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Crawl and 1OOO

Opus

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Posts: 11756

(07/24/08 10:30 PM)

The Fuzzy Physicist
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My first big exposure to Bloom County and Opus the Penguin was when I checked "Babylon: 5 Years of Basic Naughtiness" out at the library. So, I guess the name implies it had a lot of strips. It had political content -- it was the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartoons after all -- but I'd estimate 10, maybe 20% was political, and the rest was goofy comic stuff.

I just read the Opus archive on Salon.com, and I'd say 80, maybe 90% of the strips are political. It's also seems more cynical than it used to be.

Crawl and 1OOO

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Posts: 11756

(07/24/08 11:47 PM)

The Fuzzy Physicist
Administrator

Crawl and 1OOO wrote:
but I'd estimate 10, maybe 20% was political, and the rest was goofy comic stuff.

That estimate was way, way off. I'll need to think about why it seemed less political, though.

Because I was a kid and missed the references? Because even if just about every strip had something political, a lot of times it was still in the background, or at least competed with other, goofier stuff instead of being the whole point and joke? Because sometimes it used allegory rather than the real politicians? Like, they had Bill the Cat (with Opus as the VP nominee) run for president, which you could say satirized the real presidential race.

Flying Omelette

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Posts: 17995

(07/30/08 10:54 PM)

But you had to have the BIIIIIG salad!

It's amazing to look through those Bloom County books and see how superior those comics are in every way to most internet comics I've seen.

Think of what you're saying,
You can get it wrong
And still you think that it's all right.
Think of what I'm saying,
We can work it out
And get it straight or say good night.

There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God, I know I'm one

Crawl and 1OOO

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Posts: 11756

(07/31/08 12:03 AM)

The Fuzzy Physicist
Administrator

Go on....

Captain Ladd Spencer

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Posts: 1611

(07/31/08 12:05 AM)

Behold the many
uses of my amazing
BIONIC ARM!

Well, a colonoscopy is probably better than most webcomics.

Stepchan

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Posts: 77

(08/04/08 9:26 PM)

I have abit of Bloom County books myself. When I was younger, I didn't notice the political bits that much either.

I especially loved when Steve started a rock band(Deathtounge which became Billy and the Boingers).

I'm Catsuri, meow!

Flying Omelette

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Posts: 17995

(08/07/08 11:50 PM)

But you had to have the BIIIIIG salad!

Go on....

I've never really been one to say that the artwork is the most important part of a comic, but it certainly helps (in some cases -- I don't mind, for example, that XKCD is done with stick figures because it works for that type of humor). But when I look at a page of Bloom County and there is all that dynamic art (no copy-paste, excellent use of expressions and posture, camera angles, composition, etc.), none of that "made in Photoshop or MS Paint" look that a lot of webcomics have, it's almost like the moment in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy steps out into the Munchkin Land in full color.

Another thing about that comic is that it has iconic settings. The final Bloom County strip shows all of those settings now empty with all of the characters having left, but we recognize them - the hill where Cutter John was always hanging out in his wheelchair, the Anxiety Closet, Opus's TV, and the Dandelion Patch. The only thing close to an iconic setting I can think of in anything recent is "The couch".

Bloom County also has a good variety of characters, each with unique personalities, as opposed to the cookie cutter "two guys, girl, and talking robot/animal thing" of a lot of webcomics.

Most of this is very basic, which is why I was reluctant to post it before. I don't like saying things that are too obvious. Maybe I could elaborate more on specifics later.

I wonder how well those Howard & Nester comics have held up... I remember laughing hysterically at a few of them, but I'm older now, so...

"There's a worse room than this?! How?! Is it on fire?"

da dick

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Posts: 1910

(08/09/08 9:22 PM)

and my bird can sing too!

Well, a colonoscopy is probably better than most webcomics.

no. it's painful and i had trouble pee-ing for hrs because of the drugs.

Crawl and 1OOO

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Posts: 11756

(08/19/08 12:38 AM)

The Fuzzy Physicist
Administrator

Even as a kid of maybe about 10, I immediately saw how much better Bloom County was than the competition in the paper (except that our paper didn't have Bloom County; like I said, I was exposed to it through the books).

The most obvious things were that it was more adult (the political references, etc.) and the drawings were better. Well, the drawings had a rough quality, but they all looked like they were drawn originally for that particular frame. Whereas even if you've never heard of a "model sheet" or "on model" before, you can guess that Garfield (after the first couple of years) uses something like it.

When I saw Bloom County, I had really high hopes for my generation for comics. It seemed so simple. Be original, have memorable characters, have funny jokes and good artwork, and you'd surpass just about everything in the comics page. If only 20 or so people could do those things, we'd force the old, grandfathered comic crap away.

So, here we are, and Garfield and Hi and Lois and Blondie and Family Circus are still around, and what's replaced them?

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