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Return Of Bloom County. Sorta

Posted by Hemos on Mon Mar 17, 2003 08:48 AM
from the watch-it-from-the-beginning dept.
It's funny. Laugh. Media Entertainment
Slartibartfast writes "According to mycomicspage.com, the entirety of Bloom County will be re-published on their site, starting St. Paddy's day, and at a "highly accelerated" rate of one week every two days, until the entire strip is up. In addition -- an extra-special bonus for us Berke Breathed fans -- his college predecessor, Academic Waltz, will also be run. One caveat: it's subscription-based. However, for $10, I'd call it a huge bargain. I'm signing up."
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  • Or anybody that had any interest in current events in the 80's. I hope it aged well.

    (I still remember the critters and Steve D on the wheelchair running from the AT&T deathstar logo on a billboard)

    I think a 'buncha younguns(tm)' will miss out on the political satire.

    Now, do this with Calivn and Hobbes!
    • Strictly IMHO, but I believe that it's probably aged a lot better than other 'classic' comics (doonesbury comes to mind).

      It's more dated than, say, 'peanuts'; but the quality is also better too. (again, IMHO).

      I completely agree, however, that Calvin and Hobbes would be an even better choice.

    • Re:Target demographic: 28-38 (Score:5, Informative)

      by Finni (23475) on Monday March 17 2003, @08:57AM (#5528514)
      Cutter John was in the wheelchair (typically playing the role of Captain Kirk), NOT Steve Dallas, who typically had little patience for that kind of play. Especially when they removed his transmission from his 'vette. . .

    • Re:Target demographic: 28-38 (Score:5, Informative)

      by schon (31600) on Monday March 17 2003, @09:01AM (#5528537) Homepage
      Now, do this with Calivn and Hobbes!

      already done. [ucomics.com] Except that you can view some for free.
      • I've got a CD with every C&H ever on it... All sorted into a nice HTML interface. and you can't have it.
              • You'll note an exception to this is doonesbury, which is hosted on ecomics. He has (almost) every comic from the beginning, only missing a few at first, probably due to having lost them...

                Interesting, that. A bunch of years ago I worked on a CD product called "The Doonesbury Anthology", which was a collection of all the Doonesbury strips, with historical context, games, animations, etc. We (i.e. some poor temp slobs) had to scan in all the damn things, many of which were only available from newspaper


  • "If we get users comfortable with shelling out cash for web content, maybe more of them will buy slashdot subscriptions. Let's run some articles about compelling web content for sale. After people are used to buying the good stuff, maybe they'll subscribe to /."

    </conspiracy>

  • Now that's worth paying for... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TopShelf (92521) on Monday March 17 2003, @08:53AM (#5528485) Homepage Journal
    To get access to an entire run of a comic strip is indeed a value worth paying for. While I'm not much of a fan of this particular strip, I hope this works out - it could serve as a model for other strips as well.

    Speaking of, what other strips would people like to see republished online?

    • I'd like to see Doonesbury republished, except... ooooh... a few years back I figured out how to hack the HTML serving their comics and I download the whole archive and have it on CD.

      Naw, we don't need Doonesbury.
    • Speaking of, what other strips would people like to see republished online?

      Calvin and Hobbes and the Far Side would be the only two anyone should ever need.

    • Historical strips! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Slartibartfast (3395) <ken@jot s . o rg> on Monday March 17 2003, @09:18AM (#5528637) Homepage Journal
      I'd pay -- through the nose -- to see original strips like Blondie (back when it was a social mores shattering strip), Krazy Kat, etc. Comics back in the 30's, during the heyday, etc. These things can be found, piecemeal, in various anthologies. To have 'em all in one place for reference, well... not only would it be a terrific glimpse into Americana, it would be great fun to read, too!

  • Content worth paying for (Score:3, Insightful)

    by guacamolefoo (577448) on Monday March 17 2003, @08:53AM (#5528486) Homepage Journal
    I already have most of the books, plus the floppy little record (which I should convery to mp3 (and ogg)) and I'll still probably sign up for this. Lord, how I miss Steve Dallas now that I've grown up and become him.

    I'll also make sure that I look at all the comics out there that are derivative of Bloom County (almost wrote B.C. there) today. The guy was funny and he obviously had a huge impact otherwise.

    This is just a neat idea and a bargain price. Count me in, baby.

    GF.

  • Best...Comic...Ever.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Kevinv (21462) <kevin@vanhaar e n . net> on Monday March 17 2003, @08:53AM (#5528487) Homepage
    I didn't think MyComics was worth signing up for until this became available. Bloom County rocks! And $10 a year is the right price.

  • How is this a bargain? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by elmegil (12001) on Monday March 17 2003, @08:55AM (#5528499) Homepage Journal
    Go buy the complete works, you can probably even find them used for less than cover price. Then you don't have to be in front of a tube to enjoy them, you aren't at the mercy of their business model, you've got higher resolution print copies, and you don't have to print and bind them yourself if you want all those advantages.

    • You're dead wrong. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Slartibartfast (3395) <ken@jot s . o rg> on Monday March 17 2003, @09:02AM (#5528547) Homepage Journal
      One thing I didn't put in the article -- 'cause I didn't know until today -- was that they are posting _EVERYTHING_. In other words, today is the first time I've seen a new Bloom County strip in 14 years. Phrased yet another way, in case you never noticed, the anthologies were incomplete. This re-posting -is- complete. For example, in the first book, notice that there were no Sunday strips? I'm dying to see my first new Sunday strip tomorrow...
    • Go buy the complete works, you can probably even find them used for less than cover price. Then you don't have to be in front of a tube to enjoy them, you aren't at the mercy of their business model, you've got higher resolution print copies, and you don't have to print and bind them yourself if you want all those advantages.

      You sound like the old people who don't understand e-mail (and I'm 41, so when I say "old" it really means it). They think that they have to print out their e-mail, photos and all,
    • "don't have to be in front of a tube to enjoy them"

      What is wrong with being in front of a tube? Being in front of a tube is one of my favorite places to be! Especially in the dark with only the beloved Trinitron CRT as the sole light source. Heaven.

      "you don't have to print and bind them"

      And just why would you want to do a dumb thing like that? All I ever print is snail mail for those Luddenites in my life without email or an occasional resume.

      Keep it electronic. Never use paper unless you absolutely hav
      • Powell's books, www.powells.com:
        • Loose Tails, $9.95
        • Toons for our Times, $6.95
        • Penguin Dreams, $6.95
        • Bloom County Babylon, $6.50
        • Billy and the Boingers Bootleg, $6.95
        • Tales Too Ticklish to Tell, $5.00
        • Night of the Mary Kay Commandoes, $7.95
        • Happy Trails, $7.95

        They don't appear to have Classics of Western Literature, but that was a collection, it's not entirely clear that it had unique content. And they don't have One Last Little Peek, which definitely does have unique content. But then, you might find that one s

  • I read an article about this last week, and checked out the site. It's a really great idea. Not only can you view these online, but you can setup daily emails with as many of these comics as you'd like. There's also a "collection" feature where you can virtually clip comics to save in as many libraries as you'd like.

    Not only do they have Bloom County and will soon have Outland, but they have Calvin & Hobbes as well! $10/year is a pretty good deal for all these great comics. Color me convinced!

  • how to save $10 (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mr2cents (323101) on Monday March 17 2003, @08:58AM (#5528519)
    However, for $10, I'd call it a huge bargain. I'm signing up.
    If you mention you posted the story on slashdot, you might get it for free.

  • Actual cost: $50 (Score:5, Informative)

    by DeadSea (69598) on Monday March 17 2003, @09:02AM (#5528541) Homepage Journal
    The subscription of $10 is for one year. They say there are 15 years of comics and they will be released at a rate of one week every 2 days. That means that it will take 4.3 years to get through all of them and by the end you will have paid $50.

    Number of comics = (15 Years of comics) * (365 comics / year) = 5475 comics.

    Release rate = (7 Comics / 2 Days) * (365 days / year) = 1277 comics/year.

    Release time = (5475 comics) / (1277 comics/year) = 4.3 years

    Cost = (4.3 years) * ($10 / year) = $50 (assuming you can't pay for part of a year)

      • That all depends when it started in 1995 and when it ended in 1980, the page doesn't say.

        If it started December 31, 1980 and ended January 1, 1995 that is closer to 14 years. In that case, All but a couple comics would fit in a four year subscription.

        If it started early in 1980 and late in 1995, it would be closer to 16 years of comics.

  • This is one of those old-time-memories that you forget about until something like this brings it back. I remember reading this comic every Saturday morning, often thinking "what the f^%#" is going on, but laughing a lot. I really love the cat, how wierd it looks, and the content of the strips was such that if you didn't laugh, there must be a physical reason as to why you cannot laugh...perhaps you are heavily medicated in a coma. Of all days, St. Paddy's day, I have another reason to turn green today.

  • Not sure how it aged (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ianscot (591483) on Monday March 17 2003, @09:07AM (#5528570)
    Bloom County was lumped in with Calvin and Hobbes in my mind: the two early-to-mid-80s comics that got tired after a while and took "sabbaticals." (Calvin and Hobbes wasn't really just "time off," the author quit, but anyway, both of them got tired after maybe five years.)

    I went to find collections for my kids this last year. Calvin and Hobbes is still as good, even better, than I remembered it. But Bloom County, sorry to say, is not just highly topical with 80s politics and all... it's just not quite as fantastically good. Sorry to say it, but there it is. Once you get past the initial "cute Opus" phase it just felt kind of seedy. The kids never got into the big book, either, though they're obsessed with Calvin and Hobbes now.

    • Re:Not sure how it aged (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Squideye (37826) on Monday March 17 2003, @09:33AM (#5528700) Homepage Journal
      They were lumped together in my mind too, but in the "infinitely re-readable" sense. While Calvin and Hobbes has aged somewhat better, you don't have to appreciate *who Ed Meese was* in order to be entertained by Opus' discussion of him. Often the Meadow Critters' understanding of the '80s politics was fairly superficial, which was okay.

      It's a good recapitulation of history, especially to read about Cold-War era fears; "The Iron Giant" didn't lose any points from me for being about the '50s, nor "Cradle Will Rock" about the '30s.

      But when I read Bloom County or Outland today, I find it even more compelling as a discussion of a political era that could shed some light on today's. With similar attitudes in the Bush Administration II and today's media about what it is to be God-Fearing and Rifle-Toting as in the 1980s, Opus and Milo and Binkley and Oliver... and even Bill... give us Berkeley Breathed's perspective as he was living through it, and we can get a sense of just how similar distant times can be.

      I'd say it aged well.

  • cool stuff (Score:4, Interesting)

    by larry bagina (561269) on Monday March 17 2003, @09:10AM (#5528596) Journal
    I did an interview with Berke a couple years ago (for the school's weekly newspaper that no one reads), and bloom county came up, natch.


    I asked him how everyone would have ended up, and he said that Wendell (the nerdy computer geek that Urkel was based on) would have ended up as a Linux kernel developer.


    Cool stuff.

  • ...on my Banana 2000?

  • _Academia_ Waltz (Score:3, Informative)

    by Allen Varney (449382) on Monday March 17 2003, @09:20AM (#5528654) Homepage

    In addition -- an extra-special bonus for us Berke Breathed fans -- his college predecessor, Academic Waltz, will also be run.

    Pedantic correction: Breathed's original strip was called "Academia Waltz," not "Academic." It was a modest little Doonesbury ripoff that ran in THE DAILY TEXAN, the student newspaper of the University of Texas at Austin. A few of the characters later seen in "Bloom County" debuted there, but the strip is said to be of interest for Breathed completists only.

    Then again, don't trust me. I never saw much of interest in "Bloom County" itself. When it won a Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning, that seemed to me a sad moment in the history of the Pulitzer. THE COMICS JOURNAL writer R. Fiore once commented that saying "Bloom County" was funny was like complimenting a shoplifter on her taste in clothes.

  • For $10 bucks... (Score:3, Funny)

    by bahamat (187909) on Monday March 17 2003, @09:27AM (#5528677) Homepage
    Let me know when/where you mirror it. I'd like a copy too.

  • Image quality kind of sucks (Score:4, Informative)

    by cjpez (148000) on Monday March 17 2003, @09:29AM (#5528688) Homepage Journal
    I may go for their "not completely satisfied in seven days?" bit. The image quality is pretty awful . . .
  • ...when all of the drives and network shares for the Macs in the public computer labs were Bloom County characters. Remembering clicking on Portnoy or Opus to run Gopher brings a tear to my eye.

    I remember getting my first Mac my senior year and instantly replacing the default hard drive icon with Bill the Cat's image and renaming it Ack!

    Anybody know where to get Bloom County icons for OS X?

  • Low cost, low quality (Score:4, Informative)

    by leipold (103074) on Monday March 17 2003, @10:01AM (#5528845)
    Sadly, the image quality for the first week's strips is pretty bad, and the images are small. You'd think premium content would be of higher quality...

  • I hope it encourages more like it (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fermion (181285) on Monday March 17 2003, @10:09AM (#5528890) Homepage Journal
    I hope that the services introduces Bloom County to a new generation of readers. The strip had a depth seldom seen on the daily comic page. Well developed deep characters, relatively long story arcs, appropriate political satire, and very good drawings, particularly in the later strips and Outland.

    Some of the specifics may be lost on those who did not live through it, but generalities are always funny. For instance when Rosebud was outed as female, Cutter John and the crew of the Enterpoop, Bill the Cat for president or as a fundamentalist preacher. On more serious sides we have the eternal physiological truths of searching for one's mother or trying to get acceptance from ones father(the later is a theme of King of the Hill).

    I really hope this encourages the development of new strips that are self aware and humble. I think a comic should be more than just a contrived excuse for a punchline.

  • Why great comics blink out or fade to crap... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mossfoot (310128) on Monday March 17 2003, @10:40AM (#5529088) Homepage
    Sometimes what I hate is the pressure on cartoonists to publish something every damn day. No wonder a comic I find funny this year has changed to something very weak the next. Either the author opts for middle of the road cute crap with no edge meant to put a smile on your face (at best), or they keep the edge going as long as they can until they realize there just isn't enough left for them to keep their pace.

    Problem is, these authors, rather than being allowed to publish on a semi-regular basis (ie whenever they want) they have to retire, some say they're taking a break, but they never come back... inertia takes over at that point.

    I wonder if there would still be a Bloom County or Outland if Breathed was allowed to publish once every two weeks or once a month or so during the drier spells... I can only imagine what he would have done now with George W and Gulf War II... lots of material there ;)

    • I wonder if there would still be a Bloom County or Outland if Breathed was allowed to publish once every two weeks or once a month...

      So why can't he do that now? Couldn't BB get a deal with a monthly (Playboy, Popular Science, Ladies' Home Journal, whatever) and do four strips an issue?

      It's too much to hope for Bloom County to return and snuff Cathy out of the dailies, yes?

      Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbes, and The Far Side made the comics page a great place to visit every day. Nothing's come close to

  • Too bad... (Score:5, Funny)

    by 72beetle (177347) on Monday March 17 2003, @10:59AM (#5529195) Homepage
    ...Breathed won't start doing strips again. Can you IMAGINE the midnight revelations Binkley would be having about Michael Jackson these days?

    -72
  • in these, whadayacallem, books. . .

    For those born after me, these are an ancient storage media which consist of pieces of paper, on which images have been permeneantly inscribed, bound together in bundles. They are unique in that they require no electricity, no networking, do not crash, may comfortably be rested on one's lap when one is in the bathroom thinking, and contain absolutely no DRM

    I know, I know - what's the fun in that. You can't even make 'em run Linux.

  • Breathed's complaint about shrinking comics. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Hobart (32767) on Monday March 17 2003, @01:44PM (#5530500) Homepage Journal

    If I recall correctly (and it's mentioned in his recent Onion-AV-club interview [theonion.com]), one of the major factors that made Berke Breathed retire was that comic strips were being shrunk to unreadable sizes. (This is currently really annoying me with Boondocks [ucomics.com], even ONLINE fer Goodness sake!).

    I always wondered, though, what if Berke had followed the path blazed by Dr. Fun [ibiblio.org] , who from day 1 was publishing a 640x480 color image for each panel? Keep each daily strip 480 pixels high, and stipulate that it not be shrunk ... end of problem!

    • Charles Schulz: drawing Peanuts to the end.

      ...long, long after he wrote any new jokes for the poor weathered keychain-adorning tykes.

      Give Breathed and Larson credit for knowing when to hold, when to fold, and going out on top.

      • Peanuts (Score:4, Insightful)

        by John Bayko (632961) on Monday March 17 2003, @11:22AM (#5529395)
        Peanuts was less about humour than about situation. How funny can the "football gag" be the tenth time around? What I enjoyed about it was more about what it meant that Charlie Brown would know full well what was going to happen, but still manage to convince himself that someday it might be different, and if he didn't give it a chance today, it might never happen.

        It never did, and Lucy always put his optimism in perspective with some quip. It might have been funny, but if you chose to think about it further, it made you reflect a bit on your own situation. You go to work/school/look for work every day, even if it doesn't seem like it'll make a difference, because of that same sort of optimism, right?

        Not everyone gets the same thing out of Peanuts, or if they do, it's not always consciously. Sometimes it's kind of like those "Chicken Soup for the Simple Minded Optimist" books - kind of gives you a good feeling even if it doesn't really do much good.

        Of course, you can always spend more effort and get as self-reflective about the Peanuts characters as you want. You can see the same things in Calvin and Hobbes and occasionally in a different way in Bloom County (but not Far Side - that was just plain wacky fun). But it wasn't fundamentally about being funny, so that's the wrong way to judge it.

    • Re:Great! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by JudgeFurious (455868) on Monday March 17 2003, @09:40AM (#5528744)
      The difference is simple. This is priced in a reasonable manner for what it is. Actually it's priced very attractively if you are a fan of the strip. It's compelling.

      Niether music nor software are priced in accordance with their value to the people who are supposed to be doing the buying. The typical CD is immensely overpriced unless you are a fan of that artist and enjoy everything he/she/they record. For most of us it's just not worth the price for a couple of tracks. Microsoft Office for example isn't worth half of what they price it at and a $50 game is just flat out stupid in my opinion.

      Where games are concerned I play the demo sometimes. Other times I'll clone a friends copy to check it out. Legality has nothing to do with it. If it's more convienient to borrow and clone then I go that way.

      If it's worth buying I'll buy it. In the past year or so I've bought 5 or 6 games like that. I still think they're overpriced at $50 a pop but if it's a good game I give them their reward.

      The same thing goes for new music. Old music I don't pay for. In almost every case where I have older music on my hard drive that I've downloaded or borrowed/ripped then I once owned that LP/8-track/Cassette. The way I see it that music has been paid for. I'm not 100% compliant but for the most part I am.

      New music on the other hand is all about not getting ripped off.
        • Well, the way I see this it's not about MY price scheme at all. It's about the "value" of a song undergoing change.

          This is really an interesting thing to watch happen because for the first time in my life I'm watching an industry fighting to keep their product from losing it's value while at the same time a huge number of people are using file sharing to redefine what that product is worth.

          This is so much different than someone stealing cars and paying what they can afford for them. First of all a Do
      • Those who "steal" music clearly believe that $18 a CD, which contains songs the listener is not interested in, is too high a price to pay.

        Make all the arguments you want about obscure/old unattainable bootlegs/etc that you want, HOWEVER : I love file sharing, but there is no doubt in my mind that when I download a music file that I could easily walk into any music shop and pick up right off the shelf of the "Top 20" rack, I am circumventing paying for that song. If you want to sample it, turn on the rad

    • Re:woot! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jridley (9305) on Monday March 17 2003, @10:12AM (#5528909)
      They didn't cancel it. Breathed stopped. I respect people who can stop when they feel their creation has run out of steam. Too many comic strips and other stuff (xanth books, for example) just keep coming as long as the money is flowing, and they turn into sad, embarassing crap.

      • Re:woot! (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Mr. Bad Example (31092) on Monday March 17 2003, @10:40AM (#5529092) Homepage
        I respect people who can stop when they feel their creation has run out of steam.

        I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

        There's something deeply, fundamentally wrong with a universe in which Bloom County, The Far Side, and Calvin and Hobbes are gone, while Beetle Bailey, B.C., and Blondie linger on and on and on.

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