zombies are amok in the newspaper business
Some of you may have seen this Opus comic in the paper on Sunday. (click here if you want to see it larger)
I don't know how many of you know the history of Opus and Berkeley Breathed in general. (He has the best name ever, by the way. ) He started out writing Bloom County in the 80's, and Bloom County was one of the best comics, to me anyway. It was like Doonesbury but much funnier. Not a lot of people seem to know it even though it was nationally syndicated. Anyway, something happened, he got dropped from the paper here for going to far with a joke. I can't remember, it may have been something about Donald Trump. Anyway, he eventually stopped writing Bloom County and started writing Outland. This change scared me, since like all people I fear change, but Outland was actually quite decent as well. (Note: my facts may not be all totally factual, but will do for this post)
Then....for a long, long time, nothing. All of a sudden sometime recently papers started carrying Opus. This announcement was greeted with great joy by myself, until I realized that it wasn't funny anymore. Hardly ever.
Which brings me to this cartoon above. If anyone else is a fan of Bloom County you might recognize the exact same joke from when Opus campaigned for the Meadowcrat party in '88. The dialouge was something more like, "it's the Petersen kid dressed as an iguana!" but it's the same joke.
These facts lead me to two theories.
1. Berkeley Breathed died and his reanimated corpse is being held in suspension by an evil cartoon syndicate and forced to write this new Opus. Of course, since he is dead, his creativity is running at an all time low.
2. Berkeley Breathed died and there is a sophisticated computer producing the new Opus cartoons. They fed all the old Bloom Counties into it and tried to work it like some kind of Burroughs cut up machine. However on this comic the randomizer didn't work and it completely reproduced the same joke.
One of these is true. I mean, have any of you actually seen Berkeley in person lately?
I don't know how many of you know the history of Opus and Berkeley Breathed in general. (He has the best name ever, by the way. ) He started out writing Bloom County in the 80's, and Bloom County was one of the best comics, to me anyway. It was like Doonesbury but much funnier. Not a lot of people seem to know it even though it was nationally syndicated. Anyway, something happened, he got dropped from the paper here for going to far with a joke. I can't remember, it may have been something about Donald Trump. Anyway, he eventually stopped writing Bloom County and started writing Outland. This change scared me, since like all people I fear change, but Outland was actually quite decent as well. (Note: my facts may not be all totally factual, but will do for this post)
Then....for a long, long time, nothing. All of a sudden sometime recently papers started carrying Opus. This announcement was greeted with great joy by myself, until I realized that it wasn't funny anymore. Hardly ever.
Which brings me to this cartoon above. If anyone else is a fan of Bloom County you might recognize the exact same joke from when Opus campaigned for the Meadowcrat party in '88. The dialouge was something more like, "it's the Petersen kid dressed as an iguana!" but it's the same joke.
These facts lead me to two theories.
1. Berkeley Breathed died and his reanimated corpse is being held in suspension by an evil cartoon syndicate and forced to write this new Opus. Of course, since he is dead, his creativity is running at an all time low.
2. Berkeley Breathed died and there is a sophisticated computer producing the new Opus cartoons. They fed all the old Bloom Counties into it and tried to work it like some kind of Burroughs cut up machine. However on this comic the randomizer didn't work and it completely reproduced the same joke.
One of these is true. I mean, have any of you actually seen Berkeley in person lately?
posted by Idoru at 12:53 AM
3 Comments:
Yeah, I noticed that he was ripping hiself off too.
I loved Bloom County, but I suspect that I only like it because I wasn't paying attention back in the 80's. Political humor about people who have long since ceased to be important is pretty swell.
I think I started to dislike him when he began Outland, which was also when I started to be concious. It was also when he dropped Milo Bloom as a character. He is a dried up ladybug of a cartoonist.
On a quasi-related note, isn’t it amazing how a zombie corpse still manages to produce comics funnier than almost anyone else does in the newspaper.
You don't even want to hear my theories on what Rex Morgan MD is being produced by.
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