After a decades-long break, Opus and the gang are heading back to “Bloom County.”
Cartoonist Berkeley Breathed, who created the highly popular comic strip, revived his brainchild on Monday, publishing the first new “Bloom County” strip since 1989 on his Facebook page.
The new offering, under the banner “Bloom County 2015,” features Opus the penguin waking up from a slumber and asking still-young Milo Bloom, “Hoo boy! That was some nap!! How long was I out, Milo?”
“25 years,” Bloom responds, to a disbelieving Opus, who checks the contents of his underwear for proof of the passage of time.
Breathed, whose original “Bloom County” ran from 1980 to 1989, revealed to his Facebook audience that he was working on a new strip on Sunday, with a photo of him in front of a computer screen bearing a mostly blank template for the cartoon panel.
“A return after 25 years. Feels like going home,” Breathed wrote.
The cartoon, which also included near-catatonic feline Bill the Cat, was enormously popular during its initial run, appearing in more than 1,000 newspapers and earning Breathed a Pulitzer Prize.
The news pleased some famous fans, including author Neil Gaiman, who tweeted, “Be still my happy heart!”
BLOOM COUNTY 2015? Be still my happy heart! https://t.co/HFbPMWbp2n
— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) July 13, 2015