"Penguin Dreams and Stranger Things" was the Bloom County book that collected most of the strips produced in.....
.....1984. But not the entirety of 1984. Which means it's time once again to reveal all that was cut!
This collection's strips were purposely arranged out-of-order. Opus' trip to Antarctica (some of which was from December of 1983) is first; this happened in pieces through the course of months but is lumped together in print. In the newspapers, the "Survivalist" sequence is the actual first week of 1984 strips. In the book, that story doesn't appear until page 21.
Jesse Jackson and Walter Mondale were both potential Democratic
presidential ticket-holders for the 1984 election at this point.
Mondale ended up getting the ticket, but enthusiasm for a
President Wally pretty much amounted to what's expressed in this
deleted strip.
I guess some 1984 strips were in "Toons For Our Times," as that's where the Brinkley strip was reprinted. The follow-up with the Cabbage Patch Kid was not. This is funny again now that Katie Couric bombed hosting the CBS Evening News. If Berke's looking for material to recycle (and he usually is), a couple of name changes would make this work in 2007.
It's nice to see Yaz again. Opus' Antarctic trek resumed after this strip, beginning with Opus' suggestion of mooning the Soviet whalers.
Switcheroo! The book-printed version of this has Milo saying "rock" in panel 3 and "leaf" in panel 4. This time, I think the edit was better.
Edit #2: in the book Mr. Poodinski's date is July of '86, one year later. By the time "Penguin Dreams" came out, July of '85 had already passed.
Edit #3: in the book Binkley Senior screams that he'll sell Binkley Junior to the gypsies, not the Arabs. Not sure what the problem was here since both are kind of un-PC.
This message still appears in place of some Sunday strips. I have no idea why the suppliers of these reprints can't access microfilm and find a paper that carried Bloom County at this point. How hard is that? For extra confusion, I'll point out the Oliver strip above is clearly a print from a paper; why only THAT time and not THIS time??
You loyal readers have brought me the first Outland strip; now help me fill the holes they can't. This is the February 26, 1984 strip; others missing are March 2, March 4, March 25, April 1, April 15, April 29, July 1, September 16, September 30, October 14, November 11, and December 2. The power is youuuuurs!
Deleted from the Tess Turbo sequence, and for good reason. If I resorted to a "Where's the beef" joke, I'd want to hide it too.
Another edit. In reprint Opus says "Jellyfish" instead of "Sharks."
Whether the average housewife needed one of those limited 1984 IBMs is debatable, but everyone has to have a computer now.
Deleted from the caucus sequence. As well as this:
According to strips later in the year, Milo had no idea Oliver was about to resurrect Bill through a cloning process. This moment was deleted because, well, Berke decided it never really happened.
The Soviet Union ended up boycotting the 1984 Summer Games...there would be no beating-out of caviar via Jell-O snorfling at all.
That "official comic strip" emblem stayed on the logo box for a few months. It's the kind of thing that sounds like a joke, but in 1996 "Jeopardy" was named the Official Game Show.
Now that's some classic Opus right there.
The name of the boa was corrected to "Muscles" in the reprint. Turns out he DID have one.
Deleted from the Democratic Convention.
It's actually spelled "timpani," and despite the fact that this is intended to look written as quickly as possible, it was still corrected in the book.
From the "Opus as Michael Jackson" series: it's supposed to read "Are you funning with me." The "you" was added in the book.
Some of the clipped strips from 1984 I didn't include, as they are already in the original "lost Bloom County" articles from way back in 2001 that I made with my collection of original newspaper copies. This is not among them, and that's a pity. We're really missing a good joke here in black and white.
Removed from the sequence toward the end of the year when Opus and Milo rescue Bill the Cat from the Rajneeshees. For another deleted strip from this sequence, check here.
This is also in my newspaper clipping collection, but it was trimmed so badly that I might as well run the full strip here.