Nobody's saying, but the smart money is that the strips deviated from the Salonesque center-left self-satisfied contrarianism that is the strip's hallmark.
rarango, you have misspelled my name and thus insulted the honor of my family and my culture. I will now slaughter you, your family, and your countrymen until you submit.
Oh, wait. Never mind. For a minute, I forgot I was, you know, sane.
The Onion's AV Club had an interesting interview with Breathed that included some banter about his political views. I don't think he takes politics, or himself, serious enough to have a particular political slant.
I want my "Bloom County" back. I'll even be Breathed's mentee to make it happen, if he'd let me.
NaG: Amen! free not just opus—free Bloom County! Cutter John, Bill the cat, the anxiety monster, the roach and the whole crew. Pat HMV: Thanks! my first fatwa!!!
I knew there was a reason I loved Berkeley Breathed:
Liberal, shmiberal. That should be a new word. Shmiberal: one who is assumed liberal, just because he's a professional whiner in the newspaper. If you'll read the subtext for many of those old strips, you'll find the heart of an old-fashioned Libertarian. And I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners.
-From his interview with The Onion, June 25, 2003, http://www.avclub.com/content/node/22539
rarango, in one of Breathed's Bloom County collections, he had a picture that Watterson drew and sent to him. It was of Breathed, on a motorboat, stuffing his characters into the motor demanding that they produce him more and more royalties from toy sales and the like.
One of the most surreal things about the 1980s is the popularity of Bill the Cat, who was created by Breathed specifically to be the polar opposite of Garfield, intended to be so vile-looking that it would be impossible for Bill to become a plush toy or popular icon of any sort. But I suspect that somewhere in Africa there's a village clothed entirely of left-over Bill the Cat t-shirts.
No Breathed fan can ever forget the citizen's of the Men's couch peering into their fruit of the looms after their tongue lashing by a feminist challenging them to find their personas.
rarango, you have misspelled my name and thus insulted the honor of my family and my culture. I will now slaughter you, your family, and your countrymen until you submit.
Oh, wait. Never mind. For a minute, I forgot I was, you know, sane.
I must be living in an isolation ward. I didn't even realize Berkley Breathed was even doing a comic strip until today. I thought the music died when he killed off Bloom County.
Be nice. Breathed is a Christmas-and-Easter kind of conservative, every couple of years. Heck, even Gary Trudeau poked fun at Ted Kennedy... once.
Salon will run the strips. It's the Wash. Post and other newspapers that won't.
Oh, wait. Never mind. For a minute, I forgot I was, you know, sane.
I want my "Bloom County" back. I'll even be Breathed's mentee to make it happen, if he'd let me.
Mentee, mentee, manatee.
-From his interview with The Onion, June 25, 2003, http://www.avclub.com/content/node/22539
Not funny any more. Creepy, yes. Funny, no.
One of the most surreal things about the 1980s is the popularity of Bill the Cat, who was created by Breathed specifically to be the polar opposite of Garfield, intended to be so vile-looking that it would be impossible for Bill to become a plush toy or popular icon of any sort. But I suspect that somewhere in Africa there's a village clothed entirely of left-over Bill the Cat t-shirts.
Such a thing would never make it into the papers today. Ah, the free-wheeling 80s.
Actually, I've always thought he had "character".
p.s. Africa just got a lot closer
The net effect being that more people will now see his strip than ever would have before. God bless the internets.
huh?
Seems pretty tame compared to what COULD'VE been said