An Essential Bloom

Children of the Eighties, rejoice! A long lost perennial is flowering once again.

For those whose minds turn to such things, there was a time when a newspaper's comics section offered greater quality of satire and social commentary than most editorial pages. Oh, sure, the vast majority of comic strips have historically consisted of throwaway talking head characters rehashing the same old puns worn thin by the likes of Barney Google, Beetle Bailey and Family Circus. But, for a brief time in the middle of the self-centered Reagan/Gekko heyday of the 1980s there existed a giddy, nose-thumbing, boundary pushing, and genuinely funny comic strip known as "Bloom County."

The characters residing in Bloom County tumbled gleefully headfirst into topics that had never been properly addressed in the panels of the comics pages. Sex, love, feminism, masculinity, divorce, drugs, physical handicaps, politics, religion, ethnicity, and adolescence were just a handful of the things you could expect to find rearing their ugly heads in Bloom County. And, at the center of it all, stood Opus, the breakout star who took over the show. The comic strip version of Steve Urkel, only better because his frequent appearance didn't make you contemplate life-ending scenarios.

Bloom County offered a safe haven for folks planted firmly in Americana to laugh at the trends and tribulations that barraged us from the extreme ends of the socio-political spectrum. It helped us find humor in uncomfortable situations. It pointed big, furry cartoon fingers at public figures who needed their egos deflated. It allowed us to laugh at the ultra-conservatives, the ultra-liberals, the hyper-patriotic, and the self-righteous. If we were lucky, we might even see something of ourselves to laugh at in the panels of Bloom County.

And then it was gone.

Bloom County vanished shortly before the dawn of the Clinton decade, perhaps rightfully so. The story lines had grown thin, the humor sometimes thinner, and many of the endearing early characters had fallen away. Despite lingering efforts and offshoots that were visually impressive yet too surreal for their own good, Bloom County was to be sealed off in the same time capsule that held my high school and college memories. A product of its age; books to be taken out and shared decades later with my children.

Typical reaction to the news.

In recent years, however, one might have caught glimpses of characters and bits of vague commentary on Facebook that gave slivers of hope of a rebirth, not just of certain beloved characters, but also of the light-hearted, joyful lunacy that inspired Bloom County in the early days. Now, it seems, the end of a long wait has finally come with yesterday's posting on social media of the first new Bloom County comic strip in 25 years. People who didn't see it coming are in disbelief. I, for one, think the timing is perfect. The American people have suffered longer than necessary from a bad case of taking-ourselves-too-seriously-itis.

We are in desperate need of good-natured toilet humor.

We are in desperate need of the lampooning of our unaccomplished celebutant superheros.

We are in desperate need of a softer, more thoughtful approach to the lampooning of contemporary pop culture.

And we might even be in desperate need of a Republican Presidential debate organized by a misogynistic lawyer, moderated by a naive penguin, and covered for the local newspaper's burgeoning website by a 10-year-old sage reporter. Perhaps all 31 candidates should be forced to share lodging at the Bloom County Boarding House.

Whatever is to come from the fanciful world of Bloom County, it'll be nice to catch up with some long lost fictional friends. Here's hoping this time around they stay longer than nine years.




2015 Mark Feggeler

Easily Distracted

This may mean nothing to anybody -- and, really, it shouldn't -- but there are times when I crack... my... self... up! Back in the recesses of my brain are these squishy little bits that find the stupidest things hilariously funny.

I may be walking down the street waiting for the dog to do her business, or putting an envelope in a mailbox, or sitting in my office trying to pay attention to a conference call, when a disassociated thought about nothing important becomes dislodged and tumbles like a boulder onto the rural mountain highway of my consciousness.

I try to ignore it but there it is, huge, demanding my attention, requiring that I deal with it before I can continue on my way.

Just this morning, for instance, my lovely wife explained her anxiety over having to present awards at the elementary school graduation ceremony while a stray thought worked hard to derail my focus. As she read out loud the script provided for the day's exercises, I couldn't help thinking how amusing it might be if she spoke in the voice of the jack-in-the-box from the Island of Misfit Toys. You know, the character from that Rankin & Bass Rudolph Christmas special from 40 years ago? But she should speak that way only when reading the scripted words, changing back to her normal voice when not reading from the script.

Pay attention, I told myself. She read on, unaware of my internal struggle.

Maybe the voice of Mr. Haney from Green Acres would sound funnier. She could walk up in her pretty summer dress, clear her throat and start right in with it. "Good morning, Mr. Douglas, and to all you fine ladies and gentlemen. Now I want to tell you about the greatest award ever handed out at this el-lee-mentary school..."

Pay attention!

Yep. That's how it works. I know I am supposed to be listening, being supportive and telling her she will do a great job (and I do tell her this). I just can't get around those pesky boulders.

My being equal measures assinine and infintile, many times the boulders in my way are nothing more than remembrances of flatulence. Mine, yours, someone else's, someone else's dog's, doesn't matter. Flatulence is funny. If flatulence weren't funny, most lucrative comedic ventures as we know them would not exist. And flatulence as a punch line is more well-regarded than you might think.

Did you know that Mark Twain, in an effort to amuse a friend, once wrote a story about Victorian-age stuffed shirts sitting around a table trying to figure out from which backside the horrible odor wafting across the room emanated? And why did he write this story, giving it the same loving care he gave to all his writings? Because fart jokes are the cornerstone of comedy.

Find someone who has never laughed at flatulence and you will have found a soulless drone.

So, the next time you think I'm paying attention and you suddenly notice a far-off look in my eyes, you can either tell yourself that I am concentrating hard on what you're saying or you can accept the fact I am more likely thinking of the last time you broke wind and tried to pretend it wasn't you by looking around for the source of the noise like an unpainted mime.

If I giggle inappropriately and for no apparent reason, that's a dead giveaway you should consider the latter option to be the case.



ⓒ 2010 Mark Feggeler