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 (20) (Please sign in to comment)
mrblixxx2000 said, 4 months ago
War is natural, peace is artificial.
Paula R. Stiles
said, 4 months ago
I’ve never been able to decide if Binkley actually knows what Portnoy’s up to, and is yanking his chain, or not.
Sisyphos said, 4 months ago
Portnoy’s not evil, he’s just mischievous. Binkley needs to be far more precise in his philosophical musings….
Paula R. Stiles
said, 4 months ago
Well, anaphylaxis is a pretty evil result, mischievous intent or no.
vwdualnomand said, 4 months ago
there are times that one questions faith in humanity that we are all evil, but there are other times, that there is good in people.
specinss said, 4 months ago
Binkley is just sitting in a dandelion dream world haze.
Clotty Peristalt said, 4 months ago
The last two thousand years only?
James
said, 4 months ago
I’m sure he’s lost faith in humanity by now…it’s been over 30 years since Bink said all that (or Breathed drew it).
Omnius said, 4 months ago
Could it be that I’m the only left who has faith in GoComics.com? After all the last two weeks have been mostly a vacuum of nothingness. Thanks for bringing back Bloom County and please keep them coming everyday, some of us can’t kick the BC habit and we need our daily fix.
Teresa said, 4 months ago
@Omnius
I agree with you!
What was with all the “Bill the cat ate the strip!” nonscence from the past 2 weeks?
el_flesh said, 4 months ago
“If you want peace, prepare for War” is still very true. We aren’t all that evolved.
elbeck said, 4 months ago
In college I volunteered to help students write their papers at our campus writing center. One day, a freshman comes in for her appointment, carrying a pile of school texts, along with a bible.
“Uh oh,” I thought to myself, “I already know why she needs help with her paper.”
Throughout most of the session she mentioned nothing about her faith, until we got on the topic of human stupidity (which was only obliquely related to the paper, tho’ i don’t recall what).
“That’s why I don’t believe in evolution,” she said.
“How’s that?” I cautiously asked.
“Because humans have never gotten any smarter,” she said.
I couldn’t think of an counter argument.
Night-Gaunt49 said, 4 months ago
Though human civilization goes back 10,000 years and maybe much further than that.
Night-Gaunt49 said, 4 months ago
@elbeck
Are we speaking generally or individually? And ‘smartness’ in what exactly? Evolution may not cover that unless intelligence is a good trait to have.
Bobzilla said, 4 months ago
@Clotty Peristalt
Cain slew Abel and we been slayin’ ever since.