Penguin Retrospective
Berkeley Breathed's favourite Bloom County/ Outland strips.
He included some of my favourites in there, such as "Pear Pimples for Hairy Fishnuts." And the one where Steve Dallas has his assistant Opus write a letter to Fred "The Cincinnati Strangler" Johnson for late legal fees. (The latter strip is a good model to use when dealing with clients with debits in their accounts.)
While surfing the net today, I came across this interview with Berke Breathed. He explains why he decided to end the strip.
You've said that you're ending "Opus" because you believe "We are about to enter a rather wicked period in our National Discourse," and that it will make keeping the successful tone of the strip impossible. Why do you think that things will get worse -- especially after the acrimony of the past eight years?
We're not a movie. In most aspects, there's no arc to the human story. Only a line heading upward. For nearly everything. In this case, the coarsening of the National Discourse. We aren't returning someday to any sort of golden era of political civility. The line heads heavenward and has been since the Republic started. And with the intersection of two rather dramatic dynamics -- the cable and Web technology allowing All Snark All the Time ... and the political realities of No More Free Lunch in America, it will spike in the coming years like Don Draper's sex life, and I hereby pledge that that's the last pop reference I use.
Aren't dark times exactly when satire is most needed?
It's not so much dark times now, as profane and loud. Satire you'll have, oh dear me, indeedy yes. "Vomitous" and "awash" are two words that come to mind. It used to be that everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. How antediluvian. Rather, everyone will now want a satirical YouTube film with 15 megabytes.
Satire we'll have. Rather, the real dearth in our world will be sweetness, comfort, thoughtfulness and civility. If I could do "Peanuts," that's what I'd be doing. Alas, I've tried. And oh, you get way, way richer.
