Rejoice! Chubby penguin Opus and crazy Bill the Cat are returning! Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Berkeley Breathed revealed on Sunday, July 12, that he is bringing back his critically lauded comic strip, "Bloom County," after 25 years.
“Feels like going home,” the 58-year-old cartoonist captioned a photo he shared on Facebook of a new "Bloom County 2015" panel in the works.
A return after 25 years. Feels like going home.
Posted by Berkeley Breathed on Sunday, July 12, 2015
On Monday, he revealed the finished strip, which features Opus awaking from a 25-year “nap.”
Posted by Berkeley Breathed on Monday, July 13, 2015
Breathed debuted his comic strip, which often took on political topics, in 1980, and ended it in 1989. “Deadlines and dead-tree media took the fun out of a daily craft that was only meant to be fun,” he told The New York Times on Monday about "Bloom County’s" conclusion. The strip, which featured a younger Donald Trump as a character, wrapped up with the mogul — whose brain was transplanted into Bill the Cat’s body — buying out Bloom County and firing the cast of characters.
When a fan noted on Breathed’s Facebook page that “it is only fitting” for "Bloom County" to return as Trump takes the political stage again, the cartoonist replied, “This creator can’t precisely deny that the chap you mention had nothing to do with it.”
Trump, who announced his presidential campaign for the GOP nomination on June 16, once again created controversy and plenty of fodder for late-night comics during his speech, when he called Mexican immigrants “rapists” and accused them of bringing crime and drugs. “And some, I assume, are good people,” he added.
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But it turns out that the businessman isn’t the only reason Breathed is bringing "Bloom County" back. He revealed to the Times that he had planned to revive the strip in 2001, “but the sullied air sucked the oxygen from my kind of whimsy.” He added that the “fake” Iraq War kept the strip dead for another 10 years, but now, the timing feels right. “Silliness suddenly feels safe now. Trump’s merely a sparkling symptom of a renewed national ridiculousness. We’re back, baby,” he told the Times.
Fans used to reading "Bloom County" in their local papers’ comics section can now find the renewed strip on Facebook. “That’s where my old school readers can reach me,” Breathed explained to the Times.
Tell Us: Will you read Bloom County again?
