This is the first Outland collection, and Berkeley Breathed writes in the introduction:"I'm proud of the 'toons in this book. I had more fun drawing many of these than usual. As in Bloom County usual. Look at the earlier Outlands reproduced here. You can see me playing, experimenting, even doodling, looking for unexplored nooks and creative crannies. But when I look at these myself, I smile because I know that like the wild caribou, I was doomed to return to familiar territory. Outland is, of course, Bloom County without the continuing narrative that a daily appearance allows. But Bloom County was never about children or cats or penguins. It was about a loopy perspective - my dubious legacy to this world, and in plentiful evidence within this volume. Enjoy. I have. But no more than finally getting to compare myself to a wild caribou."
After years of creating the wildly popular and successful 'toon "Bloom County" Berke Breathed scaled back the strip to a Sunday-only offering called "Outland". During the same time he was beginning his work on his wonderfully written and illustrated children's books.
In Bloom County we were offered characters that grew familiar, even in their various deficiencies. The strips were episodic, frequently thoughtful and almost always hilarious. At the same time we came to identify with the various characters: Milo Bloom the precocious pre-teen and his paranoid buddy Binkley. Cutter John, the paraplegic Vietnam veteran who led his buddies on role-playing Star Trek adventures. Steve Dallas, the chain-smoking slime-ball lawyer who got his come-uppance over and over, usually as a result of his insensitivity to women. Oliver Wendell Jones, the young computer hacker who caused panic at the Pentagon, on Wall Street and in his school's science class.
Outland doesn't have the same feel as it's not episodic at all. Each Sunday comic "stands alone" - and each one is full of Breathed's inventive artwork and the same brilliantly conceived satire. I don't feel like the story stands still long enough to identify or care as much about the characters, and for that reason Outland isn't as satisfying to me as Bloom County.
Still, there's good stuff here and in addition to revisiting some old friends Breathed gets pokes in on cosmetic surgery, video dating, male bonding and 1-900 numbers.
