In 2009, IDW did humanity a great service: it began printing the entire run of the Bloom County comic strip. Despite its pedigree as one of the 20th century’s finest strips, it had never been collected in its entirety: the original book collections were only selected strips from the previous year. To make matters stranger, even Berkeley Breathed himself didn’t have access to every strip — he didn’t hold on to all of the originals.
It took a while, and a raiding of the microfilm archives from several newspapers, but IDW was able to put together a complete library. Five volumes were published over just as many years, and sold well enough to continue the line with Outland and Opus collections, plus a book full of Berke’s rare early works like his college strip The Academia Waltz.
If you missed the original run, we have good news: it’s coming back (and THIS time, get them — no excuses). They’ll be in paperback form for the first time, which likely means a lower price (they first sold for $39.99 apiece). They’ll mostly be the same books, but will sport new covers, and the first volume will contain a brand-new foreword by Breathed himself.
“To be ironic, we originally published these collections bound beautifully in kiln-dried housecat hide (natural causes), which was an aromatic mistake. I can’t tell everyone how happy I am that they’re now available in nun leather,” says Breathed. It’s important to note he has a habit of lying to interviewers.
The first volume in the Bloom County Library is now open for preorder, and will be released in the fall of 2022. ACK!
I didn’t know people still cared about comic strips. A complete library AND it will be in paperback form? An article dated Feb 2022, says [URL=’https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/bloom-county-tv-series-fox-1235093930/’]Fox Reviving Comic ‘Bloom County’ as Animated TV Series – The Hollywood Reporter[/URL].