Bloom County: The Complete Digital Library, Vol. 1

Bloom County: The Complete Library #1

by Berkeley Breathed

Specially formatted digital edition! Collecting every strip from December 8, 1980, through December 31, 1981, in chronological order, with a new cover insert by Breathed. Berkeley Breathed’s Bloom County burst onto the American comic scene in December 1980 and it soon became one of the most popular comic strips of all time. The endearing and quirky denizens of the strip included Milo Bloom, Steve Dallas, Michael Binkley, Cutter John, Bill the Cat, and Opus the Penguin. Bloom County was a strip that dealt with many issues relevant to the period. Occasional “Context comments” are added throughout this collection, giving the reader a greater understanding of the time. This is the first time Bloom County has been collected in a digital library. IDW will add more volumes, one year per volume. Each newspaper strip is reproduced in chronological order from first to last. Great effort has been made to ensure the highest production values are achieved.

Genres: Comics, Humor, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Comic Strips, Graphic Novels Comics, Politics

378 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 29, 2009

About the author

Guy Berkeley "Berke" Breathed is an American cartoonist, children's book author/illustrator, director, and screenwriter, best known for Bloom County, a 1980s cartoon-comic strip which 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.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Berkley Breathed's Bloom County first caught my eye in the 80's when he'd do the occasional strip with Cutter John, Opus and several other characters acting out their own versions of scenes from Star Trek. It also caught on around my house the day he published a Sunday strip that included the phrase, "Gag me with a Smurf." It was a staple of my family's conversation for years to come.

It was only as I grew up that I realized there was more to the strip than Trek parodies and cool pop culture references.

Now, the entire run of the strip is being collected into volumes, including many strips that Breathed left out of Bloom County collections during its initial run. This gives fans a chance to watch the development of the strip and its characters. Sprinkled in are commentary notes from Breathed on some of the dated references and his thoughts and feelings about the development of the strip and its characters.

The first volume is a fascinating look at the evolution of the story. (It's interesting to see how long it takes for the strip to introduce Opus and Bill the Cat, two of the strip's most recognizable characters) By the end of volume I, most of the pieces are in place and you can see the strip finding its stride, tone and voice. There are some things that are a bit dated, such as the focus for strips at a time on the royal family. But given the context of the era, they're easily understandable even if they are dated today.

This collection is a fascinating journey inside Bloom County. Well worth reading and enjoying.

[David Edmonds · Rating 5 out of 5]

I faithfully read Berkeley Breathed's strip Bloom County, and the follow-up strips Outland and Opus, every day while it was running. I loved these characters and still do to this day. Breathed's commentary on the events of the day was always a little on the snarky side, but it was always done intelligently. It is clear in these early strips that Breathed is trying to find his voice. There are some characters that you can tell just don't mesh as well with the evolving feel of the strip, and eventually these characters just melt out of existence. It is also fun to see how the characters that did manage to make the cut evolved from their early beginnings. Towards the end of this first volume, which ends in mid 1982, Breathed has clearly found the voice of the strip and his characters and is beginning to hone the comic wit and satire that will eventually make this strip great.

When I heard that they were finally publishing a complete collection of the strips, I was ecstatic. The volume itself is very nicely presented, and the strips look great reprinted. All in all, I believe that there will be five volumes produced altogether, and I'm hoping that these will include the subsequent strips Outland and Opus, as some of these strips have never been reprinted before.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I miss Bloom County.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rocky start to a seminal strip, but one that the author readily admits is rocky in commentary that accompanies this wonderfully packaged volume. Bloom County, like many long-running strips, is barely recognizable in its first few months. The cramped art and lettering make for a strip that doesn't quite gel. But about halfway through this volume things begin to click as Breathed finds his stride. Mainstays like Steve Dallas and Cutter John make their first appearances nearly fully formed and are instantly charming (although an unnamed penguin only shows up in a few strips and promptly disappears--we aren't fully there yet). Jokes begin landing with more frequency, and I found myself surprised to be laughing out loud quite a few times. Being a political strip, some jokes aren't exactly topical anymore, but we've reached the point where they seem less dated than an interesting historical document (footnotes help, reminding you who exactly people like James Watt and Rona Barrett were). One strip setup has Santa Claus saying, "The government fired the striking elves and replaced them with the fired air-traffic controllers." Nevertheless, nothing would really redeem the two weeks spent with the newlywed Charles and Diana, which derail the strip completely for a cavalcade of British stereotypes. It's mercifully brief, though, an episode which the generous reader can overlook. By the end of this volume, I was eager to continue on and was thankful that IDW has given this strip the treatment it deserves.

[Gav451 · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first collection of a classic strip. I love Bloom county and the opportunity arose to buy the whole series on humble bundle and I snapped it up.

This is pre-Opus and shows the author finding his feet but the warmth, charm and wit of the whole series are already clearly in evidence through the book. The little tales are full of joy and the characters are awesome. Milo, Steve, Cutter Bobby and Binkley. All unique and all wonderful.Even the occasional characters shine as they come and go.

If you want some sharply written and wonderfully observed whimsy you could do a lot worse than look here.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully produced, thorough collection of the first two years of 'Bloom County' comic strips. Probably not the best vehicle for encountering BC for the first time, but fascinating for context and background -- if you're like me and remember reading the paperback collections, or even just the Sunday strips that ran in the 1980s (my local paper never carried the dailies, so I only know those from reading collections).

The start's definitely rough as Breathed himself admits in the notes, and some of the humor is dated in a not-so-interesting way (the commentary on the nuclear disarmament movement of the time is still interesting, the obsession with America's obsession with the British Royal family, not so much). But there's a thrill in watching everything come together. I'm eager to see subsequent Library Editions as they get into the golden years of the strip.

My only complaint about the collection is nerdy -- but this IS for comic strip completists. The book is printed with room for footnotes in the margins and while a few of them are devoted to interesting tidbits (Steve Dallas was a real guy he knew in college; Breathed hasn't been contacted or sued which BB can only assume is because the real Steve was killed by a pissed-off girlfriend) they're mostly historical notes on people like Walter Cronkite or Ed Asner. I'll grant you that some of the figures referenced (James Watt, Ed Meese, Al Haig) probably need that info, some of the very basic notes are just distracting. Anyway, I remember reading these as a kid and being thrilled by the mystery of some of the references -- and not even having the Internet to look them up on! So I understand the thought process involved (a book published in 2009 shouldn't really be aimed at geeky 12 year olds in 1987) but it ruins the mystique a little. Though reading these strips did remind me that 'Loose Tails' is the only way I learned that the Falkland Islands war happened, before I took international relations in college.

[Benjamin]

The question was twofold: if one already had the original Little, Brown paperback collections, what would one gain from the Complete Library, and furthermore, do the jokes hold up after all this time? By Breathed's own admission in the footnotes and introduction, the strip doesn't really find its footing until about halfway through the volume. The really wild and zany stuff is yet to come. And yet, the language, the joy of words, and the charm is there from the beginning. And it's a quieter feature, with less outrageous satire, which makes for some of my favourite and most memorable strips.

And there are new strips included, at least one of which made me laugh uproariously. Most of them were just a pleasant surprise -- hey, something new! -- but usually one could see why they hadn't been previously collected. Most interestingly are the number of strips where lines have been changed between other reprints and this collection. In most cases, the previously printed versions are slightly more surreal, more out there. If I were to guess, the IDW edition collects what was in the newspapers, and the L,B edition included alterations that Breathed had made that editors had nixed, and he'd taken the opportunity to reinstate. I miss some of those.

[Jodi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bloom County is the comic strip of my youth and it is just as good now as it was then. In the first volume Berke is getting the hang of his characters. We don't meet Opus, for example, until well into the first volume. I always thought that the first released book of strips was in released order but that isn't the case. This complete digital library is in chronological order and it shows the growth of the artist and the growth of the strip as it started to find its voice. Bloom County remains surprisingly relevant and it was a lot of fun to revisit it.

[Dana Larose · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't remember how much of the early strips I'd read before. It's funny how I expected a lot of the humour to be dated. The references were, but a lot of the jokes would still apply today.

Only 3/5 because Opus doesn't exist yet!

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This comic is just as hilarious today as it was when it launched at the beginning of the Reagan era. Equally astounding is how timely these strips still are; most of them eerily feel like they could have been written today.

[Bill Coffin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a composite review of Bloom County: The Complete Digital Library Vols. 01-09, by IDW.

Amid the many newspaper comic strips out there, some reach a level of success where they kind of transcend the medium and become a social phenomenon unto themselves In the 80s, there were several such strips, of which Bloom County was one of the most noticeable.

Clearly riffing off of Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury, Bloom County tracked the goings on of a small, fictional town by the same name somewhere in Iowa. Featuring recurring characters such as Milo Bloom, Michael Binkley, Steve Dallas, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Opus the Penguin, Bill the Cat, Cutter John, Hodge-Podge, Portnoy, and a host of additional side characters, this daily ran for a full decade as a mirror of - and sometimes guide to - 1980s American politics and pop culture. By 1989, Berkeley Breathed had had enough and ended the strip, moving on to a new Sundays-only strip called Outland, which would go on to feature some of the characters from Bloom County. From there, he would do another strip called Opus, featuring Opus from the previous two strips. But Bloom County is where it all came together, and if you red newspaper comics in the 80s, it was impossible to escape. But was it any good? Or was it the kind of thing where you just accepted its presumed brilliance and didn’t ask any questions?

Thankfully, IDW’s Bloom County: The Complete Digital Library offers a comprehensive collection of the strip, which includes margin notes from Breathed on certain strips where he feels the need to clarify a dated cultural reference, or offer his own thoughts on the strip itself. Most newspaper strips are not meant to be consumed entirely in a marathon reading; they are meant to become part of your background. So when you binge them, they read differently than they do when you consume them 30 seconds at a time, once a day, over 10 years.

That said, this collection, for its thoroughness, ultimately falls short on two fronts. One of them is on IDW. The other is on Breathed.

IDW deserves credit for publishing this, but the format really could use work. Featuring only one daily strip per page, most of these volumes is empty space. Margin notes are short and infrequent, so really, the volumes themselves could have been far shorter, and the series itself packed into half the number of volumes. Given that the folks who are going to buy this are completionists, that’s shearing the sheep awfully close.

But the real problem here is the content. I know, it’s sacrilege to criticize Bloom County. I loved it back in the day but never really asked myself why I stopped reading it halfway through. Now, I know. It’s just not that good. Sure, it did innovate in some areas - like having human and talking-animal characters interacting with each other. But when it’s not ripping off Doonesbury so much it prompts pointed letters from Garry Trudeau (something Breathed seems proud of), it’s trading in a particularly wan and lazy kind of pseudo-editorial humor from the “people are stupid, everything is terrible” camp that confuses name-dropping for insight. It’s all just superficial, equal-opportunity grumpiness that requires little thought from the author and even less from the audience. More than a few times, Breathed notes he was in an altered state of mind when we wrote a particular strip - he doesn’t need to explain himself. It shows. Editorial cartoonists protested when Bloom County won the Pulitzer for editorial cartooning. They were right to do so.

Eventually, the strip devolves into over-baked zaniness that feels like a perpetual first draft of something better. Much of it carries a whiff of desperation, as if it knows it’s not as funny as The Far Side, as insightful as Calvin & Hobbes, or as pointed as Doonesbury. Storylines far outstay their welcome, spinning their wheels for months. There is a recurring strain of misogyny in the humor, the stories, and the characters. And Breathed’s eye-rolling margin notes about which strip he couldn’t do today because of changing social norms makes all of this age that much more poorly. Breathed would go on to say that he retired the strip so it didn’t join the ranks of long-running zombie strips that aren’t funny, just comfortingly familiar. But despite its mammoth popularity at the time, that’s all this strip really was, too.

Breathed had a good run in the 80s. This strip was right for its time. And there are definitely diamonds in here. But if you weren’t there to experience it when it was happening, reading this now will likely leave you wondering what all the fuss was about. Some strips will be funny 100 years from now. Bloom County stopped being funny four or five years before it ended. And honestly, it was just never that hilarious in the first place. Novel, yes. Hilarious? Only if you were a high school boy who hadn’t gone through your Ayn Rand phase yet.

[Alex Sarll]

I'm not sure if it was Bloom County or Opus' spin-off that I've read a bit of before, but that would be imperial phase material, not this opening volume containing the cartoon's first uncertain steps. And they really are uncertain, especially early on: the occasional notes beneath the strips reveal that by the second strip, Breathed was already having to compromise, the replacement of lube with Pepsodent entirely ruining the punchline. Not that he wasn't capable of doing that without censorship, mind; as often as not, three passably amusing panels are let down by the fourth. Sometimes this is because it relies on a topical allusion now entirely lost on me, which will usually be explained in those same notes. This can be useful, even if not quite enough to raise a retroactive laugh, though to some extent it does dent the fun I used to get from reading those old paperback collections of American cartoons and having no clue what half of the references were about (and this, of course, before Google could have told me). Yes, I was an odd child, why do you ask? Though one might query some of the choices for what needs glossing - Bella Abzug, fair enough, but Humphrey Bogart?

Weirdly, though, some of the other news-based material has aged extremely well. I don't just mean the mockery of the Moral Majority, hilarious though that always is, but the royal wedding stuff, which for all that it really can't do the accent ("Now be bloody sensible, luv...we 'ave most of Western civilisation waiting downstairs" says Prince Charles, apparently voiced by Dick Van Dyke after too many Ray Winstone films) ends up a lot closer to the unhappy reality of Charles and Di than most of the gushing nonsense 1981's media were spewing forth. The introduction by some names which mean nothing to me claims a little too much for the cartoon – "It's fair to state that Bloom County may well be the last newspaper comic strip to fully capture the nation's attention" which, whatever one thinks of Scott Adams' subsequent descent into bell-endery, rather ignores an elephantine Dilbert in the room; Breathed, on the other hand, is open about how much he was still finding his way, and in particular his early and slightly embarrassing debt to Doonesbury. All the same, you can see the pieces gradually coming together, the voice and the sensibility with them. Binkley makes his debut, already very sensibly wanting the ball nowhere near him during a game of American football because that's the riskiest spot. New doctor John Cutter rolls in and gets the girl, without the fact that he's in a wheelchair being treated as a big deal by anyone except spurned suitor Steve Dallas, who's already been established as an avatar of what was yet to be called but can still easily be recognised as toxic masculinity; that would probably still be quietly impressive in such a mainstream medium now, never mind forty years ago. But contrary to what the cover might suggest, only the briefest of appearances so far for an as yet unnamed penguin.

penguin

[Christopher Roxby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bloom County has been my favorite comic strip, along with Calvin and Hobbes, since the mid-to-late eighties. This collection is Amazing, and a real walk through my personal history. I WAS Mike Binkley growing up.
I serves to me as a reminder that, unlike today, comics, even politically-aware ones, could and did express disapproval of its opposition without venom or cruelty. Breathed's gentle mockery... Of BOTH political sides... makes me long for a better, more civil discourse.

Unfortunately, I do have a complaint.
This collection purports to contain every single strip, even certain ones that went unpublished at the time, or were edited from later printed volumes. Unfortunately I've already found at least three incomplete storylines from the original collections. It doesn't really detract from the audacity and scope of this project, but it does slightly disappoint in that way.
My appreciation to Berke for (relatively recently) bringing Bloom COunty back to the public.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of Bloom County. Growing up in the 1980s, it was a huge influence in shaping my sense of humor and personality. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that it helped turn me into who I am, even to this day in 2019. (Helped, but by no means was the only influence!)

That being said, this first volume of The Complete Bloom County Library was at times hard to read. From early fall 1980 to about September 1982 it was still really finding its way. I mean, by the end of the book you have Cutter John, Steve Dallas, Opus and Bill the Cat in place. But Oliver Wendell Jones is nowhere to be seen. And who among us can honestly say that they fondly remember Senator Bedfellow, Ash Dashley or Charles Limekiller?

Still, the bones of a great comic strip are in evidence here. I look forward to reading the other volumes in this series later this year. Recommended only for Bloom County completists (like me.)

[S. Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a child of the eighties, the only two comic strips I followed seriously were The Far Side and Bloom County, a fact which probably says more about me than it does this collection of the first two years of Bloom County's run. Going back over these strips from the early days of Berkeley Breathed's artistic output, it is interesting to see the first glimpses of what eventually become Bloom County's overriding themes, and Breathed's occasional notes explaining possibly outdated cultural references and pointing out early glimmers of what was to come are helpful in piecing it all together. Opus doesn't come into the fold until about halfway through this volume, and neither his nose nor Binkley's hair reach the size and shape I became accustomed to before the end of this collection. An excellent blast from the past.

[Davidg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was introduced to Bloom County in the mid 90’s by a friend. The friend left with my wife, leaving me with Opus, Milo, Binkley, Bobbi, Cutter John ….. I think I got the better deal.

I have read this complete series several times, the last a number of years ago, without ever adding them to good reads. Some of the references have dated and the footnotes are needed in some cases. But what strikes me now is that the concerns are still relevant. The 80’s seem more innocent times, politicians seem more corrupt, the dangers greater now than then.

Wonderful to be back in the meadow, with the Starship wheelchair, the arrival of Opus et al. I give only four stars to give me somewhere to go with the subsequent volumes.

[Oron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this was a plan for many years. This first volume, which collects the first year of the comic strip claims, at the forward, that at this early stage the strip was still looking for its direction and rythm, and it clearly shows. However, this collection offer a very nice and enjoyable read, which takes the reader back in time to the early 80's with all the calture and historical references. There are many characters here, which help keeping the strip interesting. The book is full of cliffnotes explaining the references - a very welcome adition.
All in all - a good, fun read. Will keep reading the next volumes.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Y'know, I only heard of this strip about five or six years ago? It's pretty good. The early strips aren't, actually, but once Breathed finds his voice, it's definitely pretty sharp and mostly funny.

I'm glad I borrowed it from the library, though. The topicality grounds much of the humor, and it's not something I'd revisit as often as I'm tempted to revisit, for example, Terry and the Pirates.

[Laura Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stumbled across this in the library. Loved it at the time & still love it! I don't remember the first year or so, I think we started reading it in '81 or '82, so it was fun to fill in the gaps. And reading them in order all at once makes me appreciate it even more, you get the full context. Looking forward to the next one(s).

[Earl Truss · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's good to see these strips again. I remember reading some of these when they were new. Some of the footnotes were helpful and made me finally understand some of them for the first time. At the beginning the drawings are rather primitive but by the end of the book they are more as I remember them.

[Lance Grabmiller · Rating 2 out of 5]

The very beginning of the Bloom County universe. A rough start that really doesn't feel coherent until the final third. Breathed recycles a lot of material from his Academia Waltz days. Opus makes his first appearance about a third of the way in but doesn't become a regular until the final third and Bill the Cat only makes a couple of appearances. Just begins to hint at the later brilliance.

[David Erkale · Rating 5 out of 5]

This heavy book takes the whole comic from the beginning as a college strip to a syndicated one appearing in newspapers nationwide. One of my favourite elements is how there are author notes, either to point out a reference to somebody or elaborate on the strip discussed. I'm lucky this is at my local library, and I suggest you borrow one too! Comes with a built-in bookmark, of course.

[Jerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brings back so many great memories. This was my third favorite comic strip after Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes. But BC offered a very different view of politics, the media, and life in general, dripping with sarcastic wit, and BB took shots at everyone. The rest of the series is on the way!

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lesser Calvin and Hobbes and a greater Doonesbury. Takes a while to hit it's stride before settling in as a pop culture filled political gag strip. Solid but not as great as I've always been led to believe. There's a lot of promise for future volumes though.

[Brian Rogers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Started slow and not knowing what it was going to be, but once the strip hits its stride it's gold. So many strips that hadn't been complied elsewhere!

I hadn't realized how early on Breathed started poking fun at the British Royals.

[Sharon Falduto]

All the early Bloom Counties, with commentary by Mr. Breathed himself, including the fact that many of his early cartoons, which were due on a plane from Iowa City to Washington, D.C., at 10:30 in the morning, were actually inked in flight because he wasn't done with them yet. I miss Opus.

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately Breathed was still getting his sea legs which in later volumes are polished and stable. In this round, he’s feeling his way, and it doesn’t work well. Unfortunately this one should be skipped except for diehard fans. Do the later years.

[Raul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Better than I remembered

It's great to finally catch up on all of the strips I missed as a kid. Further, as an adult now who lived through that era I can better appreciate the social and political commentary provided by Mr. Breathed through his colorful cast of characters.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorite comic strips.

It's interesting to see the genesis of the comic strip. Opus only makes a brief unnamed appearance but you can see where the irreverence began.

[James Swenson · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's interesting to see what "Bloom County" looked like in its first weeks. The strip hasn't quite found its voice in this first volume, but there are some laughs.