Petition to have Steven Wilson remix Billy & The Boingers in 5.1 surround sound!

[Bbernardini]

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/boingers/

As some of you may know, famed cartoonist Berkeley Breathed has brought back his legendary comic strip "Bloom County". Back in 1987, he did a series of strips in which some of the characters formed a band called Deathtöngue, later renamed Billy & The Boingers. When the "Billy & The Boingers Bootleg" collection of strips came out, it included a flexidisc with two songs by the band (although actually written and performed by completely different bands). For a bit of fun, I started a petition to have Steven Wilson remix these two songs to celebrate the return of Bloom County. Won't you take a few seconds and sign it? I'd like to get above 10 signatures.

[gryphs also]

Signed. No brainer.

[Mister Triscuits]

Thbbft!

[ThomasKDye]

"YOU MAKE ME SICK! WAY-Oh, WAY-Oh, WAY-oh!!! But I luv you…"

[bob_32_116]

This suggestion is actually funnier than the cartoon itself - which, judging by the examples posted here, is not saying much. I take it this is an American cult thing like Doonesbury? (which I also never managed to raise a laugh at.) The drawings look like Doonesbury; is it the same guy under a pseudonym? It would not surprise me if Steven has never heard of Billy and the Boingers or of Bloom County.

[TheLoony]

It does look like Doonesbury but it blows it away by miles. In it's very early days I skipped it as I thought it was a DB ripoff but I then noticed a penguin and realized I was way off.

I don't know but it might not translate well to other countries and the new strips are just setting it all up, showing us the characters again. Exposition, so to speak. Charles Schultz wasn't funny in his last ten or twenty years with Peanuts and maybe Breathed has lost his edge but you may learn to like it, given time. He may still have it.

BITD this rivaled Calvin and Hobbes and The Far Side as the best out there, at least American strips.

Let's hope if SW does decide to do this he can get his hands on the original master tapes.

[Trane]

Ack! Thpt... Signed

This suggestion is actually funnier than the cartoon itself - which, judging by the examples posted here, is not saying much. I take it this is an American cult thing like Doonesbury? (which I also never managed to raise a laugh at.) The drawings look like Doonesbury; is it the same guy under a pseudonym? It would not surprise me if Steven has never heard of Billy and the Boingers or of Bloom County.

OK, it's much funnier than Doonesbury, and it's also the closest thing (to my knowledge anyway) in spirit. But yeah, not likely SW heard of Bloom County. It stopped around 94 I think.

It takes a while to get used to (the lunacy is amazing, but can be repulsive), and TBH, living in Morth Am helps understanding it a fair bit, because it follows the US inside news.

[bob_32_116]

I guess one can't judge from 3 or 4 strips. I do know that I never laughed much at Doonesbury, thought the Far Side was funny only on occasions, and think Calvin and Hobbes is very often side-splittingly funny. The Americans CAN do humour (or humor, if you prefer), but with me American humour is very hit-or-miss.

[Trane]

Doonesbury was never funny in ha-ha way.

Agree that C&H was the funniest, but I've had numerous outbreaks of open laughter with Bloom county.

However,n the main difference with C&H is that BC (like Doones) is meant for daily reading, as the jokes are reccuring and followed in the next few strips. So reading one randomly every now & then will certainly not be easily understood.

Sooo, despite the feline links Garfield and Billy The Cat are very different beasts.

[3LockBox]

I tried reading through people's collections of C&H, Bloom County and Doonesbury strips and found them to be marginally humorous at best. I found Far Side and Matt Groening's Life Is Hell strips to be much more clever.

[bob_32_116]

Garfield is another favourite of mine. Of course it helps if you own, or have owned, a cat.

[Scott Bails]

Garfield is another favourite of mine. Of course it helps if you own, or have owned, a cat.

In that case, you may enjoy Garfield minus Garfield. Funnier than the actual strip, IMO.

[-=RTFR666=-]

I guess one can't judge from 3 or 4 strips. I do know that I never laughed much at Doonesbury, thought the Far Side was funny only on occasions, and think Calvin and Hobbes is very often side-splittingly funny. The Americans CAN do humour (or humor, if you prefer), but with me American humour is very hit-or-miss.

So sayeth the curmudgeon whose country gaveth the world Barry Humphreys

[Rune Blackwings]

Loved Far Side and Red Meat

[Trane]

I tried reading through people's collections of C&H, Bloom County and Doonesbury strips and found them to be marginally humorous at best. I found Far Side and Matt Groening's Life Is Hell strips to be much more clever.

Not finding C&H hilariouis is supect if you ask me, but I definitely wouldn't put it in the same category as BC or Doones

While I often smilled at Far Side (most of it is pretty clever, actually), it never made me laugh out loud
One I've never understood how it is soooo popular is Dilbert, though.

[GuitarGeek]

You guys are all crazy, Doonesbury was awesome in it's day. The thing is, a lot of it is based on American culture (if you want to call it that), and a lot of it probably doesn't make much sense to people in other countries. I'm sure there's a lot of British political/pop culture humor that would go over the heads of most Americans. It took me ages to figure out what the whole "spending a year dead for tax purposes" thing in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy was about, as one example.

And it's not one of those things where you can pick a random strip and read it, and get it. There's story arcs running through much of the history of Doonesbury, which usually have to be followed for a lot of stuff to make sense. Gary Trudeau is a frelling genius. And he married Jane Pauley.

[-=RTFR666=-]

Jane Pauley ruined Gary Trudeau.

[GuitarGeek]

I always liked the cover of the book that gathered all the Doonesbury strips surrounding the Persian Gulf War. On the back cover, were excerpts from two letters Trudeau received. One was from some "senator's wives" group or something stupid like that, who of course lambasted Trudeau for making fun of the war effort. The other letter was from the CO of a company or regiment (whichever branch of the military, I forget) who had served in Operation Desert Storm, who thanked Trudeau for the comic relief provided during the very stressful times of the war. I always thought it was amusing that a bunch of civilians who probably never served in the military (much less in wartime) were more offended by the military personnel who actually enjoyed it!

[GuitarGeek]

Oh and I'm sure Wilson will get to Billy And The Boingers, just as soon as he's done with the Jimmy Thudpucker catalog.

[Jimmy Giant]

Signed sealed delivered.
Bill the Cat for President!
*ACK!*

[trurl]

In that case, you may enjoy Garfield minus Garfield. Funnier than the actual strip, IMO.

Yes! One of the greatest reasons for the Web to be.

[Trane]

And it's not one of those things where you can pick a random strip and read it, and get it. There's story arcs running through much of the history of Doonesbury, which usually have to be followed for a lot of stuff to make sense. Gary Trudeau is a frelling genius. And he married Jane Pauley.

In that regard, Bloom county is to be likemend to Doones. Yesterday, I tried opening up a few Blloom County books (Tales Too Ticklish to Tell and Bloom county Babylon, and.... I couldn't get into it (i'll try again in a dew weeks). I guess it's kinda hard to read it some 25 to 30 afterwards, without having the social and political context around. I didn't even dare to try the more recent (still 20 years) Outland books.

Don't have to worry about that sort of things in other daily strips like C&H, Blondie or Garfield.

Yes! One of the greatest reasons for the Web to be.

To be honest, G-G was fun for the first 10 strips, but it became very boring and repetitive very quickly

[bob_32_116]

In that regard, Bloom county is to be likemend to Doones. Yesterday, I tried opening up a few Blloom County books (Tales Too Ticklish to Tell and Bloom county Babylon, and.... I couldn't get into it (i'll try again in a dew weeks). I guess it's kinda hard to read it some 25 to 30 afterwards, without having the social and political context around. I didn't even dare to try the more recent (still 20 years) Outland books.

That's my issue. I don't buy the "you have to know the social and political context" argument, just the same as I would not expect Americans to laugh at the news cartoons in our daily newspapers, because they invariably are on a topic thatis news in Australia in that particular week.

To be honest, G-G was fun for the first 10 strips, but it became very boring and repetitive very quickly

I didn't even find the examples posted in this thread to be all that funny. The situation itself was perhaps funny, but it's like a situation comedy where there is just one joke and you are expected to keep laughing at it every episode for years.

Calvin and Hobbes, on the other hand, is like the best British humour; it's about things that almost everybody can relate to.

[Bbernardini]

That's my issue. I don't buy the "you have to know the social and political context" argument, just the same as I would not expect Americans to laugh at the news cartoons in our daily newspapers, because they invariably are on a topic thatis news in Australia in that particular week.

To be fair, one can learn quite a bit researching the jokes that reference specific social and political contexts. For example, I learned quite a bit about Australian culture after I discovered TISM, because I was constantly looking up what the hell they were on about.