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 (24) (Please sign in to comment)
rayannina said, 5 months ago
Best part: the Nastassja Kinski poster on the wall.
Sisyphos said, 5 months ago
@rayannina
You win!
………………………………………………….
Pretty ballsy response, for young Binkley!
GreggW
said, 5 months ago
Is the poster part of the dream, since it disappeared?
GreggW
said, 5 months ago
@rayannina
Nicely observed.
skeeterhawk said, 5 months ago
I’ve seen the picture. It’s from my day, but I don’t pay much attention to the entertainment world. Funny how it disappeared when the door was opened—half of it should be back there. Unless Gregg is right about it being part of the dream.
dbig 1oohh said, 5 months ago
I’ve got her,Bo Derek, all of Charlies Angels and Tanya Tucker posters still. And Farrah’s still the best one with no damage (so far).
vwdualnomand said, 5 months ago
it is true though about soviet maps that they were crap. used in ww2 against the germans and during the cold war. and, until the fall of the communist regime, some towns didn’t exist or had different names. but, yuri was head of the kgb during hungary revolt and the prague spring and going into afghanistan. be falwell’s nightmare yuri, that guy was a paranoid con man.
TaxGeek said, 5 months ago
So now we know where Apple maps came from.
neatslob said, 5 months ago
@TaxGeek
Australian police just issued a warning against using Apple Maps. Apparently it’s gotten several people lost in the middle of a desert and the police had to rescue them.
Craig Linder
said, 5 months ago
@TaxGeek
+1
Craig Linder
said, 5 months ago
@GreggW
It’s a stylistic element that BB used. He’d often place a poster or picture of a person in just one panel of a strip. It was one of the small pleasures of reading the strip.
Vonne Anton said, 5 months ago
Capitalist mortal? Are socialists immortal? Now THAT’s a perk, right there!
kea said, 5 months ago
@rayannina
indeed, indeed.
American1 said, 5 months ago
Yuri…you should’ve taken that left turn at Albuquerque.
Sir Osis of Liver said, 5 months ago
@Vonne Anton
Socialists are mortal, but the top socialist has to be the Evil One himself, who is immortal… at least, that’s how Andropov plans to show up in Falwell’s anxiety closet if he can’t find Reagan’s…