Review: Bloom County - The Complete Library, Volume 2 (1982-1984)
I've been working my way through the second volume of the first-ever complete collection of Bloom County and whereas the first seemed haphazardly littered with pop culture footnotes so random they seemed as likely to have been drawn from a hat as placed by any sort of conscious design, this volume is more solidly curated and gives me more of what I really wanted: a glimpse at the mind of Berke Breathed.
I cannot tell you how relieved I am to see the little one-line biographies (mostly) gone from the pages. The material in this book is, I guess, less esoteric, or perhaps the subjects are sufficiently covered in the first volume and the editors assume the reader no longer needs to be told who Olivia Newton-John might be. (I'm guessing not everyone watched Del Shore's Sordid Lives, sure, but everyone has seen Grease by now, haven't they?) This volume seems less interested overall in making me feel older than the Sphinx and more interested in letting me hear what Breathed himself has to say about his work.
The second volume contains many more footnotes that are explicitly Breathed addressing the reader to explain some minor bit of esoterica, reflect on his surprise that a joke still works after two and a half decades or note a prediction gone right or wrong. He also, sometimes, takes the opportunity to comment on the contemporary environment for entertainment, comic strips and media in general. In those moments I confess that I want to reach out to him and beg that he reach the conclusion that seems so obvious to me: if he got out of the game because of the timidity of publishers, girlfriend, that's what web comics are for. At any rate, it's these little flashes of insight into the person who made such a massive impression on my own sense of humor as it developed that really drive me crazy in a good way. The comics are still great, yes, make no mistake, but it's those little times when Breathed whispers in the reader's ear that make me squeal with delight.
This is also a great volume for its introduction of a number of my favorite long-running concepts from the comic. Whereas the first book was largely an illustration of the shell being cracked and peeled away to reveal what Bloom County would become, this volume feels more like what it turned into. If the first book is the ore being smelted then this one is the resultant metal being worked. There are still some narrative dust bunnies around - the occasional third-string character still waiting to disappear and moments of shocking lucidity on the part of Bill the Cat - but all in all, this book is Bloom County and it almost knows that about itself.
As I was buying it the cashier at the comics shop commented that she wanted to read it but was afraid it would be too dated for her to get the jokes. I told her what I said about the first volume, both here and elsewhere: if you remember the zany brainlessness of the Bush administration then you already know all you need to know about the Reagan era. If you love this comic already, this is well worth purchasing even if you, as I do, already own all the previous collections. If you are new to Bloom County, don't be intimidated by the age of the material. It is both highly topical and shockingly resilient.
Klarion
Posted to Comics on 19 July 2010
Other stuff like this: Berkeley Breathed, Bill the Cat, Bloom County, Opus the Penguin
