Lippard.Multics 1985-03-20 16:00:31 mst Wed
Subject:  Berke Breathed
From the notes on the back of ``Penguin Dreams and Stranger Things,'' by
Berke Breathed:

                              About the Author

Raised a vegetarian in postwar Croatia near the River Dungh, an unschooled
and unkempt Berke Breathed began drawing and selling his humorous sketches
of the local kelp divers as a way to supplement his family's meager income
from fishing.  Arriving on the shores of South Carolina during the infamous
Myrtle Beach boatlift of 1964, the young artist wandered the eastern coast
of this country earning money by carving nude caricatures of local
politicians out of tar balls until in 1979, he was discovered by Al Leeds,
then a night janitor at the Washington Post Group.

Introduced in 1980, ``Bloom County'' is now read in over 6700 daily and
college newspapers all over the world...nearly but not quite as many as
``Nancy.''  A major motion picture based on the comic strip, directed by
Brian De Palma and starring Prince, Yoda, and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Opus
is set to be released in time for Christmas 1986.

Boasting a catalog of over 3300 lines of licensed ``Bloom County''
merchandise in addition to two best-selling cartoon anthologies published by
a company who is normally above such things, Berke Breathed is easily
earning well into eight figures and consequently has the commercial clout to
permit him the rare privilege of writing, unedited, the promotional notes on
the back of his books.
  **==> That was David Nichols' plan file.

[Excerpted from the Gloria Quotes List, submitted by Barry Margolin. -jjl]