One Last Little Peek, 1980-1995: The Final Strips, the Special Hits, the Inside Tips [Paperback]

Berke Breathed (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1995

This is the final collection of Outland strips by Pulitzer prize-winning cartoonist Berkeley Breathed. It features characters such as Opus the Penguin, Rosebud the Basselope, Milquetoast, the Cross-Dressing Cockroach and Bill the Cat.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Berekeley Breathed's favorite Outland strips from 1980 to 1995. As he himself says about his often bizarre sense of humor, "what seems funny to a sleep-deprived brain at 4:00 A.M. often reads as merely hallucinogenic when laid down on the sober newsprint of a newspaper comic page. This may explain my initial popularity on college campuses around the country."

Product Details

• Paperback: 108 pages
• Publisher: Little Brown & Co (P); 1st edition (October 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316106909
• ISBN-13: 978-0316106900
• Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 8.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #194,986 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Berkeley Breathed lives and works in Santa Barbara, California and is the proud owner of a gentle pit bull named Ridley, a deaf dachshund named Milly, and a refugee mutt from the Puerto Rican streets named Pilar--splendidly flawed dogs, every one.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars And a Bittersweet Goodbye, February 3, 1998

By 

Marjorie James (Kensington, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: One Last Little Peek, 1980-1995: The Final Strips, the Special Hits, the Inside Tips (Paperback)

I was very upset when Breathed stopped drawing comic strips. I didn't really discover Bloom County until just before it was canceled and Outland took its place. It's a shame that all of the good cartoonists stop writing while the rest keep running the same gags forever (don't believe me? see how many different jokes you can find in Dennis the Menace.) Alas. This is the final collection of Breathed's strips, with some older ones and the stories about them. Most of the time that sort of thing tends to be pretty boring but in this case they are actually the highlight of the book (be sure not to miss the one about the time President Reagan called while he (Breathed) was in the shower.) The Outland strips themselves are not, in my opinion, as funny as Bloom County was, but that isn't a very harsh criticism.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a wonderful book!, January 7, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Oberursel, Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: One Last Little Peek, 1980-1995: The Final Strips, the Special Hits, the Inside Tips (Paperback)

It was a sad day when Bloom County and then Outland ended. These are perhaps the best view of the Eighties and early Ninties that can be done with humor. I really enjoyed the last part of the book in which Breathed tells a short story about cartoons that recived special responces from diferant public figures (i.e. President Reagan, Casper Weinburger, Gregory Peck and Spock, yes, as in Mr. Spock!!). I will miss Bill and Opus.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The End of Bloom County and Outland, June 21, 2004

By 

Mark J. Fowler "Let's Play Two!" (Jacksonville, Florida) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: One Last Little Peek, 1980-1995: The Final Strips, the Special Hits, the Inside Tips (Paperback)

At the time of this writing Berke Breathed's Opus 'toons hadn't made it to my local paper, so this collection represents "the end" of sorts for a strip that burned as brightly as a supernova from 1980 to 1995.

The first part of this collection contains the final - more or less - Outland strips. These strips were written back when fat and cholesterol were the bad foods instead of carbs. Various plotlines include jabs at Hollywood with a sequel to the classic "To Kill a Mockingbird": "Kill Mo' Mockingbird". Steve Dallas defends Bill the Cat of his murderous fake chainsaw rampage a'la the OJ trial, then Steve hi-jacks Oliver Wendell Jones' time machine to go chase ambulances through history, running into Calamity Janes, Lady Godiva, Adolf Hitler and a caveman, circa 10,000 B.C.

Opus winds his way through the final Outland strips much as he did at the end of Bloom County, ending with a poignant reunion with a loved family member thought long gone.

In the final part of the book Mr. Breathed lets us in on some of his favorite strips and private thoughts in a way I haven't seen in other places. He tells us the anecdotes of communications he has received from Leonard Nimoy, Caspar Weinburger, President Reagan, "Mockingbird" Author Harper Lee, and he describes the evolution of characters originally intended to appear for only a moment who then became cornerstones of the Breathed 'toon empire: Opus and Bill the Cat. Good stuff for the Breathed collector.