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It's funny. Laugh. Media Entertainment

Return Of Bloom County. Sorta 221

Posted by Hemos from the watch-it-from-the-beginning dept.
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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Return Of Bloom County. Sorta More

Return Of Bloom County. Sorta

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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!

  • "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 @09:53AM (#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?

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

    by guacamolefoo ( 577448 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @09:53AM (#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[ ]net ['en.' in gap]> on Monday March 17, 2003 @09:53AM (#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 @09:55AM (#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&jots,org> on Monday March 17, 2003 @10:02AM (#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...

    • Re:How is this a bargain? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You should actually price the complete works before making this statement. They are very expensive used, as they have been out of print. I tried to buy them for our kids, $75 for one paperback...

      • I tried to buy them for our kids, $75 for one paperback...
        Good heavens! Where do you buy your used books?
      • 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

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • You sound like an idiot who can't read what I wrote. Unless I have a laptop and wifi, I can't read bloom county on the pot or in the kitchen, for example, unless I print it out. If I do print it out, 72dpi is likely to be inferior resolution to anything I would get in a printed volume. Unless this company stays in business forever (fat freaking chance), I pay my subscription and oops, they go out of business and I lose access to everything.

        I fail to see how I need to read bloom county at work, and it see


        • I lose access to everything



          Or maybe, just maybe, stay with me now: You save all of the strips and burn them to disc. And then you have them for as long as you want, plus you've paid only $10 to get them.

    • "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

  • Already signed up - Calvin & Hobbes too! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Randar the Lava Liza ( 562063 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @09:57AM (#5528509) Homepage
    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!
    • I'd love to get the complete run of C&H, as there are MANY great strips that never made the collections.

      What I'm wondering is: is there a way to browse the archives somehow once you're a subscriber? Let's say I started in six months rather than today - woudl I be able to access the prior six months of Bloom County? Can you get all the way back to the beginning of Calvin & Hobbes? Or do you just get what they oink out on any given day, starting whenever you subscribe?
      • Yes! The way it works, at least with Calvin & Hobbes, is that they picked some arbitrary date to start running it, and you can go back into the past as far as you'd like. There's a little archive icon under each comic, click on that and you'll get a little calendar, so you can browse back to view other comics. You can't go into the "future" (which is the past in this case, natch) but you can view comics that have already run.

        Kind of like being forced not to skip ahead on those old Far Side off the w
      • Just a quick FYI. You do not need to be a subscriber to get the C&H strips. They've been running for a copule of years now.

  • how to save $10 (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mr2cents ( 323101 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @09:58AM (#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 @10:02AM (#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)

    • Re:Actual cost: $10 (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Jens_UK ( 615572 )
      Or wait and subscribe in 2008 and get them all for $10.

  • bloom county! (Score:2, Funny)

    by mrtroy ( 640746 )
    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 @10:07AM (#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 @10:33AM (#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.
    • I have to agree. I liked Bloom County at the time, but though I have all the books, I never read them anymore. I do pick up and read old Calvin & Hobbes, Dilbert, Foxtrot, etc books, often cover to cover in a sitting, but every time I pick a Bloom County book off the shelf, I read 5 or 10 random pages and put it back. For some reason it doesn't do anything for me anymore.

  • cool stuff (Score:4, Interesting)

    by larry bagina ( 561269 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @10:10AM (#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.

    • Re:cool stuff (Score:2, Informative)

      by LookSharp ( 3864 )
      The moderators have been trolled;

      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.

      This is not true. You can count on one hand how many interviews Berke has given in in the past 7 years. I'm a bit of a fanboy so I can vouch for that. The kid had nothing to do with Urkel, and the Linux remark only solidifies the troll.

      Check out his .sig if you still need proof of trolling.

  • Can I browse it... (Score:5, Funny)

    by John Harrison ( 223649 ) <johnharrison&gmail,com> on Monday March 17, 2003 @10:19AM (#5528649) Homepage Journal
    ...on my Banana 2000?

  • _Academia_ Waltz (Score:3, Informative)

    by Allen Varney ( 449382 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @10:20AM (#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 @10:27AM (#5528677) Homepage
    Let me know when/where you mirror it. I'd like a copy too.
  • Now there's an inspiring character. I remember reading those books as a pre-teen (usually in the "library") thinking, MAN, that guy hooks up with some HOT chicks! (or maybe they were rad back then, can't quite remember)

    Seriously, that guy epitomized cool to me, I wanted to grow up and wear Ray-Bans everywhere and always be hooking up w/ big-breasted women. Fortunately, the 1st part isn't true. Regrettably, the 2nd hasn't happened.

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

    by cjpez ( 148000 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @10:29AM (#5528688) Homepage Journal
    I may go for their "not completely satisfied in seven days?" bit. The image quality is pretty awful . . .

  • Reminds me of my college days... (Score:5, Funny)

    by wazzzup ( 172351 ) <astromacNO@SPAMfastmail.fm> on Monday March 17, 2003 @10:38AM (#5528733)
    ...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?
    • I had Opus for my HD icon (named P. Opus), and the X-17 Stealth Basselope as the wallpaper. Good times.

      Anyone remember the little feet you could get for the original Mac to make it look like the the Banana Jr. 9000?

  • I love that comic!
    Why in gods name did they cancel it?

    • Re:woot! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jridley ( 9305 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @11:12AM (#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 @11:40AM (#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.
  • I think the /. crowd is just mad because opus is cooler than the linux penguin.

    I think 10 dollars is a good price for a year subscription. I am tired of people overcharging for web content. I would like to see buisness models that rely on volume rather than high prices per customer.

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

    by leipold ( 103074 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @11:01AM (#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 @11:09AM (#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 @11:40AM (#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

  • One can be found on his official website. [berkeleybreathed.com]

    And here's the other one [trouble.org] (younger slashdot readers may not know about Reagan's infamous microphone test [quotationspage.com] which probably inspired this strip).

  • Too bad... (Score:5, Funny)

    by 72beetle ( 177347 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @11:59AM (#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

  • But I already have copies of every Bloom County (Score:3, Funny)

    by noewun ( 591275 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @12:05PM (#5529226) Journal
    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.

  • Just how tedious is it to archive (locally) huge quantities of strips like this? I mean, using MyComicsPage, let's say I sign up for a year and wish to archive Calvin & Hobbes on my computer (so's I can view 'em offline). Is this so impractical as to be impossible?

    Also, which comics do they have full archives of? Is it all of them, or just a select few?
  • Shouldn't the logo for this section be a penguin instead of a foot? -Iowa
  • Berke did a toon while in college -- this is where Steve Dallas, among others, first appeared -- called The Academia Waltz [berkeleybreathed.com] . He considers it to be a bit of a misadventure, a sort of "growing pains" thing, I think (though I cannot speak for the man) but DAMN it would be nice to see all of those released.

    THIS IS A HINT, BERKE.

    And while I hesitate to say this, lest the final remnants of the good ones get scooped up, I should mention that Berke gave 2 years worth of original toons to his mom to put up for s [bloomcountystrips.com]
  • Are they going to call the re-release "Berke Breathed Again"?
  • I, like many of BB fans that I know, Have his works in paper format, so I see no reason to spend 10 bucks.

    An interesting experiment would be to but them all on kazaa and see if they still get people to pay the 10 bucks.

    If that last statement bothered you, and you download .mp3s, you are a hyprocrite.

    and no, I won't actually do that.

    I would pay the 10 bucks if it included a week of new strips, including sunday.

    several of artisit who retireed around the same time said they found newspapers too limiting.

  • Talk about ironic, the banner ad on my page as I type this offers a link to "Research Ronald Reagan at the world's largest online library". Fitting with the story...

    Anyhoo, I think it would be cool to have a 20 Questions with Berke sometime soon, to catch up on what he's doing, and press him as to WHY, OH WHY AREN'T YOU STILL A (COMIC) STRIPPER? Even if it isn't a reprise of Bloom County, I would love to see some new work aside from children's books. I think he's one of the most talented cartoonists to

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @02:44PM (#5530500)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

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