12/19/2023 0 Comments Berkeley breathed gesundheit![]() Now, his children’s books are stirring interest in Hollywood, and one of his most successful titles, “ Mars Needs Moms!,” is slated to hit theaters next year in a Robert Zemeckis production starring Seth Green and Joan Cusack. Perhaps, but even the earliest work shows the snap and rhythm of Breathed’s humor and the flow of a natural storyteller. ![]() It’s the perfect medium for people that don’t know what they’re doing.” When asked about the vivid, color-rich art today, he shrugged. I should have worked out all that stuff before I got in the public sphere,” he said. He never aspired to be a cartoonist - “It was an accidental career,” he said with a smirk, “to say the least” - and it pains him a bit to see the rough edges of his early work, which is now seeing the light of day in the five-volume series “ Bloom County: The Complete Library” ( IDW Publishing, $39.99 each, the 285-page Vol. He is a once-in-a-century talent.”īreathed speaks of his own work with far less enthusiasm. “There are people searching for him, reporters, documentary-makers and fans, but he doesn’t want to be found,” Breathed said, sounding like the last member of a dysfunctional tribe. After that, he had no interest in having a beer with me.”īreathed also wishes he could connect with Bill Watterson, the “ Calvin and Hobbes” artist who was Breathed’s fan, friend and rival but who now does everything he can to stay off the grid. I was, what, 21? I didn’t handle it well. “But I earned his spite by doing a lot of things wrong, and then when he called me on it, and did so relatively benignly, I was a smartass. “He came as close to a hero for me as I was going to have in the comics world,” Breathed said. The younger cartoonist, searching for a style, borrowed plenty from “Doonesbury” and then chafed when the elder artist pointed that fact out in public. Then there’s the schism between Breathed and Garry Trudeau, the satirical mind behind “Doonesbury.” The two artists’ work appeared in papers side by side for years, but they have never shaken hands. I would have loved to have been able to call him my friend.” Just a few months ago, I went up and visited with his wife, Jeannie, and I was tearful leaving. It was an opening, and I let the opportunity pass. This was a time when I was a pariah to the comics old guard. “He sent me that as a get-well gift when I broke my back. “The major regret in my cartooning life is I didn’t get to know him,” Breathed said, pointing up to the framed art from a “Peanuts” strip signed by the late Charles Schulz. That led to some indelicate decisions, such as his choice not to follow up on a kind gesture that arrived in the mail one morning not long after Breathed was injured in a 1986 ultra-light plane crash. He was viewed as a lone wolf in the quirky and stodgy community of comic-strip artists, and he didn’t build any bridges by announcing to the world that he had no knowledge of the field’s history, craft or conventions. In the 1980s, Breathed was a sensation fresh from the college campus and, both brash and insecure, he didn’t always handle the spotlight well. I never did an angry strip, but in recent years I saw that sneaking in.” There’s also this bitterness in the public square now that is difficult to avoid. After you have the silence of that room, you get really weary with the screaming it takes today. If you were looking for humorous topical commentary, you would go to the Johnny Carson monologue, ‘ Saturday Night Live’ and ‘ Doonesbury.’ That was it. There was no Web, there was barely any cable TV. “There was a quiet in the room that made being a commentator very exciting. “Not to sound like someone swinging their cane, but in the 1980s there weren’t a thousand other voices screaming to be heard at the same time,” Breathed said of the decade when his “Bloom County” was featured in more than 1,200 newspapers and he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning. But a lavish new collection of his past work, “ Bloom County: The Complete Library,” stirred up some bittersweet reflection as he gave a tour of his home studio. There are other pursuits now: Breathed has written and illustrated an entire shelf of bestselling children’s books, including last month’s “ Flawed Dogs: The Novel,” and he has some promising Hollywood ventures in play. ![]() ![]() “When you’re young, you miss things, you just don’t see them,” said the 52-year-old Breathed, who walked away from comic strips last year because the Digital Age had eroded his newsprint audience and, worse, his artistic vigor and sense of whimsy.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |