Of the three newsprint comics most often cited as inspirations by webcartoonists, Bloom County has aged the least gracefully. Part of this lies with the content area; Berkeley Breathed would often delve into (at the time) current politics and events that lose much of their humor without the context of what was going on when the comic first ran. Thus I’m watching recent updates over at Anywhere But Here, a comic inspired deeply by Breathed’s works, and worry that Jason Siebels risks walking down the same road to context oblivion.

Of course, there are some significant differences between the two comics. For all that Bloom County pushed the boundaries of print comics, it was lacking in a strong sense of continuity. Instead, Breathed would skip from daisy field to daisy field, picking short storylines at each before being distracted by something anew. Siebels, on the other hand, has a vision… and knows the fate of our Nameless Protagonist. The beginning and ending are mapped out. It’s just the details of the journey that remain apt to change. That, perhaps, is why I see adding U.S. Presidential election humor as starting on a slippery slope.

Looking back at ABH, especially before Siebels rebooted the comic and started fresh from the start (rather than smack-dab in the middle as he initially did in 2005), this is actually something he has done several times, though the one that stands out in my memory is with Hollywood celebrities rather than U.S. politicians. Fortunately the “situational humor” works, whether Siebels inserts Hillary Clinton or creates his own generic politician to fill her shoes. I still wonder though if adding contextual humor for a quick laugh is worth muddying the waters for a deeper and more meaningful story on down the road.

Addendum note: ABH has succumbed to hiatus due to real life concerns (including a pregnancy and needing paying work. Hopefully ABH will return next year, maybe with a buffer to help deal with the occasional hiccups that webcartoonist dads suffer from.