Thirty-Five Years of Bloom

On December 8, 1980, the first-ever Bloom County debuted in newspapers, bringing smiles, penguins and dandelion breaks into the world. Creator Berke Breathed brought his cast to your newspaper daily, then weekly, and then weekly again in different forms over the ensuing decades, recently returning to the fray via a (so far) web-only Bloom County 2015 on his Facebook page and here. The first strip, below:

The entry for Bloom County at Toonopedia notes how it was originally derided as a Doonesbury knockoff, and Breathed himself has been clear how much he admires Doonesbury creator Gary Trudeau.

The drawing styles have some similarities (The last strip of Outland, the successor to Bloom County, highlighted that by showing the newly outed Steve Dallas eloping with Doonesbury's Mark Slackmeyer). But it's hard to read a Doonesbury strip, especially over the last three decades or so, without getting a feeling that part of Trudeau's message is how important Trudeau is. Breathed has rarely taken himself that seriously.

Toonopedia also suggests that the topical nature of Breathed's work makes Bloom County a 1980s period piece. Perhaps, but as the 2015 edition of the comic shows, some things never change. The odious buffoon Donald Trump still offers a target, silliness in the news and culture can still merit mockery and while knowledge may increase exponentially every few years, dumb seems well able to keep up.