Bloom County - Bloom County Books

Bloom County Books

As with many other popular comic strips, Bloom County has been republished in various collections and anthologies. By 2004 the comic strip was reprinted in a total of 11 books, the first having been published in 1983 and the last in 2004. None of the reprints contained complete runs of the strip, although Bloom County Babylon contained many of the strips that preceded Loose Tails. All of the daily strips have been reprinted in Comics Revue magazine.

IDW Publishing published The Bloom County Library, a five volume hardback collection of all Bloom County strips, beginning in October 2009. This series is part of their Library of American Comics series. It is a complete reprint of the strip, including side notes about cultural and political references made in the strip, "Headlines" breaks to identify the top stories of the day, and commentary from Breathed. Each volume will see three separate releases; a standard edition, a signed edition, and a signed, remarqued edition.

Breathed said that the reason why the strips printed in Bloom County Library were not posted in previous anthologies was that the publisher would not let Breathed publish 400 pages each year, so Breathed had to reduce the content in each anthology. Breathed said that he believes that "I just closed my eyes and dropped a dart on the ones to be included." He felt relieved that the publishers did not "have to ask me to do this again."