Binkley's Anxiety Closet

[suzene.insanejournal.com]

Title: Bloom County: Toons for Our Times
Creator: Berkeley Breathed
Availability: Out of Print, but IDW's working on it

I was flipping through some of my old Bloom County collections tonight, and thought I'd upload one of my favorite running gags: Micheal Binkley's Anxiety Closet.

Comments

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

"Ignite my toes, Romeo." Snort.

The thing that a lot of people forget about BLOOM COUNTY is that it was just about the only strip--and I'm including DOONESBURY(the one time it did, it had to make this big huge weeklong deal out of it)--that made any reference to sex or anything related whatsoever, regardless of the somewhat childish ways Breathed("snugglebunnies") had to phrase it for his venue. I'd call it a groundbreaker if anyone had followed him. Breathed really seems a bit of a one-off in that respect.

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

Didn't "For Better or For Worse" stray into this territory, and also was the first to deal with a character being gay?

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

I mean sex itself. I don't think they ever showed the character kissing a boyfriend in FBOW, did they?

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

I don't think so, it was considering daring enough in the US for a comic strip character to actually say he was gay in the first place.

Lynne Johnson discusses the storyline here (http://www.fborfw.com/features/lawrence/). Some interesting comments, if (as in much of FBoFW) it comes across in a slightly... cloying earnest manner.

[arilou_skiff.insanejournal.com]

Huh, might be so in the US...

I mean, we have Nemi and Rocky, and such...

[halloweenjack.insanejournal.com]

Nemi is an exception to a lot of rules. It's the only comic strip that I have in hardcover (two volumes).

[suzene.insanejournal.com]

One of the most interesting things about reading Breathed's side-notes in the new edition is getting a sense for how much he was (completely unintentionally) getting away with on the comics page that no one else had ever tried.