Daily Record from Morristown, New Jersey • Page 79

Page Ell Daily Record MORRIS COUNTY, N.J. May 7, 1989 Cartoonist is quiet about plans to move out of Bloom County cus on a suburban day-care center and its extended family.) "A good comic strip is no more eternal than a ripe melon," explained Breathed, 31, in a statement released through the Washington Post Writers Group, his syndication service. "The ugly truth is that in most cases, comics age even less gracefully than their creators. 'Bloom County' is retiring before the stretch marks show." Millions of "Bloom County" fans might dispute that analysis. Since its launch in 1980, "Bloom County" has become one of the most widely read (and hotly debated) cartoon strips in syndication, currently appearing in some 800 daily and.

college newspapers. Six "Bloom County" collections have been issued in softcover by Little, Brown and and "Bill 'n' Opus" campaign T-shirts have become as ubiquitous on college campuses as Reeboks and Spuds MacKenzie posters, A "good" comic strip? To hardcore fans, "Bloom County" is manifestly something more: a magical landscape in which, as in "Pogo's" Okefenokee Swamp before it, animals and humans gather to dispense biting political commentary and deft social satire. From Bin-kley's anxiety closet to Donald Trump's brain transplant, "Bloom County" is as fertile a patch of cartoon turf as the funny pages have ever spawned. So why bury it now under a premature tombstone? Breathed has not made himself available for further comment. However, Writers Group general manager William Dickinson said again Monday that this was not a hasty decision on the cartoonist's part.

"Berke had been considering this move for at least a year," said Dickinson. "We didn't think it was a particularly good idea. In fact, we suggested he take a leave of absence instead, much like (Garry) Trudeau did with But he'd already made up his mind." In 1982, "Doonesbury" left the nation's comics pages for 21 months while Trudeau, another Pulitzer winner, took a leave to work on a Broadway musical. In announcing his sabbatical, Trudeau observed that his characters, all born of the late '60s in the Yale Daily News, needed time off to "grow up and join the '80s." They returned updated and yuppified with a vengeance, just in time for the '84 campaign season. "Bloom County" never suffered the same generatipnal-identity problem "Doonesbury" did.

If anything, it has captured exquisitely the tension between post-'60s idealism and echt-'80s cynicism. When the strip did take a vacation, moreover, it was due to physical, not spiritual, causes: Three years ago, Breathed, who makes his home in Evergreen, was gravely injured in a crash of his ultralight airplane. Newspapers re-ran six months' worth of replacement strips while he recovered. More recently, Breathed got in hot water over a series of "Bloom County" panels involving animal-rights issues. In episodes distributed last December, Opus, the philosopher-penguin, daydreams about life inside an animal-testing laboratory.

What begins as a Disney-like reverie, however, soon turns into a scene right out of Werner Herzog. Cute little animals are strapped down to lab tables and force-fed personal-hygiene products. Breathed even singled out two alleged corporate offenders, Gillette and the Mary Kay Cosmetics by name. After Mary Kay complained tq Breathed's distributor, at least four dailies pulled the offending cartoons. Breathed did not back off.

Instead, Mary Kay's campaign against him became more fodder for his brilliant and bilious pen. And so the news this week that "Bloom County" will be closing its borders is both sad and perplexing. "Calamity always rode shotgun with Bloom County summers," Breathed's Michael J. Binkley once wrote, in "Bloom County Babylon." Won't this one seem strangely silent by comparison. By JOSEPH P.

KAHN Knight-Ridder Tribune News 7- It's twilight in Bloom County, and the tourists are in mourning. Too soon, they will he unable to find young Oliver Wendell Jones IV sitting on his roof and pondering the meaning of the cosmos. Attorney Steve Dallas, his chauvinism (and haircut) altered by extraterrestrial surgery, won't be coming home to surprise visits from nosy old Mom anymore. As for perennial presidential nominee Bill the Cat, he is no longer the early favorite in the 1992 election. Which truly represents a travesty of political justice.

In '88, you may recall, Bill lost to George Bush only because, as one of his Meadow Party aides lamented, "our candidate barfed a hairball on Connie Chung." Aaack! Say it ain't so, Opus. Alas, it apparently is. Last weekend, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Berke Breathed announced that, effective Aug. 6, his syndicated strip "Bloom County" will be waddling off into the sunset, like a parentless penguin in search of its roots. A month later, a whole new Sundays-only Breathed strip will make its debut.

(Appearing in its' place weekdays in the Daily Record will be Safe Havens by Bill Holbrook, whose humorous social observations fo Comic-book caricatures are alienating 'Starmites' Like his time-warped heroine, Keating must have had, or is still having, a "love affair with comic books." but there is definitely more than just a little void between his inability to wittily satirize the genre and his ability to imagine more than a two-dimensional world. In Keating's world, the supporting goodies, as represented by the "Starmites," a trio of harmonizing punk-styled ragamuffins (Ric Ryder, who understudied for Bennett Cale on Sunday, Victor Trent Cook, Christopher Zelno), and the meanies, represented by neo-Val-kyried, chicken-plated Banshees (Mary Kate Law, Gwen Steward, Freida Williams, Janet Aldrich), are less at the mercy of the dreaded Shak Graa and the insidiously familiar stringed instrument of evil), than that of the score, a series of inharmonic convergences apparently created to commemorate the big bang theory. Under the predictably androidish staging of Larry Carpenter, the cast responded vocally with primal screams of proven popularity. Although she is variously and royally addressed as "bitch face," "my obscenity" and "your obesity," Diva proves to be the show's most amusingly thought-out character. In the show-stop-' ping to Be A hands and earth-shaking body of the de-lectably impervious McNight, we are given a crash course in how to By SIMON SALTZMAN Daily Record Theater Critic NEW YORK It was bound to happen.

Spaced-out aliens have 1 invaded the Broadway stage. And, 1 true to intergalactic prophecy, they have begun their quest to suck out all the sophistication, tradition, beauty and wit that were once its hallowed trademarks. Earthlings be warned! "Starmites" has landed as the inaugural attraction of the new Criterion Center Stage Right and with the intent to assault our most intelligent, discriminating audiences with more inane, useless, unforgiveably childish and banal tripe than has been seen last week anyway. This year's Tony nominations being drawn from weak field Illustration by GLENN WHITMORE rise above the material plane, Green is teeny-bopper handsome and affable as Spacepunk, but Larsen, in the dual roles of Eleanor, a.k.a. Milady, and Bizar-bara, Diva's gawky daughter, invests little in either role except an abrasive vocal timbre.

And, Gabriel Barre, as Trinkulus, a sort of lizard cum Starmite mascot, flapped his tail and stuck out his green tongue with aplomb. The best thing about Lowell Detweil-ler's modestly inventive set designs is that they didn't require the complete remodeling of this comely new theater in the Broadway area. It may revert back to earthlings anyday now. But, then again, there may be more aliens out there than I suspect. Friedman of "The Heidi Chroni cles." And if they want a name rec- ognized by television audiences the committee could nominate Ed' Asner of "Born Yesterday." The competition for best actress may be the most lively.

Likely can didates include Pauline Collins of "Shirley Valentine," last year's winner Joan Allen for "The Heidi Chronicles," Kate Nelligan for the already-shuttered "Spoils of War'i and Madeline Kahn who plays' Billie Dawn in the revival of "Born Yesterday." "1: The situation gets more desperate when you consider other musical categories. After Jason Alexan der, the genial emcee of "Jerome Robbins' Broadway," and Petep Allen's critically panned portrayal of the title character in "Legs Dia mond," there were no real stau roles for men on Broadway thif season. For best actress in a musical, the nominating committee could reacfi back to Betty Buckley as the de; mented mother in long-gone "Car Marilyn Sokol, the angry wife, in "Welcome to the Club or the trio of ladies Ruth Brown, Linda Hopkins and Carrie Smith who star in "Black and Blue." To save embarrassment, several musical categories might be eliminated. During the 1984-85 season the year that brought theatergoers such shows as "Grind," "Leader of the Pack" and "Quilters" there were no nominations for best actor and actress in a musical as well as for choreography. The awards show will be broadcast Sunday June 4 on CBS-TV with Angela Lansbury serving as host for the third straight year.

book with Stuart Ross, has attempted to conjure up a small-scaled fantasy world for mortals whose demand for purity doesn't exceed the freeze-dried. As it is on earth (amen), there isn't too much one can do to counter (except by leaving) the stultifying adventure of Eleanor, as she goes into battle, along with the amorously attentive, charismatic and forever undulating Captain Spacepunk (Brian Lane Green) against the dykey Queen Diva (Sharon McNight) of Innerspace and her fowl-feathered followers. Yes, there is an ardent naivete to some of Keating's alliterative- endowed lyrics. But how about Spacepunk's "Call me macho, hot to trot-cho" for real rhyming skill. of 'War of conclusion and physically trying roles.

Gielgud's final scenes, performed in the nude in a grotesque tableau among the living dead at Auschwitz, are absolutely awesome. The writers have given him the film's most magnificent lines and Gieldgud delivers eloquence in the midst of unimaginable agony. Seymour's performance is more visual than verbal the ferocity with which she attacks a juicy apple after days of starvation, the look of shame as she's stripped naked and shorn like a sheep, the tiny spark of life in her eyes after weeks in filth and misery. Though ABC will alert viewers with on-air "advisories" about the shocking content of the last two episodes, they will stun even the well-prepared. Review Or, as one line of dialogue so aptly put wheels of atrocity are in motion." Yet, there may be more than enough afficianados of the genre to support this rock-musical parody of sci-fi comic books.

To be completely fair, there were some noticeably enthusiastic fans, mostly between the ages of 11 and 12, who were clearly taken with the frenetic exploits of Eleanor (Liz Larsen), the insecure comic book-worm earthling who dreams herself as "Super Hero Girl." Barry Keating, who wrote the music, lyrics and co-wrote the and her uncle, Aaron Jastrow (John Gielgud). Be warned: The horrors ahead for Aaron and Natalie are graphically depicted, especially in Wednesday night's shocking episode that begins with a nightmare train ride to the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz and includes an hour of television that's as stomach-churning as anything you'll ever see. Though "War and Remembrance," adapted from Herman Wouk's huge novel, paints on a massive canvas that takes in all of World War IL its heart is vested in the story of Aaron, Natalie and the Holocaust. That story is so powerfully told that it overwhelms everything else and leaves an indelible imprint on the mind. Gielgud and Seymour have never been better than in these difficult a A Jane Seymour prepares to board train for death camp in conclusion 'War' reaches emotional By MICHAEL KUCHWARA Associated Press NEW YORK Suppose they gave the Tony Awards and nobody won? After the worst season for Broadway musicals in years, the 1989 Tony nominations will be announced tomorrow and the possible contenders for top musical honors include only six shows.

They are "Jerome Robbins' Broadway," "Black and Blue," "Chu Chem" and "Starmites," as well as such already-closed flops as "Legs Diamond," "Carrie" and "Welcome to the Club." "Jerome Robbins' Broadway" would seem to be a shoo-in for a best musical nomination as well as the leading contender for the top prize, which carries a lot of clout at the box office. The Robbins musical, a collection of numbers from such shows as "West Side Story," "Gypsy," "Fiddler on the Roof and other hits, may not need the boost as much as the other musicals still running. It's already doing near capacity business and has a healthy advance. "Chu Chem," billed as the first Chinese-Jewish musical, has been limping along at the box office, despite an extensive television ad campaign by its producer and composer Mitch Leigh. "Black and Blue," a celebration of blues singing and tap dancing, has done better business, although it has not approached the sell-out status of the Robbins show.

"Starmites" is another iffy proposition. The space-age, comic-strip musical was panned by most major critics, except for a favorable re- The picture is brighter for the best play The heavy favorite is Wendy Wasserste-in's "The Heidi Chronicles," which already has captured the Pulitzer Prize. view in The New York Times. The picture is brighter for the best play category which has several respectable candidates for nominations. The heavy favorite is Wendy Wasserstein's "The Heidi Chronicles," which already has captured the Pulitzer Prize as well as the Outer Critics Circle Award.

Other likely candidates include "Shirley Valentine," Willy Russell's one-woman play starring Pauline Collins; "Lend Me a Tenor," a farce by Ken Ludwig; "Ghetto," by Joshua Sobel; and two plays that have already closed, "Eastern Standard," by Richard Greenberg, and Michael Weller's "Spoils of War Bill Irwin's "Largely New York," a comedy with 110 dialogue, might also be a possibility for best play, although the Tony administration committee has not yet ruled if it will be eligible. There will also be an absence of big names in the acting category categories. Only one possibility, Mikhail Baryshnikov, who plays Kafka's tormented clerk in "Metamorphosis." has superstar status. Best acting nominations could go to Philip Bosco and Victor Garber of "Lend Me a Tenor," Bill Irwin in "Largely New York" and Peter By RON MILLER Knight-Ridder Tribune News At long last, after a wait of nearly six months, TV's ultimate cliffhanger will be resolved as the last chapters of ABC's monumental miniseries "War and Remembrance" begin to unfold this week. The last five episodes start running tonight at 8 p.m., continue Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights at 9 o'clock and end with the finale the following Sunday night at 9 o'clock.

Those who were hooked on the first seven episodes of "War and Remembrance" in November seen in an average of 16.6 million homes per night won't need any prodding to be back in front of their TV sets to learn the fate of Natalie Henry (Jane Seymour), her 4-year-old son, Louis (Hunter Schlesinger),.