It's an entertaining interview with Berkeley Breathed, though it doesn't bode well for the future of newspapers:
RUSSELL: Re-reading "Bloom County" now, the sheer rudeness of some of these comics is still sort of breathtaking. What sort of editorial gauntlet did you have to run at the time to preserve what you've called the comic's "up yours" attitude?
BREATHED: Few fights then. Almost none. Interestingly ... probably impossible now. Fear rules in the pages today. Shivering, pee-in-your-pants fear that another subscriber will cancel. So the editors edit everything and anything out that could possibly offend. Or be vaguely interesting. A brilliant, sad strategy to speed up the inevitable collapse.
RUSSELL: Could "Bloom County" even exist in syndication today?
BREATHED: "No" is the short answer. Papers would be flummoxed by "Bloom County" now. It was meant for youthful eyeballs -- and there be none of those ogling newspaper comic pages now. Old-timers chuckling over "Doonesbury" and "Beetle Bailey" are pretty much all that's left. They clip out their favorites, stick 'em on the fridge, and put the rest under their parakeets to shit on. The good ol' days.?
Is there any truly innovative comic today that isn't entirely online?