Tales Too Ticklish to Tell: Bloom County

Rating:
Summary: Humor and political insight unparalleled
Review: Berke Breathed was one of those rare political cartoonists whose political insight was the same weight as his humor. "Bloom County" was his greatest vehicle. Some other cartoons have great political scope but just don't make you laugh out loud--"Doonesbury" and "Mallard Fillmore", particularly. While others fake political insight, but are very humorous. "Tales Too Ticklish to Tell: Bloom County" is as good as any of the other Bloom County anthologies, but it's the inclusion of a Bloom Picayune that makes this an extra treat, and serves as a reminder that this strip was special for its time. Boy, do I miss it.

Rating:
Summary: Humor and political insight unparalleled
Review: Berke Breathed was one of those rare political cartoonists whose political insight was the same weight as his humor. "Bloom County" was his greatest vehicle. Some other cartoons have great political scope but just don't make you laugh out loud--"Doonesbury" and "Mallard Fillmore", particularly. While others fake political insight, but are very humorous. "Tales Too Ticklish to Tell: Bloom County" is as good as any of the other Bloom County anthologies, but it's the inclusion of a Bloom Picayune that makes this an extra treat, and serves as a reminder that this strip was special for its time. Boy, do I miss it.

Rating:
Summary: Nostalgia so soon?
Review: Bloom County was and still is one of my favorite strip comics ever. It was often topical, referring to presidents, sitcoms, and other Americana of its day. Such subjects, when they appear, give this comic a dated look, almost like watching the Marx Brothers.

Most of the strips, however, are timeless. Opus' personality is as sweet and doofy as ever. Oliver Wendell Jones still gets in trouble, the kind no one has the heart to punish him for. Steve Dallas is still a jerk, the kind of jerk that I still find today. All the rest are still there, too, as good as they ever were.

It's a funny mix, news from the 80s mixed with topics that work today, and it's still a funny strip. If, someohow, you missed the original run of Bloom County in the daily funnies, you'll find that it's never too late to catch up. Enjoy!

//wiredweird

Rating:
Summary: A genius of political humor
Review: Breathed is a great cartoonist in general, but his political satire is without equal. For those of us coming of age politically in the mid- to late-1980s, this book will provide a constant source of laughs, from disgraced televangilists to football strikes to (my all-time favorite) alien dogs that look and act surprisingly like Oliver North. Don't miss!

Rating:
Summary: A genius of political humor
Review: Breathed is a great cartoonist in general, but his political satire is without equal. For those of us coming of age politically in the mid- to late-1980s, this book will provide a constant source of laughs, from disgraced televangilists to football strikes to (my all-time favorite) alien dogs that look and act surprisingly like Oliver North. Don't miss!

Rating:
Summary: The Way We Were, 1987 Edition...
Review: In 1987, America's obsessions included the Iran-Contra affair, the NFL players' strike, the peculiar pecadilloes of televangelists and the effect they had on their "flocks," and the impending election of a new President from a crop of unlikely candidates. It is this America that Berke Breathed took a snapshot of, and is thus preserved for the ages within the pages of this, the sixth collection of Bloom County comic strips (covering late 1986 through virtually all of '87).

The longest and best continuity contained in this book is the one in which the Meadow denizens find themselves completely brainwashed by Bill the Cat's new teleministry. Calling himself "Fundamentally Oral Bill," he manages to convince everyone of the true danger lurking in the shadows of America - "Penguin Lust!" Guess who *that* directly affects... Opus soon finds himself hounded completely out of town, the victim of a misguided religious fervor. The strip then follows Opus as he takes a job as a male stripper for Chippendales, meets up with various celebrities-of-the-moment, and finally ends up aimlessly wandering a vast creative wasteland, completely without direction or a script. ("Boy, do I feel like the Democratic party!", he utters at one point.) Eventually, though, all is forgiven, and he's welcomed back to the Boarding House.

In other developments, Opus actually gets hitched to his girlfriend of a year's standing, Lola Granola... only to knock himself out cold on her face when leaning in for a post-nuptial kiss. (It's his nose, you see.) While unconscious, he envisions what life would be like after twenty years of marriage; it eventually ends with Lola leaving him for a rocket mechanic, and Opus left to raise their 23 test-tube babies. Needless to say, the first word out of his mouth when he comes to: "Annullment." Luckily for him, Lola was having second thoughts of her own, and so that storyline (begun in the previous book) is ended.

Then, there's the strike... The Bloom County Players' Union, taking a stand against the increased size reduction of newspaper comic strips over the years, walks off the job in a direct swipe at the NFL's labor troubles of that year. In retaliation, W.A. Thornhump (President and CEO of Bloom County, Inc.) hires a "scab" replacement cast, with predictable results.

The Iran-Contra hearings are also parodied, as Oliver makes contact with alien raiders who intend to harvest humans for slaves and food ("THEY AIN'T E.T.," scream the newspapers). The federal government retaliates the only way they know how - subponeas. Unfortunately for them, the aliens prove to be extremely telegenic puppy dogs, and public opinion soon overwhelmingly turns in their favor as a result. The representative depicted in these strips may just as well have been named "Lt. Col. Oliver North," because that's exactly who he's supposed to be talking like. Breathed's message is clear - with the right look and the right words, America can and will forgive just about any crime, no matter how heinous. Times really haven't changed all that much...

Also included is the series of strips that made headlines of a sort, when Bill the Cat was fingered in a "Bible-study" scandal with a middle-aged woman originally named "Edith Dreck." Breathed wasn't aware of it at the time, but the word "dreck" is Yiddish for excrement, and his use of the term raised quite a few eyebrows. The spelling was changed in subsequent reprintings (this book included) to "Drock," but the incident provided fuel for many future gags in Bloom County whereby a sensitive reader would become completely irrational over an offensive word on the comics page.

And in the final long continuity reprinted here, Steve Dallas is kidnapped by aliens (different ones this time, though) and put through a process called "Gephardtization" - by which his personality and beliefs are turned around the complete 180 degrees. As a result, the womanizing conservative ex-preppie lawyer emerges from the process as a feminist liberal Jesse Jackson supporter... completely useless as a defense attorney, and not much better as a lover. Although readers made it clear they preferred the old Steve, Breathed would maintain this new version of his oldest character up until just before the end of Bloom County itself in 1989. There was, after all, just as much humor to be mined from the "sensitive male" as there was from the "stereotypical MAN'S MAN."

As a bonus, the book also includes a pull-out section - a copy of the Bloom Picayune, Bloom County's best (and only) daily newspaper.

Highly recommended for scholars of newspaper comics... but then, you probably already knew that.

Rating:
Summary: classic bloom county
Review: This was the first bloom county book I ever read in introduced me to the world of bloom county. Ever since I read this I have wanted all the bloom county I can find. Berke Breathed is a genus and opus rocks

Rating:
Summary: classic bloom county
Review: This was the first bloom county book I ever read in introduced me to the world of bloom county. Ever since I read this I have wanted all the bloom county I can find. Berke Breathed is a genus and opus rocks