Just last week, I was chatting with author Melissa Crandall when she said something along the lines of “Don’t get too close to your idols, or the gold paint will flake off.” (She was loosely quoting someone, and I’m loosely quoting her. This is so far off from whatever the original quote was that I couldn’t even find the original online. But you get the gist.) Prophetic words were never so true. I had two of my idols disappoint me this week.

Quick, who’s your favorite comedian? You’re taking too long. If a roving reporter were to shove a microphone in my face and ask me this very question, without even having to think about it I’d answer “Bobcat Goldthwait.” I own his HBO specials from the eighties on VHS, and I’ve dragged my sister to seedy comedy bars in Connecticut to see his stand-up act live. I do love me some Bobcat. So when the movie Willow Creek showed up in my Netflix queue, and I saw that Bobcat had directed it, to quote the man himself, I pooped a little.

What could go wrong? A Bigfoot movie directed by my favorite funny guy? I sat through all seventy-seven minutes, even though it felt like four hours. It was not good. I was not amused. There wasn’t even a Bobcat cameo. I debated making Jim Gaffigan my new favorite comedian. But most of all, I was sad. My comedic hero was not perfect.

Okay. I’m an adult. I guess I can live with that. Bobcat: not perfect. This was something I should’ve realized back in 1992 when Shakes the Clown came out. I’d forgiven him for that, right? I still love you, Bobcat.

Then a new week dawned. And with that new week, the ultimate betrayal of all: Berkeley Breathed told people how to do MY job, and he told them how to do it WRONG.

It is difficult for me to muster up passion, but the things I do care about, I’m fanatical about. I’m passionate about my need for coffee in the morning. I’m passionate about good books and writing well. I’m passionate about Bloom County and proper grammar and typography. Ah! See that? See how those last two things were in the same sentence? Then Berkeley Breathed did THIS to me:

Wait—what? Two spaces after a period?

NO, Berke. No.

I do not come on my blog and tell people how to be cartoonists. I am not a cartoonist, and would never dare to offer an opinion on how to do it. I will tell you what I like in a comic strip (up until very recently, Bloom County), but I do not give advice to aspiring cartoonists.

All I ask is that Berke Breathed, who is not a copy editor, pay me the same respect. But no. Instead, Berke has taken this issue to a public forum, having my once-beloved Opus the Penguin run for presidency on the platform of two spaces after a period. So not only is Berke making my job a political thing, he’s making Opus advise people to do the grammatically incorrect thing.

My emotions ran the gamut from betrayal to rage to . . . well, mostly rage. What was Berke thinking? Was he trying to be funny? Because joking about two spaces after a period (and in case I haven’t been clear, never, ever do that) is not funny. My hero had let me down.

I wailed. I wept. I lamented my fallen idol. And then, a few days later, I saw this:

Incorrectly formatted ellipses aside, see how Cozy’s dialogue contains two spaces after a period, and Cutter John’s contains one?

That’s kind of funny.


I suppose if I can forgive Bobcat for Willow Creek, I can forgive you, Berke. But you'd better be joking.

In case you missed the most important news of the 21st century this week, here it is (and I’ll never get tired of saying it, with a wide, weepy grin on my face): Bloom County is back, baby!

Berkeley Breathed is putting ink to paper again, reviving some of my favorite faces from childhood: Opus the Penguin, Milo Bloom, and of course, Bill the Cat. I can’t fully capture the elation—and yes, was that true happiness? That wily emotion that has evaded me most of my adult life?—I felt at this announcement.
No, I can’t fully capture it, but I’m going to try.

Bloom County was the first comic strip I fell utterly, hopelessly in love with. At the tender age of 12ish, I picked up a copy of Loose Tails to read on a train trip to D.C. with my mother. I opened it up, and immediately felt like the lady in this strip:

Go with the penguin, indeed. I was in love. By the time I’d arrived at our great nation’s capitol, I had no interest in visiting the Smithsonian or the Washington Monument. I wanted to find a bookstore, ASAP, to pick up the rest of Breathed’s cartoon compilations. (There were only two others out at that time. There are sixteen now, which is just an observation and should in no way be construed as an admittance that I’m getting old.) My mother, who had been on the same train with both tweenage-me and a toddler sitting behind us who didn’t shut up the entire 13-hour trip, was not amused. Luckily, there was a Waldenbooks on the way to the Lincoln Monument, so things worked out.

I laughed my way through the U.S. Capitol building tour, giggled at the air and space museum, and practiced my "Ack! Thbbft" Bill the Cat impression as we toured the White House. Overall, it was one of my favorite vacations of all time.

The teenage years were as you might expect, but perhaps not as terrible as they could've been: puberty was awful, sure, but I had my beloved Bloom County books to cheer me up after my heart was broken countless times by boys who didn’t know I existed. I reread those books until the pages fell out. I laughed. I laughed more. 

Then, in 1989, the laughter stopped. Berke Breathed announced that he was bringing Bloom County to an end. Ack! I felt much like this:

I’m from Connecticut. We’re used to losing: our crappy hockey team left, G. Fox closed down, our governor went to jail. Twice. Though a shock, I just chalked up the end of the best comic strip ever to life being the cruel, sharp-clawed snaggle-toothed mistress that it is, and struggled to move on in an Opus-less world. It wasn’t pretty, but I had my old strips. That helped.

Though Bloom County had ended, it was still very much a part of my life. I'd read the books so often that I pretty much every strip memorized, and they'd pop into my head at the most unexpected times. For example, every time I shaved my legs, I thought of this:

Every. Single. Time. To this day. If you ever see me on the street and randomly stop me to ask if my legs are shaved, I will undoubtedly answer "halfway" and giggle without thinking twice.

I'll often quote punchlines from Bloom County strips that make people wonder when, exactly, my great escape from the funny farm occurred. Can't quite understand a line in a movie we're watching, or misheard something I just said? "Pear pimples for hairy fishnuts!" I'll shout gleefully. 

Even as I'm typing this, I have an old Opus comic tacked up next to my computer. It’s traveled with me to every freelance editing job I've done:

So when ol’ Berke announced that Bloom County was back, I experienced an emotion I hadn't felt in, oh, twenty five years or so: joy. Hope. Something I’d lost, and desperately missed, had returned. I wanted to jump in a dandelion patch barefoot, strum out my excitement on the electric tongue, or go dancing with a basselope. 

I can’t adequately express the happiness I’m feeling today, so I'll let Berke show you, instead. (I like to imagine I''m gleefully riding on the wheelchair— affectionately known as the Starchair "Enterpoop"—between the rabbit and the bear below.)