The Best News EVER! Bloom County Is Back!

My all-time favourite comic strip will always be Bloom County. If you look around my office, you’ll find a near-life sized Opus the Penguin. Sitting next to him is Bill the Cat. On the shelves are dozens of anthologies of Berkeley Breathed’s creations. I still consider it to be one of the most clever and fun comics ever created. I never, ever missed an episode.

Then, the end.  I was crushed when the strip was retired in 1989. Devastated. No more Opus issues with his mom? What about Steve? Did Milo ever grow up? Is Cutter John okay? Did Billy and the Boingers ever reunite?

Yeah, there was the weekend strip called Outland, but it wasn’t the same and I wasn’t overly verklempted when it died in 1995. Opus, a weekend trip, ran from 2003 to 2008, but none of the papers I ever subscribed to carried it. I learned to carry on without Opus and Bill, although their effigies accompanied me in every office I’ve ever inhabited. And everyone once in a while, I’d take one of those anthologies down from the shelf and flip through them. The phrase “hairy fishnuts” still makes me laugh. (Oldtimers might recognize the context of that one.)

But what’s this? A return of Bloom County? And should we be thanking…Donald Trump?

Longtime fans of BC know that Breathed loved to make sport of The Donald, at one point having Trump’s brain transplanted into Bill the Cat. And now that Trump is making a serious run for the presidency, Bloom County appears to be making a return.

Want proof? Here’s an image of Breathed working on something. Look carefully.

And look at this! Today–July 13, 2015–a new Bloom Country strip has appeared on Berekley’s Facebook page!