Bloom County, a 1980s cartoon-comic strip that dealt with socio-political issues as seen through the eyes of highly exaggerated characters (e.g. Bill the Cat and Opus the Penguin) and humorous analogies.
Creator Berkeley Breathed's first regularly published strip, Academia Waltz, appeared in the Daily Texan in 1978. The strip attracted notice from the editors of the Washington Post who recruited him to do a nationally syndicated strip. On December 8, 1980, Bloom County made its debut and featured some of the characters from Academia Waltz, including former frat-boy Steve Dallas and the paraplegic Vietnam War veteran Cutter John.
Bloom County earned Berkeley the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 1987. The strip eventually appeared in over 1,200 newspapers around the world until he retired the daily strip in 1989, stating, "A good comic strip is no more eternal than a ripe melon. The ugly truth is that in most cases, comics age less gracefully than their creators". The comic continues in recirculation on GoComics!
© Berkeley Breathed - All Rights Reserved.
Bliss by Harry Bliss
Bo Nanas by John Kovaleski
Comments (27) (Please sign in to comment)
vwdualnomand said, 6 months ago
gandhi is a good movie. attenborough and kingsley did a magnificent job. and, it is much better than twilight.
Kosaka Jinnai said, 6 months ago
Non-violence was the smartest concept known to man. But nobody truly realises exactly why Gandhi was such a genius.
Firstly, Gandhi shaved his head because he claimed to be in mourning for the soul of India. In India, where my parents come from, when a parent dies, the sons shave their heads. (However, my grandfather made an exception to this rule for my father and uncle before he died.)
Secondly, passive resistance was NOT what Gandhi used. He said it lacked moral fibre. What he used was “Satyagraha”, a new form of non-violent resistance where one willingly submitted to police brutality and prison time, fought cases in court, and refused to co-operate with the government measures like paying taxes and buying foreign goods.
Thirdly, satyagraha has a greater moral angle because it involves speaking directly to a person’s conscience. Satyagraha comes from the Sanskrit ‘satya – truth’ and ágraha – holding on’, so it literally means holding on to the truth. Truth and the strength of the soul was Gandhi’s greatest weapon in his fight against injustice.
Fourthly, Gandhi was entirely against the use of violence because he found it dehumanising and thus worthless and ineffective, and it violated one’s moral integrity by forcing another’s views on him.
Fifthly, satyagraha was no laughing matter. It involved great strength of character and the ability to suffer willingly. Satyagraha was not for everyone. It could be a mass movement or an individual movement. But it required publicity. LOTS of publicity.
Sixthly, satyagraha succeeded because people followed the laws and Gandhi used their own laws against them to expose cracks in their behaviour that went against their laws. That was the only way he could make it work.
In conclusion, Martin Luther King was the first American to use satyagraha when he led his civil rights movement. Satyagraha is a potent tool for social change and it needs to be revived. It is the only way things can really go ahead. Gandhi was centuries ahead of his time when he conceived satyagraha.
The sad thing is, satyagraha will no longer work because nobody believes in anything strongly enough anymore. We really need another Gandhi.
rayannina said, 6 months ago
Milo Bloom must love Hollywood today!
opuscroakus70 said, 6 months ago
@rayannina
Well, they did bring back the Muppets…
artybee said, 6 months ago
Karl – Thank you for putting all that into words. What hope is there for a country where you have to buy a permit to be allowed to picket inside a fence that is blocks away from where anybody interested might see you?
chess18 said, 6 months ago
@Kosaka Jinnai
I never knew that was Gandhi’s idea! I always thought of Natan Sharanksy as one who exemplified the idea. But now I want to know plenty more about Gandhi. So thank you very much for the information!
Sisyphos said, 6 months ago
None of the Bloom County gang seems to appreciate Opus’s more refined taste in cinema. But, then, Opus is a penguin.
Morgil Ravenswing said, 6 months ago
Well, Gandhi also relied on the quality of British rule. One wonders how well his tactics would have worked in most other countries? China? Russia? Japan? Riiiight … he would have been “disappeared” at best.
Kosaka Jinnai said, 6 months ago
@Morgil Ravenswing
In countries like Russia and China, the only man who could have fought for freedom was Che Guevara. He was as smart as Gandhi (I’ve compared both their autobiographies) and also FAR more astute and realistic.
(What’s with the Japan crack?)
el_flesh said, 6 months ago
It’s not a crack. It’s the truth. Try to break the law there and see what happens to you. I read someone who was in prison for 2 years for getting into a fistfight with a cabbie. They told him to wet his hair with the water. He did that and also his face. They stripped him and strapped him into a chair with a hole in the bottom for TWO DAYS because he didn’t do what they told him to.
In a country like that, you’d get disappeared mighty fast.
“ah, so sad, he died of a bad influenza. Too bad.”
person918 said, 6 months ago
did anyone else think it was odd that Gandhi was portrayed by a white actor? isn’t that a little like having a movie about MLK with the lead part played by a white guy in blackface?
skeeterhawk said, 6 months ago
How about David Carradine as Caine in “Kung Fu”? Or am I missing something?
Anyway, nice material on notable people.
Sir Osis of Liver said, 6 months ago
@person918
Ben Kingsley was born Krishna Pandit Bhanji and is of Gujarati descent from his father, if this can help…
james123tipton said, 6 months ago
How about Zorro?
morosemoose said, 6 months ago
@vwdualnomand
Ishtar was better than Twilight.