.Report
Eh, Far Side is different enough (one-panel jokes, no recurring characters) that I’d call that apples and oranges. Calvin & Hobbes was great, but had nowhere near the thematic, storytelling and character range or scope of Bloom County (and I’d argue that anything that shows great range and scope, is almost by definition going to have its ups and downs).
Doonesbury is unquestionably and obviously the closest comparison, but even it was never so comfortable with outright absurdity and sight gags.
I’d say BC pretty fully deserves its rep. I know I quote it more than any of the other aforementioned strips.Report
BC was one of the greatest comic strips ever, in its early days when it was character-centered. In its later years, though, it was just generic caveman jokes. That’s what ruined it, not Johnny Hart’s religiosity.Report
I always wondered how it was supposed to be funny, At all.
A friend of mine (a humorist himself) insisted the comedy to be entirely racist.Report
I came to BC in the late 90’s in bundled collections so I am considerably more confident that it’ll work for me because I loved them. His sense of humor is very aligned with my own.Report
My local paper didn’t carry Bloom County when I was growing up, so I never fell in love with it the way I did with Calvin and Hobbes. I’m not sure if that means I appreciate it more or less as an adult–reading it in collections, it seems like a lot of fun, but also incredibly topical and therefore dated.
If this can capture anything of what makes BC great while being an artifact of the present, rather than the past, I’ll be happy–and I’ll get the chance to appreciate the strip as it was meant to be appreciated rather than in collected form years later.Report
Thank God I can start wearing my “Don’t Blame Me- I Voted for Bill and Opus” tee-shirt again!Report