Berkeley Breathed & Opus

As a teenager, especially a young teenager, I needed ways to escape my everyday life. Not permanently, but I had to believe there was something better than what I was going through.

There were plenty of unhealthy things to escape into, but the healthiest and most fun was Bloom County. Berkeley Breathed created a world within which I wanted to exist. It was a place where people were rarely intentionally unkind and the people with deep character flaws were mostly harmless. I loved that the depth of their daily life was finding ways to have fun and be silly.

My desire to escape into this world lasted well into my twenties. Loved it. As writers, we should all hope to pull readers in so well.

And then, it disappeared. I can understand the need to stop while things feel fresh or shortly after it feels like a drudge, but I missed the regular issuing of the collected Bloom County strips and I still do.

So it's good that Breathed has found the muse yet again.