Mike Sterling's Progressive RuinWhere legends live since 1969

Here’s a little something that’s been bothering me for two decades.

§ August 31st, 2009 § Filed under Uncategorized § 1 Comment

So here’s one thing I was curious about regarding the forthcoming complete Bloom County collections from IDW Publishing:

During the strip’s run, Berke Breathed had a storyline where Bill the Cat’s heavy metal music career was derailed when it was discovered that he’d been secretly reading the Bible with a wholesome woman by the name of Edith Dreck. Well, a certain Reverend Donald Wildmon and his media-watchdog group took great offense at the word “dreck,” and made a big stink about it.

The response from Breathed was basically “it was just a funny name, get over it,” but when it came time for these strips to be reprinted in one of the collections (specifically, 1988’s Tales to Ticklish to Tell), the name “Dreck” had been altered to “Drock,” as seen in this sample panel:

I remember seeing “Drock” in the book when it came out, and feeling a little disappointed that they caved, even in this small way, to this complaint. According to that article/advertisment I read in a recent Comic Shop News, IDW will be printing strips from the original art and newspaper proofs, when possible, so my hope is that we’ll be getting our dreck in all its unbowdlerized glory.

And yes, because someone out there will bring it up if I don’t…Reverend Wildmon also claimed Mighty Mouse “snorted cocaine” in one of his cartoons. No, really, he actually claimed that.