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Random musing about comics...
🕑 Added 2019-09-21 10:28:25 +0000 UTCI was just thumbing through a copy of Penguin Dreams and Stranger Things, which is of course one of the old Bloom County books.
I'd had this one years ago, but it had gotten lost to the mists of history years ago. I suspect the Sandinistas ate it. I recently found this copy and one of Happy Trails at the local secondhand book store- the same place I found a 120-year-old "boy's book of inventions".
Anyway, for some reason it occurred to me: Just exactly how many Bloom County strips did Berke Breathed draw during the original run? Well, a quick Google doesn't bring up the answer, but we can estimate. Looking on Wikipedia, we see that BC ran from December 8, 1980, to August 6, 1989. Besides the automatic "holy crap, that was thirty years ago!", we can use a date-calculating website (because of course there are such things) and find out there are 3,195 days, inclusive, in that time period.
Assuming that, as a 7-day-a-week newspaper comic, he drew at least one strip for each and every one of those days, it would be probable there are at least that many BC comics from the original run. Now, TWB has of course been running longer than nine years- point in fact, as of last June, it's been running for seventeen years. ("Holy crap", is right. :) )
But, of course TWB wasn't 7 days a week; it was only three for most of that- only having switched in 2015 to a mere 5 days a week. But, despite this, TWB still has... 3,031 "official" strips. (Over the years there have likely been over a hundred additional fillers that were later taken out.)
So, TWB has already been running almost twice as long as Bloom County ever did, and before this tourney storyline is over, will have more strips. I've also been running longer than The Far Side (15 years) and Calvin & Hobbes (10 years.)
That's all really utterly meaningless, but it still kind of blows my mind a little bit. :)
I am, of course, not the oldest strip, nor do I have the deepest archives (I think both those trophies go to Kevin & Kell, which has been 7-days-a-week since like 1995, which should make for over 9,000 strips, except Holbrook has been doing no less than three concurrent daily strips for most of that time, so his combined archives are probably better than 25,000 strips deep. Speaking of blowing ones' mind a bit. :D )
But it's still kind of amazing that I basically accidentally started and ran a webcomic that has run longer and is close to totalling more than one of The Big Three Undisputed Greats.
Doc.
Comments
Daniel Mountain
The old way of comics is fading out, as books and newspapers become less and less cost-effective. Webcomics let you say more, worry less about deadlines, and bank more of your own profit. Plus you get to live life as Alaska's most insane airsmith while you're at it.
David Howe
I have only had one BC book (it isn't that popular a strip here in the UK) but do note that Humble Bundle have a fair collection here - https://www.humblebundle.com/books/bloom-county-books - which I purchased earlier this month; the BC book I had must have been a compilation, as I recognise some (but not all) the strips there.
CCK
Well, Bloom County had both Precursors (Academia Waltz, in the Daily Texan) and Sequels "Outland", "Opus"... and is currently running again with new strips on the Web/FB. And the previously-mentioned Far Side revival... ...looks like you can't rest just yet, Doc. :P (now, if Watterson just starts drawing again...)
Major Matt Mason
🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺
Joseph Houk
18,031. Of course, Sparky Schulz did have some re-runs* in that span, but he was still drawing all the way to the end. (* - pun not completely intended, btw.)
Scott Anderson
Yup and one of my favourites
Cult of Dust
You also have a high standard of art in your comic. On a tangent, the Far Side website is teasing that it will make a return.
