About two years ago, The Onion published an interview with Berkley Breathed, the reclusive author of the comic strips “Bloom County” and “Outland.” Breathed discussed why he retired and why he can’t write cartoons about politics any more.

Onion: Are there still political issues that incense you?

Breathed: Nope. Bill Clinton just took all the fun out of this stuff. Even Trudeau, brilliant as he is, couldn’t do anything much with the last eight years, really. It’s like doing a parody of The National Enquirer. Can’t be done. We’re over-saturated with commentary and with absurdity, and we’re numb because of it. Nothing shocks, so what’s the fun? And irony, oh, the goddamned irony, that courses through the popular culture like a cancer. If nothing is serious anymore, then there’s nothing to satirize. Look at George W. Bush. He knows the game. He knows he’s a maroon, as Daffy Duck would say, and refuses to take himself seriously. He cut off our satirist balls. We’re like a gaggle of eunuchs running around the palace, wishing we could hump the princess. The game’s changed forever.

As another example of absurdity ruling politics, the State of California elected a pro-choice, pro-gun-control, soi dissant-Republican film star to be governor. Is that really the best they could do?

I hope California gets everything it deserves.

08 Oct 2003, 10:09 #