Berkeley Breathed’s Academia Waltz And Other Profound Transgressions (Bloom County)

If you like the artist's work and fondly remember Bloom County, Outland, and Opus strips, then this is an interesting look at the origins and first publications in his college newspaper and a local Texas paper. These are strips and political cartoons - some of which have aged well, some of which were definitely products of their time.We can see some bleed over with the beginnings of Bloom County, the artist recycles many jokes and even a few characters. Steve Dallas makes his first appearance here, plus the wheelchair bound Cutter John - though here he's called Saigon John. A lot of original art from the artist's files are in this volumes as well, so I would say at least 75 of the 300 pages are filled with repeated art work and strips. So caveat emptor.

I was extremely pleased to get this book and understood that Mr. Breathed had mined these strips for Bloom County, which is fine. This hardcover book is padded, though, with repetition of the rough drafts of many strips. This makes for a decent sized hardcover book to sit alongside the other volumes, but shorter could have been less expensive and would have been a better value. While it is the same basic size- although slightly shorter in height- and format of the other seven hardcover books, the spine is not uniform with the other volumes, which is unfortunate if, like me, you are shelving these together.

In his introduction Berkeley Breathed discusses the collegiate origins of these strips and his career. That they foreshadow "Bloom County" directly is obvious, but what's more interesting is watching his thoughts and style evolve and mature over time. This book contains a few strips that were way ahead of their time: the impact of political correctness (not yet called that) on campus is perfectly illustrated in the strip from July 10, 1978 on p. 18 where people are all looking for reasons to be offended and run off screaming "Life is offensive!...Aaaaahh!!" Likewise, the strip on p. 273 presages much of the social unrest we're currently experiencing, in a strip that I cannot imagine would be permitted today. I point these out not because they're the best strips in the collection (they aren't), but to chart the evolution of thought and how keen an observer of human nature Breathed was forty-something years ago.There are couple of things to note: there's a lot of Texas-centric and then-current political humor in the book, so depending on how familiar you are with the material parts of the book may make more or less sense to you in the fine details. I only have one minor annoyance with the book, and that's that some of the strips are out of chronological order. There may have been a reason that was done, but I think it would have been better if they were."Academia Waltz" is a keen and insightful forerunner to "Bloom County", and if you're a fan, you definitely need this book: it is most definitely treasurish!

This collection is the best way Berkeley Breathed could have capped off the release of all of his other material in this hardback format. It's a wonderful collection that really gives you some insight into the pre-embryonic "Bloom County." Breathed is really trying out a lot of different ideas here, much of which would NEVER have flown in early 80's nationally-syndicated comic pages. We have gay football players, nudity, the f-bomb, sex jokes galore, the f-bomb, and more nudity.The only real holdover that would make his way into "Bloom County" is Steve Dallas. But he's more or less exactly the same character that we all remember. There's also a Cutter John prototype, as well as an animal companion -- this time a hound dog -- who I see as the forerunner to Opus. Some of these strips (clearly the ones Breathed was more fond of) would make their way into "Bloom County" a year or two later, almost completely unchanged. Obviously, a young Breathed wasn't averse to recycling his better ideas.A lot is made of the resemblance to "Doonesbury" -- and Breathed even pokes fun at himself for this in one memorable strip contained in this volume -- but I see a much greater resemblance to Jules Pfeiffer's work here. Most of the strips have a very sketch-like quality to them, but there are some great examples of how detailed Breathed's work could be on some the single-panel cartoons contained here. Additionally, about half of this book is photo-scans of Breathed's original artwork, complete with margin notes, with alternate punch lines. Really great stuff!All in all, if you are into early "Bloom County" or want to get an idea of where many of the ideas for that strip were born, you can't go wrong here. Despite his disclaimer in the intro of this book, there is definitely quality work here.

Drawn when he was a student at the University of Texas, Berkeley Breathed's phenomenal artwork is amply demonstrated here as he developed the characters that were to become justifiably famous in Bloom County (minus Opus though) but UK readers will struggle to understand the terminology and phrases used in the world of US academia with their fraternities and dress codes. It's also damned expensive and a fair number of cartoons are repeated in the second half by scanning the originals and showing them with corrections and notes. Although this shows more of the creative process than we otherwise see.

Collection of early work from the creator of Bloom County. Interesting to see his style starting to evolve. Glad to see he has started doing Bloom County again with the Episode IX: A New Hope out,

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Fascinating look at the beginning of Berke Breathed's cartooning career. Lots of peeks at the sorts of things that would be more finely developed later on in Bloom County, outland and even into Opus. Not to be missed as you very rarely get to see the early work of big artists in cartooning as so much of it tended to be lost over time. Here we have those early sketches, rough drawings and originals to ponder over. A great companion to the Berkley Works book.

strip di un autore di talento agli esordi. In sé non sono soldi buttati, ma se avete già Bloom County di questo potete fare a meno; e si capisce perché l'abbiano pubblicato nello stesso formato ma più "povero" delle altre raccolte. Non sono pentito di averlo preso ma, dopotutto, io sono un fan...