Bloom County and Michael Jackson

Cafe Society
1

I put this in Cafe Society because it is about Bloom County, but heaven knows it is something mundane and pointless that I find the need to share.

I get comics in my e-mail, by subscription, and one of them is Bloom County. We have reached a sequence where Oliver Wendell Jones’s mother, in an effort to find him a good role model, settles on Michael Jackson. She is impressed that he doesn’t drink, smoke, do drugs, or live a promiscuous life, and gets Oliver all the trappings of a little Michael Jackson.

At the time, it was a riff on the lack of black role models outside of entertainment.

Now, it’s quite different. Quite, quite, different. Words fail me when I attempt to define how different.

Plus, there’s the panel where Mrs. Jones covers one entire wall of Oliver’s bedroom with a blow up of Michael’s face. Surreal. That’s really the only word for it.

Thank you for listening. You may now go back to your regularly scheduled threads.

2

That story was great.

3

I vaguely remember that strip but I can’t recall the exact timeline. Was it printed before or after Jackson’s little dust-up with the law back in '93?

I seem to recall there being rumors about Jackson’s deviant sexuality even before then, but that might be selective memory…

4

This set is from April/May of 1984. There may be others, I don’t remember.

5

Bloom County ended it’s run before 1990, so most of their MJ-related strips are from the Thriller/Bad era and are just about him being a good dancer and maybe a little eccentric.

6

A little eccentric? D’ye not remember the series where “Veep” candidate visited MJ, hoping to get his endorsement? The servants dressed as Humpty Dumpty and the Blue Fairy? The attempt to buy Kenya? The “Prince and the Pauper” act?

7

Well, everything’s relative, ya know?

8

Opus: "Michael! Is that you…???
MJ: “Sparkling…yes. I’m sorry.”

9

OK, a lot eccentric. But not creepy. Now, it’s creepy.

10

Oh, Michael, you went and got your nose done again.

11

I used to have a book with some of the Bloom County cartoons (can’t seem to find it right now), and I distinctly remember a strip (series of strips?) where Oliver was starting to imitate Jackson more - including a “DIY cleft chin” using a hatchet, and making his face look whiter by dusting powder on it.

This might have been a little later in Bloom County’s run? - say in the late 80s when Jacko was becoming more Wacko?

12

Ah, yes, the Michael Jackson Caucasian Kit™. I’m sure I have the book it’s in.

13

I think it might have been in Tales Too Ticklish To Tell (cartoons from 1987).