I’ve been wanting to read the bloom county comic strip because my local paper never ran it and I feel like I’ve missed out. I decided to get one of the anthologies, but according to amazon.com most of the collections are out of print. I’d like to know why. Is it because the strip is a product of it’s time and it’s simply not “timeless”?
:dubious:
You can buy most of them at my local B&N.
my local B&N doesn’t.
Or you can go to this site, sign up, and read them on-line. It’ll probably cost you money, but you’ll get to see them.
I LOVED Bloom County and read it religiously when it was still being written. I even had a stuffed Opus doll. But Bloom County WAS very much “of its time” and if you read them now (especially if you don’t remember much about the 80’s) they might lose a lot of their impact. I haven’t read them in a while, though, so YMMV. It’s probably still worth checking out. There are plenty of times when it is “timeless” in its depiction of human thoughts and behaviour.
Yep. You have to subscribe ($10/yr) to get access to Bloom County. They put out one week’s strips every two days. At that rate, it’ll take about three years to show them all.
Worth every penny.
Barnes and Noble online seems to have a lot of them:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/OopBooks/OopResults.asp?userid=2UPRZHJOLY&keyword=bloom+county
I’ve found that used book stores typically have a lot of the Bloom County books. Sure, they may be dog-eared but they read just the same. Cheaper, too.
Berke Breathed did an interview a while back in the Onion’s “AV Club” - he said that he was letting the books fall out-of-print. Most of it seemed to be because of the reason stated in the OP; he didn’t think the strip was timeless enough to warrant reprinting.
http://avclub.theonion.com/avclub3728/avfeature_3728.html
Either way, grab all you can, check used bookstores, do what you must…it’s great stuff!
Stick with Bloom County, though. Breathed’s subsequent opus (so to speak ;)) is Outland, which was no Bloom County, though it shared quite a few characters. It wasn’t horrible, and it did have its moments (“Offensensitivity!”), but it was most decidedly not just a continuation of Bloom County.
If you’re lucky, you can still find a copy of “Billy and the Boingers Bottleg” with the playable 45 inside (featuring their hit songs “I’m a Boinger” and “U Stink But I Luv U”) Remember when Deathtongue got brought up before the Meese Commision*? ::good times::
“we plugged his tongue into the amp… I guess he wasn’t grounded”
I think “Night of the Mary Kay Commandoes” had an issue of “The Bloom Picayune” inside?
Those freebies were sweet. (I still have my stuffed Opus.)
*This is a god example of how the comic hasn’t aged well. If you don’t remember what the Meese commision was, this just ain’t funny.
Well, it was red-hot funny when the humor was still topical, and there are lots of sequences that still raise a smile, if not a laugh. What’s Breathed doing these days? Anybody know?
E-bay.
You should be able to get the whole collection.
I’m glad I bought mine when I did!! I’m sorry they’re out of print.
I have Opus goes to Rio…with his fancy hat with grapes, banana and an orange. I put a pair of shades on him and have had it forever. They’ll have to pry him out of my dead fingers to get him away from me.
I should have bought that Bill the Cat doll when I saw it. Alas…
One of my favorite strips: the Bill the Cat window toy…the one with the suction cups on his legs and tongue…someone stuck it on the shower door while Opus was in the shower. Opus’ reaction upon seeing it was classic.
sigh I miss Bloom County.
Hehe…my favorite:
When Milo asks Binkley if Adam & Eve had navels. “Well, YOU can just rock me to sleep tonight!”
Outland was different at first, but before too long Opus was introduced, and the strip turned into a successor to Bloom County pretty quickly.
Yes, Diceman, but it was a pale successor. It never really came within shouting distance of the original, even on its best day.
And there were Bloom County characters in Outland from the very beginning. Reagan Ann was introduced in Bloom County.
I have a stuffed “Penguin Lust” doll. 
"Pear Pimples for Hairy Fishnuts!"
Now, THAT’s timeless.
And I have the Boingers floppy 45. (ooh, sounds really dirty. “No, that’d be ‘Billy & the Diddlers’”.)
AH! I forgot about Pear Pimples!
How could I?!
Big Pig Peaches’ workout sequences were the most hilarious things ever. Opus having to carry her to Boo Boo Burger to order greasy ass fast food was priceless.
One of the very early strips, one with the Major, where he was trying to read Snow White and the Seven Dwarves to Milo and one of Milo’s friends will always be in my head. Over their objections to stereotypes, he ends up reading them Pitch Black and the Seven Big Honkies.