Plan B Forum

Bloomers: I had two editors call with congratulations today: my first, Al Leeds, formerly from the Washington Post. He was the chap who found me working at a college bookstore in Austin, Texas in 1980. The other, Scott Dunbier of IDW, who stubbornly refused my rude resistance a few years ago to collecting all of my life's artistic output --all of it-- and putting them into books for dubious posterity. It had escaped me that, 35 years ago today, the first Bloom County appeared in a dozen newspapers. At the time, the strip's creator insisted he would be going back to work at the bookstore by the end of 1981. He did not. He went on to learn to print neatly, among other things. Enjoy, like me, with a wistful sigh. --bb

So glad I saw this post. I was the editor of the Washington Post's employee publication who interviewed you for two hours on the phone,(while one of my roommates whined that she was expecting a call from her boyfriend). Strip #1 made its debut in The Post two days later (and, as I recall, put the Washington Post syndication group on the map).

The story of how this strip was originally conceived is probably worth sharing with the Bloomers who weren't around at the onset--but it's a story better told by you than me.

Guinevere wrote:I recall discussing it at lunch the next day, in the junior high cafeteria...
On a happier note, Bloom County began on that same day...

"BC" and its sequel "Outland" were/are two of my all time favorite comic strips, along with "Doonesbury," and lately, "Pearls Before Swine."