★★★★★ Bloom County slinks back to life

Outland

Berkeley Breathed

I read Outland ten years ago (03-Aug-2022). It stands in my memory as a sneaky revival of Bloom County, which was for ten years (1980-1989) one of the lights of my life. Bloom County gets every available star! Then, after ten years Berkeley Breathed walked away, but not before negotiating an unprecedented deal in which he asked for and won the rights to his own comics. (In the comics world those rights were usually retained by the publishers.)

At that point Bloom County ended, right? Well, not quite. Soon after, Breathed began publishing a Sunday strip, Outland. It was not Bloom County, especially not at first. It wasn't really clear what it was about -- it was just sort of weird. But as the years rolled by old friends from Bloom County crept stealthily into the pages of Outland. It never became Bloom County, but it never became something wholly distinct from Bloom County, either.

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★★★☆☆ Be wary. Be clever. Be good.

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★★☆☆☆ Misery, Canadian style

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