It's time for even more examples from the seemingly never-ending pile of unreprinted Bloom County strips. But first: late-breaking news! Someone has come forward with a clipping of the very rare, very lost First Outland Strip!
Gracious thanks to the guy who Emailed this one in. Three things I learned: the otter's full name was "Tim W. Forty," his accent was originally German instead of British (yet he's still sipping tea), and the strip was quite literally tested on Dan Quayle. Hey, it's less inhumane than using bunnies...
Anyway, back to the main point. Today: what was removed from this!
The series' second book covered the entire year of 1983 and had only 96 pages to do it in. This meant a lot of material had to be edited out. Going in chronological order, we'll start with this Sunday strip:
The book opened with a Senator Bedfellow scandal, but skipped the first strip in the sequence. It began with the first one you see, not with the second:
You're looking at the very first Anxiety Closet cartoon! It WAS
in the book, but the strip that followed was not. Ever wondered
why Binkley's dad is still alive after this?
One might wonder if this suggests every experience Binkley ever
had with his closet was a mere product of his imagination. Like
Calvin's tiger, I don't think we're ever supposed to know the
true answer....
Removed from the first Anxiety Closet week.
The previous three cartoons were originally
between the "Run That Baby" and "Bullfrog"
strips.
This one was right before Opus' first stint at the Personals
desk.
This is another one of those strips that was cut
because Bill the Cat spoke a whole lot. Or at least, I hope that
was why. As I've said before, he's funnier when all he can say is
"Ack."
And 1983 wasn't a leap year, so "February 29th" would have been impossible.
Well, this actually passes for an
explanation...Binkley's imagination was powerful enough to turn
his closet into a floodgate for all his anxieties to emerge into
reality. There you have it!
I must be the only guy on Earth who would analyze Bloom County like this.
The one at the top was in the book; the one that continued it
wasn't.
Steve Dallas's "fairy
alter-ego" appeared for a couple weeks, but the first week
wasn't included in the book. In the book, when the fairy Dallas
appears for the first time, Steve says "great, now
what?" A line that makes no sense anymore...
Huh?
In the book reprint, the spelling of her name was corrected to
"Debby."
