Bloom County was a comic strip that ran in newspapers through most of the 1980’s. If you don’t know what those things are, I pity you.
It was both a product of the times and a commentary on them. Our culture was refracted through the lens of a vomiting Garfield parody, an incompetent scoundrel of a lawyer, a boy whose anxieties literally lived in his closet (the purple snorkelwacker!), and a neurotic penguin (actually, puffin) named Opus.
It touched on politics, but it wasn’t an overt political cartoon. What’s more, it had a huge heart and endearing characters. It was a tremendous part of my childhood.
(I still have the promotional Billy and the Boingers record somewhere.)
Berkeley Breathed discontinued the strip in 1989. There would be two spinoffs, Opus and Outland. Both ran limited runs. In 2008, he retired from the business.
Word comes this week that he’s bringing the strip back. Apparently, it has been 25 years:
There’s an interview with Breathed here explaining his motivation for bringing the series back. I still have my theory that he just wants to remind us that Bill the Cat and Miley Cyrus are actually two different people.
I’ve gone back to reread the old strips, and many are still relevant today. Apparently, Donald Trump jokes never get old.