A PENGUIN’S LONG DAY’SJOURNEY INTO NIGHTAs the 1980s draw to a close, so does BLOOM COUNTY.

This final volume follows Opus, Bill the Cat, Milo, Oliver, Steve Dallas, and the rest of Berkeley Breathed’s quirky and charismatic characters as they make their way—

and at the very peak of their popularity—down the path to comic strip immortality.

“In a country underscored by 15-second celebrity and bizarre political twists,few fictional characters have channeled our collective out-of-control insecurities

better than Opus, the beleaguered, lumpy-billed Everypenguin at the center of Berkeley Breathed's comic parallel universe Bloom County.”

—USA TODAY

NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLERand WINNER OF THE EISNER AWARD

“For those of us who only knew what was going on inthe 1980s thanks to Breathed, it's a time capsule; forfans of hilarious cartooning, it's a treasure trove.”

—National Public Radio

Presenting more than 600 sequential comic strips, many that havenever before been collected, and picking up exactly where Volume

Four left off. Breathed himself provides copious, insightful, and often hysterical commentary along the way.

Signed & Numbered Limited Edition $50.00 idwpublishing.com • libraryofamericancomics.com

BERKELEY BREATHED

BLOOM COUNTY

BERKELEY BREATHED

THE COMPLETE LIBRARYVOLUME FIVE: 1987–1989

LimitedEditionbar code

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10 November 30 -December 2, 1987

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December 3-5, 1987 11

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12 December 6, 1987

Mea culpa. We edited this strip for this collection. It’s sorta breaking one of our own rules about doing this…but then, I broke a much bigger rule when I wrote this originally: I gave Bill a voice.In its newsprint incarnation, Bill states his name here, correcting it from “Bert.” Nice beat, but wholly, shockingly out of character. Letting a joke override staying true to character is where

so many movies go wrong. One of the pleasures of doing these volumes is correcting one’s own history. The Soviets enjoyed this for most of their history, why can’t I?—BB

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Little inside joke here. My photography professorat the University of Texaswas J.B. Colson. Helooked precisely like this.One wonders what hethought upon viewing this.Think about it: One wakesup and sees oneself in thefunny papers belowCharlie Brown. Do youshrug and turn to thesports section or do youwonder if you’re having anLSD flashback?—BB

I hope you had better luckremembering who Peter Holmis/was than I did. He is, forsure, delicious testimony tothe ephemeral nature of fame.He was a national punchlinefor a hiccup worth of time in1987 for suing actress JoanCollins for more money whenshe annulled their marriagewithin seconds after theceremony. Memorable,possibly, only because he wassort of a spearhead for thenow vomitous spillage ofmomentarily famousdickheads that now flowacross our cultural landscape.Not that I’m judging.—BB

December 7-9, 1987 13

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14 December 10-12, 1987

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December 13, 1987 15

In 1986 President Reagan appointed Douglas Ginsburg to the Court of Appeals. In 1987 Ginsburg’s nomination to the Supreme Court was withdrawn after the candidates past marijuana usage became an issue.

I drew Tipper Gore getting high while nude from the waist up on the Sunday morning funny pages. If you aren’t yet convinced that the eighties were the glory days of newspaper cartoons, you’re probably dead or too young to appreciate any of this nonsense.—BB

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16 December 14-16, 1987

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December 17-19, 1987 17

I think I was referringto my old friend BarryManilow here. I mayhave mentioned thatBarry sent me flowersafter I nearly killedmyself in a flyingaccident. We had a complicatedrelationship.—BB

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18 December 20, 1987

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