Berkeley Breathed’s Bloom County was one of Physical Newspaper’s last blockbuster comics, running daily from 1980 to 1989 and then sporadically in newspapers in various spin-offs and formats until 2009. The original comic, which satirically combined politics and small-town humor, ended with a story in which Donald Trump’s brain was implanted in a cat. Has foresight. The strip won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartoon in 1987.
In 2015, Breathed digitally relaunched the strip as “Bloom County Continues” on Facebook and Instagram, with occasional but regular content featuring Bill the Cat, Milo the Penguin, Steve Dallas, and the rest of the satirical gang.
But now, Breathed has announced that they are moving from the Meta run app to Patreon. On Patreon, subscribers can see new content for at least $3 a month. On FB he wrote:
Opus, Bill, Steve and the Broome County family are moving!
…to a new home that is bigger than social media. I invite you
Readers are invited to join the gang as they continue their adventures. Plus, a behind-the-scenes look at 45 years of scandals, secrets, unseen art, animation, custom sketch offerings, and my memories from Hollywood to the Gilded Oval Office. But the demise of the newspaper’s comics page means we either need a little support from you or we have to leave. We’ll still post here from time to time, but my full stories and extras will be on Patreon starting January 12th for $3 a month. The world is becoming less and less clown. Become a Broome County Patron and join your fellow clowns in fighting this problem. Please tell us your thoughts.
While many FB readers were enthusiastic, others scoffed at the idea of having to pay for content. But the inevitable shift to crowdfunding platforms where creators can control and monetize has introduced a new set of travelers.
We were able to ask Blessed a few questions about this move.
Beat: The first reason is simple. Why? I had a large and solid audience on Facebook, so why switch to Patreon?
Breathe: I publish 10 Years of Broome County on FB and Instagram, where we have over 800,000 followers combined. It’s a lot of fun, but basically you can draw manga for free. Now, like Taylor Swift, you can create for a while as a gift to your fans, but eventually reality will check. The same goes for California property taxes. Patronage is a great way to put creator support back into the hands of fans, much like manga pages once did. I’m working for them now. And that’s a tailwind for any creator.
Beat: That being said, FB’s monetization methods are more opaque than Patreon. What are the benefits of using a more neutral, transparent, and scalable platform like Patreon?
Breathtaking: The honest answer: Connecting fans to your work in a way that social media’s plethora of squints can’t match. Numbers will decrease…but dedication will increase. I like it.
Beat: Start with a single $3 subscriber level. Are there any plans to add new tiers or rewards?
Breathing: Of course. Perhaps a personal sketch…and most interesting of all, an individual reproduction of a single panel of a fan favorite dating back 45 years, created just for the fan. Lots of ideas.
Beat: Since you revived Broome County about 10 years ago, you’ve released occasional strips. How often do you think you publish new strips on Patreon? Does this move affect your creativity in any way?
BREATHED: We’re aiming for five strips a week, with lots of extras built in. There are stories, anecdotes, secrets and scandals waiting to be shared. How I had to keep the Heisman Trophy winner’s drunken head from falling into the soup during dinner, right in front of President Ronald Reagan. Arrested for alligator terrorism in Texas. After the plane crash, she received a VW-sized bouquet of flowers from the Broome County joker celebrity fountain. Forty years later, I found him on the street and thanked him. Typical manga artist stuff.
The Beat: You mentioned that you couldn’t find anyone else who had tried this exact model, but there are a lot of cartoonists on Patreon who aren’t familiar with this type of program. After everything you’ve done so far, including being one of the last blockbuster comics in the print newspaper system, coming back to digital platforms, and now being more independently funded, how do you think having this kind of option affects you as a creator? If you were starting now, do you think you’d try the rest of the syndication thing, or self-publish from the beginning?
Gasp: Are you syndicating now? For what? In fact, I don’t know if paper comic pages still exist. But building a readership is quite different from moving your readership from newspapers to social media and ultimately Patreon. I’m not sure if I’ll try the former.
New Patreon-based Bloom County launches on January 12th
Something like this:
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