Famed "Bloom County" and "Opus" comic strip creator Berkeley Breathed kept his audience laughing Saturday at the Long Beach Comic Con as he revealed the origins of some of his most well-known characters, discussed the increasingly conservative attitude of newspapers that led him to stop creating comic strips, and gave a peak into his upcoming books and movies. It was a rare opportunity, as Breathed rarely makes public appearances.
When Breathed created "Bloom County" in 1980, he didn't really know what the cartoon was going to be about, he said. He had a contract with the Washington Post to create a daily national comic strip, but he only later figured out what characters would live within this new comic world. One thing he knew he wanted -- a cartoon animal.
"I was desperate for an animal in the strip," Breathed said Saturday. "I was desperate for a focus in the strip."
Opus, the iconic penguin of "Bloom County" that later went on to have his own comic strip, was inspired from one of Breathed's favorite childhood movies, "Mary Poppins." In that film, there is a scene of dancing cartoon penguins, which led to the creation of Opus. Another Bloom County character, and perhaps my favorite, was Bill the Cat. He was inspired by cartoon cat Garfield, who seemed ubiquitous at the height of his popularity in the early 1980s. Of course, Bill the Cat was the anti-Garfield in every way -- he smoked, drank, womanized, and regularly vomited.
Still, times have changed, Breathed said Saturday. While his editors and the public didn't always get the comic strip's theme, and sometimes Breathed pushed it to far, he admitted, at least he was still able to publish them. His social commentary on the medical industrial complex, politics and cosmetic surgery weren't always well received and were often "greeted with dead silence," he said. He pushed the envelope in another way as wel, he said.
"I was not only mocking public figures, I was mocking other cartoon strips, which was completely forbidden," Breathed said.
He recounted a story of when he placed a picture of then-First Lady Nancy Reagan hanging on an office wall in one comic strip, but which had nothing to do with the story, and he actually received a phone call from President Ronald Reagan telling him how much the president loved it.
Since then, Breathed's experiences with his most recent strip, "Opus," weren't what he had hoped for, he said. Newspapers have become more conservative and less willing to take risks, especially, he learned, when it comes to religion. When a female character from "Opus" became a muslim, Breathed's editors were extremely cautious, he said, even going so far as to tell him not to have a piece of unkempt hair hanging out from under her head scarf because it would reflect badly on muslim women.
Now, Breathed is focusing on writing children's books, which like some of his comic strip story lines, are largely inspired by real life. At Comic Con, the audience got to mean the inspiration for "Mars Needs Moms!", a cartoon story book that is going to be made into an animated movie starring Seth Green and Joan Cusack. That inspiration was Breathed's own son, Milo, which is the name of the main character of the book as well.
The audience also got a glimpse into upcoming movie "Opus: The Last Christmas," with a few test clips that involved Opus hoping for a kiss from Nicole Kidman but battling with a killer whale, and a touching moment involving the death of a mayfly after her short three-day lifespan ends.
Read more about Breathed's bio and his work here.
Above: Berkeley Breathed creator of "Bloom County" made his first comic convention appearance and signed autographs at the Long Beach Comic Con.
Photo by Brittany Murray / Press Telegram
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